So, the "half your gear" rule may have halved the risk for whales but it has doubled the work a commercial fisherman must do to get the same money. Costs don't change much, but your ability to pay for them sure does. A string of pots that were producing well enough over a week but not in a day have to be moved, so running gear has changed to stacking and moving gear. Easily twice the effort but with no guarantee on the success. This leaves tired crews. One of these tired crews ended up aground at Salmon Creek beach last night. An effort to get the boat off of the beach today at high tide was apparently thwarted by environmental concerns that moving some sand with tractors would somehow be more detrimental to the environment than having the vessel break up. I heard a rumor of some ad-hoc shovel crew showing up tomorrow at sunrise to hand shovel around the boat. I hope it's true. When our government agencies act against rational thought, well, somebody out there with their heads not inside their rectums has to act rationally and for the environment. And heck, just do the right thing. Anybody with an argument for how moving some sand is worse than a boat busting open and dumping fiberglass fragments, oil and fuel on the beach, please feel free to tell us all. The sand comes and goes all the time. Petroleum takes a bit more time. Tell me I'm wrong. I love to learn. Or, I don't know, maybe shut up and dig.