This week on the SHIPSHAPE Podcast we meet long-time Maine resident and Oyster farmer extraordinaire Jordi St. John. Jordi is the Business Engagement Manager of the Maine Island Trail Association (MITA), Owner and Operator of Merritt Island Oysters, and one of the Board of Directors of the Maine Marine Trade Association. Listen on to discover all about the incredible 250 wild islands ready to be explored along the Maine coast via MITA, the unexpected ecological benefits of oyster farming, and to gain bucketloads of insights from a thoroughly lovely, family oriented businessman.

Transcript—–

Farah [00:00:00] Check out www.shipshape.pro for more episodes and bonus content tent.

 

Merrill [00:00:16] Today on the Shipshape podcast we have Jordi Saint John. Jordy is the business engagement manager of the Maine Island Trail Association. He’s also the owner and operator of Merritt Island Oysters. How’s it going, Jordy?

 

Jordi [00:00:30] Good. How are you doing today?

 

Merrill [00:00:31] Pretty good. Where you at?

 

Jordi [00:00:34] I am currently talking to you from the Maine Island Trade Association office, which is in Portland, Maine. I were right here on the harbor above the main yacht center looking at it. Casco Bay.

 

Merrill [00:00:48] Casco Bay. It’s one of those destination that every sailor tries to get out to in the summer, huh?

 

Jordi [00:00:53] Yeah. Yeah. Lots of good islands to visit here.

 

Merrill [00:00:56] So you’ve done a bunch of boat related things. You’ve also done software. So how long have you been in the maritime industry in this space?

 

Jordi [00:01:05] Yeah. So I actually grew up along well, grew up spending the month of July in Mystic, Connecticut, where I used to sail down. And Mystic, Connecticut. My first job was teaching sailing to younger kids and then spending the month of August in on Cape Small and Small Point, Maine. And I used to sail here, so I grew up. Both my parents were Outward Bound instructors brought my mom and my dad had their captain’s licenses. So we spent the summer always on the water. And then when I was in college, I was a launch tender and driving people back and forth from the dock to the boat. Got to practice my docking skills quite a bit. And then after after college, I got my captain’s license and started doing some captaining as well.

 

Georgia [00:01:51] So with the captain’s license. What do you think are the things that you need to learn if you are a captain? What are the top qualities that you need to have in order to be a really good captain?

 

Jordi [00:02:02] Yeah, I think the biggest thing with doing doing the captain is really well, really being aware of everything that’s going on around you. So kind of having your head on a swivel. Being able to quickly process and think through things logically. Staying calm. I used to when I was captaining it was here in Portland Harbor, which is a pretty busy harbor. We get cruise ships, we have the ferries back and forth. We’ve got a lot of pleasure craft. And so it’s really just kind of being aware of your surroundings at all times. You know, I think clearly you have to take, you know, quite a bit of you have to have sea time. And I took a course in order to get my license. And the information that you learn in those courses is definitely very, very valuable. So I would recommend anybody that’s interested in getting into boating, even just to do a one day safety course, because there really is some great rules of the road and information you can learn.

 

Georgia [00:02:54] Yeah, absolutely. So Mario’s already mentioned that you had a software background and then Major made a bit of a shift. Could you talk us through a little bit why you decided to do that and how that kind of came about?

 

Jordi [00:03:05] Yeah, for sure. So I was even prior to doing the software, you know, I was captaining and I was actually a Nordic cross-country ski coach of a Division one ski team up in Bates College, which is here in Maine. And then the software job kind of came along and I ended up spending just over nine years doing that. I was the director of a couple different departments, and it was always great people to work with. And my colleagues, the clientele was really nice, but it was never something that I had a strong passion or software for commercial real estate. And so after those kind of nine years, this position at the Main Island Trade Association opened up and that was to be able to do business engagement. And my background of having a nautical background, which was appealing to the organization, plus I had, you know, traveled a bunch to cities all around the U.S., always having meetings and training, commercial class office space on how to use software. So I had a lot of interpersonal skills and being able to kind of connect with these different businesses. So there’s a nice fit for me to be able to to really go to an organization whose mission is about access to islands as well as stewardship and actually cleaning up those islands. So it was a mission that I was easily able to get behind, but also then be able to still develop relationships with the business community and being able to really leverage those. So it was a nice fit for me and I jumped at that one pretty quickly to be able to get out of software for commercial real estate to go to the main challenge association.

 

Georgia [00:04:37] Yeah, I mean it’s kind of combining your sort of passion, isn’t it, Your love for the water with also the kind of commercial side of things. That must be a really nice combination for you.

 

Jordi [00:04:47] Yeah, And while I was doing that, you know, over the nine years of doing the software for commercial real estate, I was I really missed being on the water because prior to doing that was when I had been, you know, a full time captain. And that’s when I actually started the Oyster Bar. I didn’t have much free time, but I you know, I had two young kids at that point and was full time. You know, the director of the department. But on the side, I started doing my Merritt Island oysters only as a way to get back out on the water more. So now that I work full time for my dad, I actually feel like I can. I don’t have to. You know, my oyster farm is a fun thing to do on the side, but it was really more of a need for me to be able to get back out on the water. And that’s why I started that farm back in 2017.

 

Georgia [00:05:32] Yeah. And I gather that your children also help out.

 

Jordi [00:05:36] And begrudgingly, I get them out there now. I think they it’s a great way to kind of show them, you know, hard work but also environmentally how it can play into helping the environment. I think people maybe are maybe don’t know that oysters are filter feeders. They’re a full size oyster can filter, which is about three inches, can filter 50 gallons of water a day. So they actually filter and purify the water. And I think my kids kind of realize, hey, this is a good thing that Dad’s doing, although they don’t always love to get dragged out and get covered with bio fouling and oyster poop and everything out somewhere out there cleaning up.

 

Georgia [00:06:15] I assume they don’t like the taste of oysters.

 

Jordi [00:06:17] You know what? My eight year old will slurp and oyster? My ten year old will not. And it’s quite funny that my wife does not really like oysters, even though we have 40,000 of them that we have access to. So.

 

Georgia [00:06:30] Well, maybe that’s why she doesn’t like they’re having a person who works, you know, as an ice cream tester to ever eat ice cream ever again, because that’s all they ever see, right?

 

Jordi [00:06:40] True. Yes, exactly. Although I think it was an ice cream tester. I’d still keep on eating my ice cream.

 

Georgia [00:06:45] Stout And oyster flavored ice cream hasn’t caught on yet then.

 

Jordi [00:06:49] Yeah. Exact now, right? Yeah. Yeah. Give it time. You never know. There’s now kelp and everything. So who knows?

 

Merrill [00:06:55] We were reading on your blog about some beer that was brewed with oyster shells.

 

Jordi [00:07:01] Yeah, I. Yeah, a local, a local brewery here, which, as people may or may not know, we have quite a few microbreweries here in Maine. And one of them took a took a number of oyster shells. They crushed them up and then they let them ferment over time and they made a pretty good stout out of them. So yeah, we got to be part of that project.

 

Merrill [00:07:20] Now, I know that ad, you know, I’ve seen it a lot recently, this move to ocean farming, and over time it seems like it’s going to become more and more of a thing. Have you been noticing an increase in the amount of oyster farms that are being set up?

 

Jordi [00:07:38] Yeah, so I started mine in 2017, which was just kind of on the verge of this. More and more people getting into it. I wouldn’t say I was, you know, an early adopter. There’s certainly been people farming, aquaculture, farming along the coast of Maine, you know, really for the last 40 or 50 years and of course before that as well. But yeah, the number of people that got into it, especially over the last four years, I would say, and then even with the pandemic, it’s been a huge increase. And, you know, I would say there’s also it seems to be now with more and more people getting into it, that there’s actually quite a bit of collaboration as well. One of the things that we did was I helped kind of form what we call the new Meadows River Shellfish Cooperative, and that’s 11 different farms that work together to try to, you know, create really good oysters, try to help marketing. Oysters are very much like beer in and wine, right. That people want to try. They have different flavor profiles. They want to try and island oysters. They want to try keep small oysters. They want to try for the farm oysters. So even if they’re within a similar region, people really like to be able to try them because they do have different flavor profiles. So it’s much more like in the wine world where, you know, it’s kind of regionally based, but you want to try it from the different actual growers, which has been a nice way to collaborate.

 

Georgia [00:09:02] That’s fascinating. I had no idea about different flavors of oysters. I mean, to the uninitiated, is there any way you can articulate what your oysters are like compared to others?

 

Jordi [00:09:12] Yeah. So even in the wine world, you know how they call it terroir and the aquaculture world, we call it Merriwa. And it’s just because the oysters are filter feeders that they take on kind of their own flavor profile. So as an oyster farmer, I have the ability to kind of help shape an oyster. The actual look, the cup, the size of the oyster, that’s one of the things that I can control. I can’t really at all control the flavor of the oyster. Clearly, I’m not adding anything in to the ocean. Yeah, yeah. That’s something I don’t have any flavor over. I would say that mine have a little bit of a briny start when it hits your palate and then more of a sweet finish to it with the description that I tend to give my oysters.

 

Georgia [00:09:56] And they in terms of obviously you’ve mentioned that. I felt it motivated and they can help with, you know, cleaning the ocean. What about in terms of if they’re in super polluted environments, though, Presumably that’s an issue. If there’s if there’s musty stuff in the water that will also affect the oysters, I guess.

 

Jordi [00:10:13] Yeah. So here in Maine, it’s a pretty highly regulated industry through the Department of Marine Resources. You have to apply for where you’re going to be able to actually set up your oyster farm. It goes through to the Department of Marine Resources. It gets signed off on by the Army Corps of Engineers. And there’s a lot of prohibited zones where you cannot grow oysters. And that said, they’re also using you may have heard of it, a billion oyster project in New York City where they’re actually trying to use oysters to help clean in the Hudson River and down and around the battery. So they’re actually those ones are not for consumption.

 

Georgia [00:10:49] I was going to say exactly. That must be a point at which.

 

Jordi [00:10:53] Exactly. And, you know, they’ll actually test and they’ll close us down. So if we get more than two inches of rain in 24 hours, they’ll automatically close things down. They’re constantly testing if there’s what’s called PSP, paralytic, shellfish poisoning or any type of other diseases in the water, You know, they’re always testing and they send out kind of daily emails to let us know if we can be harvesting or not harvesting our product and different shellfish get shut down easier. So like scallops, if somebody’s doing those ah, clams, they might get shut down quicker than, let’s say the American oyster and the European oyster market shut down before the American oyster just because they know how each shellfish processes, you know, the water through there as they filter.

 

Merrill [00:11:36] How hardy are oysters anyway? Like how how does the impacts and kind of the temperature change of the water affect oysters?

 

Jordi [00:11:45] That is a great question, Maricel. Oysters, I would say in general, especially the so I grow what’s called Satara Virginia. It’s the Eastern only store basically. And they’re actually quite hardy. You know, you can I can put my cages over for 24 hours, have the oysters up out of the water, you know, knock off and kill a lot of the bio fouling. But the oysters will live for them back over into Grumman and they can keep growing. That said, like in the wintertime, all of a sudden, you know, I’ll get 15% mortality on my farm. And it’s just that they get buried too far in the mud or different things. So they’re typically very hardy. But then at the same time, you know, you just sometimes you have to scratch your head and wonder why why you lost some we call oyster math. It’s kind of funny math here. You know, you plan on buying a certain amount of seed to get going and then some die. You just have to kind of account for mortality within that oyster and aquaculture world.

 

Georgia [00:12:38] Does climate change have an impact? Is other implications associated with climate change in terms of water temperature?

 

Jordi [00:12:45] Yes, that’s a great question, Georges. So, yes, basically with the slightly everybody knows the Gulf of Maine is warming more rapidly, warming bodies of water. And for the oysters, they actually work. They grow quicker in warmer water. Right? There’s more phytoplankton, there’s more nutrients for them to be able to feed off of. It’s warmer water there. You know, they have less stressors on them so they can actually grow quicker. That said, the downside is, is that you do end up with more diseases, you end up with more of this paralytic shellfish poisoning, you end up with other types of algae blooms and other things that, you know, red tide, which we didn’t used to have as much of here in Maine. And so that will actually shut down. Being able to harvest. It will also stress the oysters in certain ways. So it’s definitely a give and take. We would rather not have it warm, cold water or oysters. You know, they take a little bit longer to grow, but they have a very different flavor profile than, let’s say, one from down south that can grow out in one year because it’s warmer and they can grow a lot quicker.

 

Merrill [00:13:44] How long does it take for an oyster to reach the point in which you can harvest it?

 

Jordi [00:13:49] Yeah. So typically speaking, market size oysters are two and three quarter to three inches in size is what most people like to see. That’s kind of your like cocktail oyster on the half shell, if you will, and that the general timeframe is two years. Some will make it a tiny bit quicker, some will make it a tiny bit slower. But it’s yeah, it’s really twofold. Growing seasons is kind of for the most part where most rooms set. I would say half my oysters within the two years are just about ready and definitely half of them are over winter and a lot of plump up for one more winter and then start selling them off in the springtime.

 

Georgia [00:14:24] So I come from the world of luxury yachting. That’s my boat. Well, I don’t, but my, my work. Yeah, if only I did. But anyway, obviously oysters are associated very much with luxury and expense.

 

Jordi [00:14:39] Yeah.

 

Georgia [00:14:39] Why? Why is that? Are they expensive to grow?

 

Jordi [00:14:42] They’re not expensive to grow.

 

Georgia [00:14:46] And are they.

 

Jordi [00:14:47] They’re time consuming.

 

Georgia [00:14:48] So they’re basically is my question.

 

Jordi [00:14:50] Yeah. So oysters are not super expensive to grow their time consuming for sure. You know they they definitely they like to they take a little bit of love and. Handling. You know, George, that’s a great question. It’s always kind of been. Well, what’s really interesting is there’s a book about the history of the New York and the New York oyster and how back, you know, 150 years ago or more, there was not necessarily a high class thing. Everybody ate oysters. You know, there was just unlimited amounts of them. And then it’s become more and more of this kind of allure where it is a little bit more high class, sexy oysters. I don’t know what the transition was.

 

Georgia [00:15:31] But is there are there more oysters around than there were?

 

Jordi [00:15:35] There’s more people growing oysters now, but there were naturally more oysters around back in the day. I mean, ships used to go around on oyster reefs and in New York City harbor back in the day.

 

Georgia [00:15:45] Well, okay, interesting.

 

Jordi [00:15:47] And that’s part of what that billion oyster project is trying to do is reestablish kind of oyster reefs because of their filtering capabilities.

 

Merrill [00:15:54] So getting into the main Island Trail Association, they basically do management of over 200 of the islands in Maine. Can you tell us a little bit about that and what the mission is of miter?

 

Jordi [00:16:06] Yes. So I mean, and translocation, as you as you alluded to, fondly known as Mayday, our mission is really around stewardship and access. So what we do as an organization is we do provide access to it’s now 255 sites along the entire coast of Maine and most of those predominantly our islands. We also do have some mainland sites that there are on the coast, actually on the mainland, but also water sites. What we do as an organization is it was formed in 1988 and it is literally a handshake agreement with the local landowner. So the way it was formed was a guy named Dave Getraer back in 1988, kind of was tasked to see, you know, what islands the state owned. At that point, he got the idea of kind of this recreational water trail where boaters could, you know, be able to at that point, you know, really cruise and powerboat along the coast of Maine, you know, and have places where with small boats might be able to stop in. He was a power boater himself. And then since that, we’ve really grown over the last there was in 1988. The last 34 years, we’ve really grown the stewardship component. So we have our own boats that we use there, eight line. So that’s an 18 foot aluminum boat that we use on trailers. We trailer them up and down the coast and then we put in and we go out to islands. Last year we had over a thousand different people volunteer to help us and we go out and we remove marine debris. So, you know, it’s really focused on that stewardship, actually removing marine debris, caring for the islands, and then being able to actually actively use them. So you look at that beautiful island here in Maine and you kind of wonder, hey, somebody’s going to get really upset that I’m potentially stepping foot on their island or are they going to be glad that I’m here? So we provide the information about where you can anchor, where you can go ashore, where our campsites, if it’s day use only and of these mostly island, but also some mainland sites, it’s about a third of them are state owned. About a third of them are owned by other nonprofits, other organizations. And then about a third of them are actually privately owned. And we just get a handshake agreement with the landowner that says, Yeah, you can use my island, You know, knowing that for the landowner Meda now has where our membership based organization, we have 9500 members. And knowing that those members are actually going to care for it. So they really follow this whole idea of leave no trace, leaving it in better condition than when you came. And it’s really appealing to a landowner who maybe doesn’t get back to their island all the time, but knowing that it’s actually going to be cared for because trash doesn’t care what island it floats up on, too. And that’s where we’ve really been able to have this nice cycle of access to more places because we’re creating and doing more stewardship because we have more members to be able to do that. So it’s this nice kind of cycle of stewardship, access and membership.

 

Merrill [00:18:54] It’s interesting to hear about water trails, right? Everyone’s so familiar with kind of like the Appalachian Trail or the DCT or that type of stuff. But there’s the great loop and you know, there’s also the main island trail. So these landowners that have kind of come on board with you, they’ve seen the work they’ve done and obviously they were like, Oh, let’s do this. How have you seen in terms of trash and has that substantially increased over time or.

 

Jordi [00:19:28] Yeah, you know, and and the one thing I always like to try to be clearer because, you know, we do call it the main island trail and it is a recreational water trail. But there’s no that’s very different in that there’s no right or wrong way to do it even if you say you wanted to, what some people call it, you know, to the entire coast and stopping at islands, there’s no right or wrong way to do it. It could be a day trip out to an island that’s 5 minutes from your dock, let’s say. So, you know, when it comes to kind of the trail, we refer to it fondly. It’s the trail, but there’s no right or wrong way to do any of it. It’s just that kind of being able to access. And then in terms of the actual increase in marine debris, we definitely have seen an increase, you know, certainly with the amount of microplastics in the water. And we don’t actually go out and like, you know, we’re not skimming the water and cleaning up stuff that’s in the actual water column. What we do is we we try to clean up everything and come ashore, and we’ll do more than just the islands that are on the main island. Try like we’ll work with other organizations that maybe, you know, on other islands and we’ll partner up to help them because we have the boats, we have the actual stewardship team on our staff, and then we also have volunteers. So we do more than just our 255 as well, just because it makes a lot of sense to partner up and do those cleanups. So yeah, to answer your question, Mario, I would say there has been an increase in trash. But then again, I feel like people are becoming more aware of the whole idea of leave no trace and trying to, you know, clean up after yourselves as well. So that does help.

 

Merrill [00:21:02] I got to ask, what is the weirdest thing that you’ve seen washed ashore?

 

Jordi [00:21:06] Oh, we saw on some of the islands, especially when might a first kind of got going. You know, a lot of a lot of islands, you know, maybe were either owned privately or publicly, but locals knew about, you know, what islands that they were just going to go on to. And, you know, they would have parties. We have found like I literally just got a text from one of our stewardship managers who, you know, hauled a probably a 12 foot aluminum boat that was, you know, had a huge hole in the bottom of it. And he dragged off of an island just today, sent me a text, Chris. And you know, it’s of a of an aluminum boat with the bough ripped out half of it. So we see authorities stopping out there. We’ve definitely like I said, people used to have parties out there still drag mattresses off of islands that are all ripped and torn to pieces. It runs the gamut. You know, we certainly do collect a lot of fishing gear. And that said, you know, we try to partner up a lot with the fishing community. Main Coast Fishermen’s Association has been a great group to work with. We’re not pointing any fingers. You know, they’re out there just trying to do their work. Fishermen and women do not want to lose their gear. That is not something that they want to have happen. So we’re trying to collaborate more and work with them as well on kind of doing those cleanups to help out.

 

Georgia [00:22:27] So tell us a bit more about your time as a as a captain.

 

Jordi [00:22:31] I actually started off as crew here in Portland. We have we have two schooners, one’s 88 feet, the other one is 72 feet. And then I started working for it’s called Portland Schooner Company, and I was selling their john, all them designed schooners. One was built 1912, the other was built in 1924. Beautiful boats to sail on. I actually started as crew did that for a couple of months and then started captaining and they were licensed to take 49 passengers. We did day sales to our day sails with them and a lot of that was sailing gear around Portland Harbor. One of the neat things about Portland Harbor is right from the harbor. You can see, you know, as you get out of the harbor, you can see Portland headlight. There’s bug light, there’s spring point light. So you get right away three different lighthouses. There’s three different forts that were built in the early 1900s. Are support Scammell for trouble for Gorgeous. So there’s a lot of really neat things to look at, but it’s also sailing with a lot of boat traffic I think I mentioned earlier. But, you know, you we would have ferry boats coming in and out. We would have the, you know, water taxis. We would have cruise ships coming in and out. And at one point, Portland Harbor used to be where I believe it was, crude oil came in. So we get a lot of tankers as well as container ships coming in and out. And so it was a kind of a fun place to sail. But you really had to had to be aware of what’s going on. And when I was captain, it was usually a crew myself and a crew of either two or three, depending on which vessel it was onboard.

 

Georgia [00:24:00] Yeah, sounds like you needed to have your wits about you, really.

 

Jordi [00:24:03] But it was a lot of fun, you know, a lot of good. You had lots of good conversations with people. I think people would just enjoy being out on the water and, you know, you kind of balance that active of having good conversations with people, telling them about what’s going on in the area and and definitely paying attention to to what’s happening because you are responsible.

 

Georgia [00:24:21] I’ve always wanted to have a captain’s hat. Do you have a captain’s up?

 

Jordi [00:24:25] I do not have a captain’s hat. That would be kind of cool right now. Yeah.

 

Georgia [00:24:29] I’m not sure you can really describe yourself as a captain without captain.

 

Jordi [00:24:32] Like, you know, I used to have a, you know, my colored t shirt used to say captain, and that’s about as far as I got.

 

Georgia [00:24:39] Well, that’s a question we haven’t asked you, actually. What special gear do you have to wear as an oyster farmer? What What’s the getup like?

 

Jordi [00:24:46] And, you know, it’s actually I would say it’s very similar to probably, you know, lobster fishing. Do I have Grandin’s? I have rubber steel toed boots that I wear a lot of times. You know, like I said, it’s pretty dirty work. You’re constantly cleaning these. So for me, I do surface aquaculture. My my oysters are in cages and bags that float on the surface. So I am constantly this morning I was out there at 5:30 a.m. hauling bags out, trying to brush the bags because bio fouling and any you know, boaters are listening. You know, you get growth on the bottom of your boat and that’s got, you know, antifouling paint on it. My oysters do not have any antifouling paint put on them, you know, so Marine growth tends to grow on them quite a bit. And one of our big jobs is constantly kind of cleaning so that water can flow over the oyster. The other big thing is, is oysters naturally want to grow together. That’s why there used to be large, large whisker reefs. And so I have to constantly kind of shake my bags to keep the oysters from growing together at all. Yeah, I’d also like chips the leading edge of it so that in a cup up and you get a nice deep cup to your oyster and that’s how as a farmer you can kind of help to shape in what the oyster actually looks like.

 

Georgia [00:26:06] So you’re basically separating them out from their loved ones, though, aren’t you? Effectively.

 

Jordi [00:26:11] I like to keep them close to the loved ones, just not connected. You know, I think I would say.

 

Georgia [00:26:17] You know what? And that’s actually quite healthy thinking about it.

 

Jordi [00:26:21] Except to be your own person and then have the others around you.

 

Georgia [00:26:25] Yeah, you don’t want to be growing out of your mom. That’s weird. Oh, that’s really cool. And what for the uninitiated, what are the peak seasons like? What time of year is best.

 

Jordi [00:26:37] For you in Oyster?

 

Georgia [00:26:39] No, for growing them.

 

Jordi [00:26:40] Oh, okay. So typically that, you know, they grow the most during the warmer months when there’s just more nutrients in the water column. Basically, here in Maine, the oysters will pretty much go dormant during the wintertime. So come about December, when the water temp dips below, give or take, you know, anywhere, if it’s like in that low fifties range, they start to go dormant. So I can actually sink them down to the bottom for the winter. But what I try to do is I try to call, which is like separating out by size. So I will call out my market size oysters. I’ll keep those up on the surface for the wintertime so I can still take them to market and everything that’s small, I’ll just sink down to the bottom and then I bring them back up in the springtime. This winter, it was, you know, there was a pretty good cold snap. So I was having to break ice in order to kind of go out and grab my oysters and bring them in to then take them to market. But yeah, there’s not a ton of work that goes into them in the wintertime. And thus other than taking them to market.

 

Georgia [00:27:37] Yeah. And how many are there working on your farm? Like, do you have other people that help you out as well outside of your family?

 

Jordi [00:27:43] No, no, pretty much just us. You know, every once in a while, you know, somebody will come out. But now it’s primarily me. And whenever I can drag my wife and kiddos out with me is very cool.

 

Merrill [00:27:54] Yeah. So when it comes to kind of starting in an oyster business, what would be some tips and what would be some things you need? I’ve looked at in the past and I’m like, okay, well, number one, you need a boat and you need to know what you’re doing with the boat. What other tips and advice would you get?

 

Jordi [00:28:12] Yeah, so I would agree to that is, you know, we are actually one of the members of our co-op. He actually doesn’t have a boat. He has his oyster farm set up in an area where he can access that, you know, just by putting on some waders, mean go out and access most of his farm obviously title dependent. But yeah I think for the most part, you know if you’re somebody that really loves being on the water, it’s a great thing. You know, it gets you out more than you normally would. Right. Tom BODETT? I’m out there kind of up until almost mid-December and then again starting up in kind of late March almost. So a definitely get you out on the water more in terms of what would I recommend? Definitely get in touch with. You know, it’s always great to go out and check out somebody’s farm and then, you know, from there I didn’t have any background in marine biology or anything like that. I, you know, a good friend of mine was just started a year earlier and, you know, kind of once again, I think I told you about that. Oyster math is funny. Math is like, oh, you can buy some, you know, see that, you know, $0.05 or less and you can sell it at a dollar an oyster. And he’s like, you know, it’s just easy. And I’m like, Oh, great. That said, there’s a lot of work that goes into it, but it it’s just time and being able to, you know, enjoy being out on the water for me, getting out in the morning and having some time when it’s nice and peaceful and quiet. 5:36 a.m. is a nice time to be on the water. So if anybody’s interested in getting into it, I would say definitely do it and feel free to reach out to know different farmers up and down the coast. A lot of them are pretty open to talking about it more generally.

 

Georgia [00:29:51] What are your kind of tips for kind of budding entrepreneurs in general? So not necessarily on the sort of farming side of things, but actually getting. All business out there and getting, you know, getting the message out there and making a success of it. What have you found to be the best sort of tips you could give people for that?

 

Jordi [00:30:08] All right. That’s a good question. You know, it’s funny. I don’t even think honestly, I don’t think of myself as much of an entrepreneur. You know, the oysters for me is it is very much kind of a side hobby. I’ve always had another full time job. And at least the way that the with oysters right now, I could I could grow a million oysters and sell all of them pretty much, you know, or 500,000. There’s just a huge demand for them right now. So it would be hard for me to give a ton of entrepreneurial advice only because I just don’t see myself as one. I definitely see myself as somebody who loves being on the water, enjoys doing something that’s good for the environment with growing oysters. But, you know, obviously for me too, it’s being, you know, working for I feel so fortunate to be working for an organization that, you know, is a nonprofit. And I just love everything about the mission and what we do. So it’s kind of one of those things where I’m like, Yeah, you know, I can do that. And just on the side I’d be able to tiptoe around and do some oyster work is kind of a nice thing.

 

Merrill [00:31:05] One thing that I just find interesting about your bio is honestly how you went from boat to software completely outside of Marine and then back to Marine. Yup. So what exactly about the water brought you back? I mean, is that freedom? Is it the romantic nature of it all? Like, what is it?

 

Jordi [00:31:25] Good question. So I definitely I never left boating. So even when I was doing software for commercial real estate, you know, during the summer when I would take time off, we would you know, I’ve always sailed. I always had, you know, access to sailboats and motorboats. So I was always doing it. It’s just kind of like on the weekends I would go and do it right and I would have had my job. I think it’s just it was kind of how I grew up was cruising along the coast of Maine. We had a good friend that had had a Ted Hood 38 sailboat, and we used to sail that a lot in the summertime. You know, I was always racing small sailboats as a kid to between optics Blue jays for ten days J y fifteens the whole nine. So I always kind of had that world during the summer still now I race it’s called the small point one design. It’s a 19 and a half foot wooden boat Marconi rig and you know main jib and spinnaker and so I still race those on Saturdays and so I never really left the water. It was just kind of that for me growing up, right? It was loving the water and then realizing, okay, I need to have a real job. I’ve got a wife and kids, I need to kind of make some money. And so that was when I started doing the software thing, which for a little while, luckily I was over, I was able to overlap. It was still doing some captaining on the weekends and stuff before my kiddos got older. And so yes, I feel like, as you said, married like it’s always been that just that’s my happy place is being on the water.

 

Merrill [00:32:55] You’ve done some big sailing trips. What’s the biggest sailing trip you’ve ever done?

 

Jordi [00:33:02] Wow. So we. Yeah, a good friend of mine and I, we left Maine a little bit late because we were trying to rapidly get a boat fixed up and ready to go. But we took a and Endeavor 38, from Maine, sail down the East Coast from Maine down to Fort Lauderdale. And we didn’t leave until kind of just before Thanksgiving. So I was a little chilly when we left the Gulf of Maine in a snowstorm, kind of worked our way down to to warmer latitudes. And then we ended up doing the thorny passage. So we sailed from Maine over to the Bahamas, you know, kind of against the trades. But really, we sailed through the Bahamas and then we had a let’s see, we did Turks and Caicos, Puerto Rico, the US, the BVI, as the we made it down as far as Dominica. And then we set back up to Saint Martin, Saint Martin to Bermuda, then Bermuda to home. And that was about a seven month trip, which is a lot of fun. You know, it was literally pre kind of wife and kids and get out and go out and bond and realize like, hey, let’s do this while we’re young. And we were in our mid twenties at that point.

 

Merrill [00:34:06] Now, getting into the marine industry in general, I personally felt that there’s kind of a disconnect between leisure, marine and the environment, and you have a unique perspective on that. You’re one of the board of directors of the Maine Marine Trade Association. So how have you seen kind of this awareness shift happening over time?

 

Jordi [00:34:30] That’s a great question. Yeah. So I think, you know, the MTA, the Maine Marine Trade Association, their executive director, Stacy, has really done a wonderful job of really trying to work with their members. And they’ve got a great group of members. And really, as you said, it’s trying to focus on kind of our our our footprint, if you will, and realizing, you know, that everything, you know, has has effects on stuff. And they’ve done a really great job between trying to, you know, make sure with water. Quality and runoff and looking into shrink wrap recycling and fiberglass recycling and how they can be doing, you know, just realizing more of the environmental footprint and how we can kind of do better. And I think that the industry in general, I think is starting to, you know, start starting to make that shift. And I think it’s great for me being able to be on the board just to try to, you know, have those conversations. And I think everybody’s very receptive to it. And it’s just starting to really start to work through some of those processes that have been in place for a long time. And and it’s been great to work with Stacie and the whole group. And at least here in Maine, there’s there’s such a wonderful group of people and members of that organization.

 

Merrill [00:35:45] So when it comes to obviously always be an optimist, but what do you see the biggest hurdles within the industry in terms of environmental conservation and that type of stuff?

 

Jordi [00:35:58] Yeah, you know, I it seems as though as technology evolves, right, to being able to have the capability to, you know, really focus more on that shrink wrap recycling. You know, lots of boats here in New England get shrink wrapped and, you know, it’s a lot of plastic. And so it’s one of those things where I think it’s just that the technology and the costs kind of start to come together more. I think that that’s where, you know, I don’t know if it’s necessarily the biggest hurdle, but I think that that’s the technology is getting there and then it’s bringing the cost to make it so that it is is affordable for people to actually be able to do it. You know, I think there’s a lot of people that want to go solar, but it’s pretty expensive still. Or there’s a people, you know, people want to kind of do the right thing. And I think it’s just kind of bring that price point so that they can afford to be able to do so. And that’s that’s probably one of the bigger hurdles that hopefully, you know, and I think as a country. Right. That we’re able to help to be able to make that happen more.

 

Merrill [00:36:56] In terms of the ecosystem of the ocean, I was reading in one of the articles that it wasn’t overfishing that was the problem. It was more there wasn’t as many fisheries. What’s your take on kind of the overall state of kind of the ocean and that side of things? I feel like it’s still just like a giant mystery, like no one, you can look at the water by, you know, you can only get so far on it.

 

Jordi [00:37:22] Yeah, Yeah, I know. I mean, I think I tend to agree with you. You know, I think that certainly, you know, the government’s trying to figure out ways to be able to make it so that it is sustainable. The fisheries and I think they’re certainly taking steps in the right direction. I think it’s clearly here in Maine, you know, I think it’s tough on some of the fishermen with some of the regulations. But then again, it seems like most people are understanding that, you know, the way that it was done was not sustainable. So, you know, I agree with you, Maria. I think it is a bit of a bit of a mystery. And I, I don’t spend tons of time within that world. But getting to partner more with the main Coast Fishermen’s Association and really trying to learn from them has been a really positive experience for me, just getting a better understanding of that world. And I only just started to dip my toes into that water. But it is really interesting to hear both sides of that one. And you probably all know, right I lobstering in Maine has been going on, you know, for hundreds of years. And I think, you know, the amount of catch keeps coming up but they’re a pretty self-regulated industry. So I think that that is an interesting model to see. You know, if that can be followed or replicated in other ways, too.

 

Georgia [00:38:36] So why did you go for oysters rather than lobsters?

 

Jordi [00:38:39] Uh, good question. Lobstering is really the only way you can get a lobster license here in Maine is basically if somebody else retires one. I mean, you can do a recreational five track license, which means that you can fish five lobster traps. So it really wasn’t much of an option for me, basically. Yeah. Lobster licenses is they pretty much handed down either within families and or, you know, if one gets retired, they’ll issue a new one, but they keep it pretty well regulated. So it’s hard to get into it other than, you know, if I were to jump on a boat and be somebody’s stern man, which would really kind of set my schedule a whole lot more than I had the ability to do. And that’s why I oystering was nice because I could kind of work on the oyster farm when I had time.

 

Georgia [00:39:26] Yeah. And do you make sorry to be the money centric one, but you make more money selling lobsters, oysters?

 

Jordi [00:39:33] Oh, I would tell you probably make more money selling lobsters, although your overheads also more to you. You got to be paying for bait and fuel and gear for oystering. You know, I pay I to buy the gear, which is an initial investment. But it’s not crazy because you can you can keep it kind of smaller. And then each year I buy my seed. But once again, that’s not outlandishly expensive by any means. So it is it is something where and I think this is why people are. Really getting into it. You know, you can actually start doing it. And, you know, within two years you could actually start selling and making a little bit of money doing it.

 

Georgia [00:40:07] Yeah. So obviously you spend an awful lot of time. I dunno, is it knee deep in oysters. I dunno.

 

Jordi [00:40:13] Deeper there. Yeah.

 

Georgia [00:40:15] That you spend a lot of time up close and personal with these creatures. Do you have any favorite oyster facts about them as, as creatures.

 

Jordi [00:40:25] You know, I mean I think clearly the fact that they can filter 50 gallons of water a day is pretty impressive. You know, when you open up and you look into kind of the actually crack open an oyster and you look into them. So their actual the oyster biology, if you will. Now, that’s a bio teacher. So she geeks out on a little bit more than I do. But, you know, it’s pretty neat to see all the different components, the gills of the oyster, the, you know, the heart, if you will, the oyster. It’s a living organism. So it is kind of neat to actually look and see.

 

Georgia [00:40:56] Yeah. And how often do you actually oysters yourself?

 

Jordi [00:40:59] I slept a few last night.

 

Georgia [00:41:00] You do you have any recommendations for how you know, how you should have be having oysters? I know you generally just have them raw, don’t you? But I’m sure that can’t be the only way.

 

Jordi [00:41:09] Yeah. No, I typically. Yeah, we do. We do eat them raw. I was actually a friend of mine, had a server and he said, you know, bring some oysters and well there are many ended up growing them and putting some lemon butter and different stuff on them and dead on the ground was delicious.

 

Georgia [00:41:25] Amazing. Yeah.

 

Jordi [00:41:26] With some minuets as well. You know, I’ve had oyster po’boys once with somebody, took some of my oysters and did that and you know, shared some with me. So I’ve had them a few different ways. I typically am pretty lazy, so I’ll just recommend slurp them. But that said, there are lots of good things that you can put on them to make them taste even more.

 

Georgia [00:41:45] Because they are they are a bit of an acquired taste, aren’t they? And certainly when they do crop up at boat shows now and again, and sometimes it feels like a bit of a rite of passage, you know, after you have to eat the oyster to prove that you’re up for it. Yeah.

 

Jordi [00:42:02] Oh, for sure.

 

Georgia [00:42:03] Very cool. And I’m actually doing a a charity challenge at the moment where I’m not eating any food really very much food at all. So I’m quite tempted by this one of those grilled oysters, to be honest.

 

Jordi [00:42:13] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Georgia [00:42:15] So maybe when I finish the charity challenge, I’ll just go off and eat a lot of oysters.

 

Jordi [00:42:19] Yeah, Yeah, exactly. And get lots of good protein in your system.

 

Georgia [00:42:22] Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I’ve certainly learned a huge amount about oysters. I don’t know about you.

 

Merrill [00:42:28] Yeah, I mean, I’m certainly going to go get some oysters after we’re done with this interview. So kind of one of the final questions I got is, you know, you’re this new breed of man, the ecological man. So what is it that gets you up every single day? You know, what is your driving force with everything that you’re doing with the oysters in the main Island Trail Association and even the Marine Trade Association?

 

Jordi [00:42:54] Yeah. So I think I’m at that point, Mario, where I am, you know, 41 years old and doing what I absolutely love to do. So, you know, I always say to people, they’re like, something’s going on. And my answer is typically busy, but doing all good things, you know, obviously, man on I trails kind of my my number one in that it’s just the the best organization aid to work for our staff of ten are some of the best people I’ve ever worked with. Everybody is extremely passionate about what we do love being out on the water, so I get a ton of fulfillment out of my job here because I’m constantly making, you know, establishing relationships with, you know, businesses and just people up and down the coast of Maine, which I love, Maine. I grew up spending my summers here. As I mentioned at the beginning, I’m actually from Vermont, but spending summers here. So I think, you know, what gets me up in the morning is just realizing how lucky I am. I have, you know, a wonderful wife. I’ve got to help the kids that are ten and eight. And I absolutely love working for my dad. And, you know, the oyster farm is just a fun, fun thing that can keep me out of trouble and, you know, brings in a few bucks and gets me out on the water even more. So I just feel very fortunate to be able to have kind of all these different pieces in place.

 

Merrill [00:44:11] Well, Jordy, it was amazing talking to you and hearing all these different insights and different experiences that you’ve had. Really appreciate.

 

Jordi [00:44:19] It. Yeah. Thank you. Both Marilyn and Jordan, It’s really fun to talk to you and thanks for the time.

 

Georgia [00:44:24] No problem at all. I’m going to go see my oyster farm now.

 

Jordi [00:44:28] That sounds good. Come on over and check mine out if you ever want to.

 

Georgia [00:44:31] Like you.

 

Jordi [00:44:32] Yeah. And, Maria, when you’re showing up to Maine this summer, you got to swing up to new matters.

 

Merrill [00:44:36] Well, I am certainly going to bring that up as a date. I’d be like, Oh, I got an oyster.

 

Jordi [00:44:43] Connect it.

 

Merrill [00:44:44] I think the girlfriend would fall for that one.

 

Jordi [00:44:46] Yeah, definitely. And he got to got to do that for sure. Now, this is good. I hope it was helpful and I’m glad we were able to do it. Thank you.

 

Farah [00:45:10] Check back every Tuesday for our latest episode and be sure to like, share and subscribe to shipshape. Doc Pro. Doc Pro.