Reporting from Fort Bragg, Calif. — Just yards from the murky waters of Noyo Harbor, the boats sit tilted sideways on scraggly grass, their hulls rusted, their white paint peeling.
Bruce Abernathy has collected them for years on the cheap, hoping to make a killing selling the fishing rights that go with them when the salmon return and Noyo Harbor regains its rightful berth as one of the biggest salmon fishing ports in California.
Instead, his dilapidated fleet has only grown bigger, as frustrated fishermen walk away from their boats. Because of low fish counts, commercial salmon fishing has been prohibited off the California coast for the last two years.
The annual catch, valued at an average of $30 million a year in the 1980s, was worth just $8 million in 2007, the last year salmon fishing was allowed off the coast.
Locals fear that if authorities continue the ban next year, more vessels will be headed to Abernathy's boat graveyard, known here as Death Row.
Although hope persists among some that fishing will come back, others are starting to contemplate how to make a living without it in this rugged and isolated part of the state.
There's talk of boosting the tourist trade by promoting the local redwoods and Mendocino County's yearly crab and wine festival. Others think salvation may lie in attracting facilities that turn natural resources into energy. Meanwhile, fishermen are trying to imagine a life off the water, wondering if that's any kind of a life at all.
For Paul Ardzrooni, life after fishing means long days of walking among grape vines and negotiating with investors far from the sea. These days, he runs a vineyard management company in nearby Anderson Valley.
In 2005, he sold the Tarantino, a 50-foot fishing boat he had dreamed of owning since he was a child, and traded in a life on the water for a more stable job in the hills.
"My sense was that it was going to be a long time, if ever, that we'd be able to fish off the Mendocino coast," said Ardzrooni, 48. "I made the decision to get out of the business and put all my efforts into farming."
The politics of fishing in California prompted him to get out, Ardzrooni says: too many restrictions about who could fish where and when. But he still misses the shipboard camaraderie. His son had dreamed of becoming a commercial fisherman; now he's thinking about a career in renewable energy.
