Media Fill Sportfishing Operator’s Boats

For 35 years, Cisco’s Sportfishing at Channel Islands Harbor has ferried anglers and whale watchers to the deep waters off Ventura County.

Cisco’s is a quiet place, inhabited by an old yellow dog named Striker who sleeps on a burlap sack near a cooler of bait. It’s the sort of place frequented by weathered fisherman who smoke unfiltered cigarettes and swap stories on the concrete boardwalk overlooking the harbor.

But for the last four days, the landing in front of Cisco’s has been transformed into a bustling high-tech staging area for media organizations from across the country, the likes of which have never been seen before in this harbor community.

Just hours after Alaska Airlines Flight 261 spiraled into the ocean, dozens of TV crews and reporters converged on Cisco’s, looking for a boat ride to the crash site.

“It was incredible,” said owner Russ Harmon. “I’ve never seen so many.”

Since Monday evening, countless news crews have filmed segments from the landing’s docks, and rows of satellite dishes as tall as sailing masts point skyward from the parking lot.

“A lot of networks and local stations have been here doing their live shots,” said Cathy Moss, a CBS national correspondent in town this week from New York to cover the nation’s biggest news story.

At the center of the frenzy is Harmon, a 62-year-old retired fishermen and former tackle salesman, who has coordinated nearly a dozen charters from the harbor to the crash site nine miles off the coast.

“I was sort of like the admiral running the program,” said Harmon, whose fleet of sportfishing boats operates 365 days a year, 24 hours a day--weather permitting.

Although Cisco’s 10 fishing boats were grounded Monday because of rough seas, Harmon decided to make an emergency exception after the plane crashed. He allowed five boats to carry reporters to the scene.

When the vessels arrived at the debris field, Cisco’s crews immediately began to look for survivors while pulling hunks of the shattered aircraft and other debris from the surface.

The next morning, Cisco’s sent out three boats with news crews on board. Two skippers refused to make the trip a second time after witnessing the grisly wreckage the night before.

“It has been extremely stressful for the captains,” Harmon said. “This is 180 degrees from what they have ever seen.”

With demand for chartered boats so high, some skippers who normally earn $650 a day were charging $300 an hour to tote reporters and camera operators to the scene.

Struggling to stay profitable after a temporary ban on catching rockfish, some fishermen have made enough money this week to make their monthly boat payments.

“It helped us out a little bit financially, because it was miserable for us,” Harmon said. “We were sitting over here starving. We didn’t know what we were going to do.”

Since the air disaster, Cisco’s worn blue carpet--patched in some places with strips of duct tape--has been further trampled by cellular phone-toting reporters from as far away as Mexico, where the ill-fated plane originated.

CBS and NBC crews have temporarily rented office space above Cisco’s.

Regular employees at the landing say they have routinely fielded questions about the proper pronunciation of Hueneme (why-knee-me) and queries about the nearest restaurant open past 9 p.m. (A Jack in the Box a few miles away).

Although some fishermen have grumbled about the nonstop media presence, Harmon said it hasn’t been a problem. Moss of CBS said her crew has been treated with nothing but kindness.

“They understand that we have to do our jobs,” she said. “Sometimes we don’t always get that.”