SHIOGAMI, Japan — It was a bitterly cold afternoon, and there were moments when the hospitality tent was almost ripped from the ground by fierce gusts of wind.

But the fishermen of the Urato Islands were not going to let the weather spoil what for them was a huge step in the recovery of their community — the handover of a fleet of boats donated by the U.S. charity, Operation Blessing International.

After a brief ceremony, they took the boats for a spin, in circles around the small windswept bay, children lining up to take a ride.

There were plenty of smiles, but none broader than that of 37-year-old Yoshimasa Koizumi, the architect of the recovery here.

"We'll soon be able to support ourselves again," he predicted.

Koizumi is not your archetypal fishermen. For starters he's a good deal younger, and he arrived on the Urato Islands only in 2011, shortly before the tsunami struck. His was a rare move, since most migration had been away from these areas, leaving a barely viable and elderly community, just 400 strong.

But he was attracted by the pristine environment of the islands and joined the oyster business, taking delivery of a boat just one day before the tsunami struck. That boat was swept away, together with most of the local fishing fleet.

The islands, which sit close to the city of Sendai, acted as a sort of shock absorber, which was good news for some of the mainland coastal districts but not for the islands, which were devastated. Incredibly, nobody on the islands died.

A simple request
When, soon after, Koizumi was asked what he most needed, he replied: "Wi-Fi and a laptop. I just need the Internet."

The tech-savvy oyster farmer then began a Web-based campaign, the Children of the Sea, using the Internet and Twitter to rebuild the local oyster industry. Under the scheme, supporters were offered 10,000 yen ($105) shares to help the rebuilding of the industry. He soon had 14,000 shareholders and also attracted the attention of Operation Blessing.

Shareholders are really donors. They don't make a profit, but they are kept abreast of the recovery -- and also receive oysters as a kind of dividend.

Koizumi says that other, mostly elderly, fishermen were a little puzzled at first, and not at all sure about all that Internet stuff. But they soon rallied round as the shares were snapped up.

The islands benefit from sitting astride nutritious areas for raising oysters regarded as among the best in Japan. In fact, the oysters harvested there are so good they serve as "seeders" for other areas, making them not only critical to the local economy but important to the greater Japanese oyster industry. And Koizumi is confident Urato Islands oysters will soon be profitable again, thanks in part to the help of the many donors.

Government help has been slower, and like 200,000 other tsunami survivors Koizumi is still living in a temporary home.

"I never expected I'd still be living like this after two years," he said.

Much of the coastline here is now a vast, wind-swept wasteland. Rebuilding has hardly started, bogged down in bureaucracy. According to a study late last year by the Board of Audit of Japan, half the $150 billion tsunami relief fund has yet to be allocated.

Millions of tons of debris have been cleared and sorted, but it will take years to dispose of it.

"Some places are picking up, but there's still a lot more that needs to be done" said Don Thomson, the director of Japan operations for Operation Blessing.

For his part, Koizumi said he believes that communities themselves need to take the lead, demonstrating the can-do attitude that has provided inspiration to his neighbors.

"Rather than just wait for government aid, we have to do it ourselves," he said.

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Kimimasa Mayama / EPA

A chef shows the head of a 489-pound bluefin tuna sold for the record sum of 155.4 million yen (some $1.7 million) in the New Year's first auction at Tsukiji Market. The successful bid was about three times the record 56.49 million yen bid in last year's auction.

A bluefin tuna sold for a record $1.76 million at a Tokyo auction Saturday, nearly three times the previous high set last year — even as environmentalists warn that stocks of the majestic, speedy fish are being depleted worldwide amid strong demand for sushi.

In the year's first auction at Tokyo's sprawling Tsukiji fish market, the 222-kilogram (489-pound) tuna caught off northeastern Japan sold for 155.4 million yen, said Ryoji Yagi, a market official.

The fish's tender pink and red meat is prized for sushi and sashimi. The best slices of fatty bluefin — called "o-toro" here — can sell for 2,000 yen ($24) per piece at upmarket Tokyo sushi bars.

Japanese eat 80 percent of the bluefin tuna caught worldwide, and much the global catch is shipped to Japan for consumption.

The winning bidder, Kiyoshi Kimura, president of Kiyomura Co., which operates the Sushi-Zanmai restaurant chain, said "the price was a bit high," but that he wanted to "encourage Japan," according to Kyodo News agency. He was planning to serve the fish to customers later Saturday.

Kimura also set the old record of 56.4 million yen at last year's New Year's auction, which tends to attract high bids as a celebratory way to kick off the new year — or get some publicity. The high prices don't necessarily reflect exceptionally high fish quality.

PhotoBlog: Giant bluefin tuna nets $1.76 million 

The price works out to a stunning 700,000 yen per kilogram, or $3,603 per pound.

Stocks of all three bluefin species —the Pacific, Southern and Atlantic — have fallen over the past 15 years amid overfishing.

On Monday, an intergovernmental group is to release data on Pacific Bluefin stocks that environmentalists believe will likely show an alarming decline.

"Everything we're hearing is that there's no good news for the Pacific bluefin," said Amanda Nickson, the director of the Washington-based Pew Environmental Group's global tuna conservation campaign. "We're seeing a very high value fish continue to be overfished."

The population of another species, the southern bluefin, which swims in the southern Pacific, has plunged to 3-8 percent of its original levels.

Stocks of bluefin caught in the Atlantic and Mediterranean plunged by 60 percent between 1997 and 2007 due to rampant, often illegal, overfishing and lax quotas. Although there has been some improvement in recent years, experts say the outlook for the species is still fragile.

In November, the 48 member nations of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, or ICCAT, voted to maintain strict catch limits on the species, although some countries argued for higher limits. The quota will be allowed to rise slightly from 12,900 metric tons a year to 13,500. Quotas were as high as 32,000 tons in 2006.

A total catch limit on the Pacific bluefin has been imposed only recently in the eastern part of the Pacific near the United States and Mexico, but not by the intergovernmental group that oversees the western Pacific, Nickson said. So-called effort limits in place now — restrictions on the number of vessels and days fishing allowed — are not effective, she added, and fisherman also are targeting juvenile populations and spawning grounds.

"This poor species is being hit from every angle," she said.

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Greenpeace via AFP - Getty Images

Greenpeace activists on Aug. 30 try to intercept the FV Margiris as it enters Port Lincoln in South Australia.

The world's second-largest fishing trawler, which can process 250 metric tons of fish a day using a 900-foot-long net, will likely be banned by Australia for two years so that experts can study whether it would deplete fish stocks and worsen the accidental bycatch of sea turtles, dolphins and seabirds.

"There has never been a fishing vessel of this capacity in Australia before and the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act needs to be updated so that it can deal with it," Environment Minister Tony Burke said before House lawmakers agreed to review the law and the science. Australia's Senate is expected to take up a vote next week.

"When you have a vessel with a large freezer capacity that therefore is able to remain through extended periods of time in the same part of our oceans, there are a different set of environmental considerations," Burke said. "When the law falls short, you change the law."

The nearly 500-foot vessel, named the Abel Tasman, is registered in Australia and can hold up to 6,200 metric tons of fish.

Seafish Tasmania, an Australian company, brought the Abel Tasman to Australian shores last month in a joint-venture with the boat's Dutch owners. The venture had initially been awarded a quota to catch up to 18,000 metric tons of jack mackerel and red bait fish under strict conditions. 

The partners and a commercial fishing group complained Australia was being unfair.

"Changing laws in response to emotive campaigning and 'trial by media' undermines the credibility of Australian fisheries management, creates uncertainty and insecurity for fishermen and deters investment that is needed to support regional jobs," Seafish Tasmania and the Commonwealth Fisheries Association (CFA) said in an open letter to lawmakers on Wednesday.

Olaf Kraak / AFP - Getty Images

Greenpeace activists locked themselves to the anchorline of the Margiris on July 2 while it was still in the Dutch port of IJmuiden.

CFA spokesman Brian Jeffries said a counterargument could be made that large, strictly regulated trawlers are better than many small, less-regulated ones that "have to fish for much longer a period" and thus are "more likely to take, for example, bycatch."

Greenpeace, which had attempted to stop the ship from docking when it arrived in South Australia in late August, hailed the environment ministry's move as a "sensible response to the threat of the Abel Tasman."

The world's largest trawler is the Annelies Ilena, a slightly bigger Dutch ship that's now in the North Sea. 

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Peeing while swimming in a lake may not just be taboo – it could also be lethal, for the fish.

At least that's what a group of anglers contend, blaming swimmers for the 500 dead fish that have turned up in a picturesque German lake near Hamburg, The Local reported.

"Swimmers who urinate in the lake are introducing a lot of phosphate," Manfred Siedler, a spokesman for an angler’s group, told Bild newspaper. "We're calculating half a liter of urine per swimmer per day."

Skeptics questioned whether the outcry was an attempt by fishermen to oust bathers – with whom they have long feuded, according to The Local – but are saying this could be possible.

IO9.com, a Gawker science blog posed the question, “Can anything as natural as peeing in a lake kill the fish?”

The answer, apparently, is yes.

The urine itself doesn’t harm the fish but sets off a series of environmental events that ultimately suffocate the fish.

First, the urine acts as a fertilizer for the blue-green algae in the water. Once they have consumed all the fertilizer, the algae continue sucking up available oxygen in the water, IO9.com explained. When the algae die and start to decompose, they further use up oxygen. That’s when fish start to die.

Bild reported that authorities have poured more than half a million dollars of an anti-phosphate agent called Bentophos into the lake, to no avail.

(Bentophos has been tested in artificial lakes that were shut down due to massive bacterial blooms.)

For now, the lake is closed to swimmers because of the high levels of algae (which can cause swimmer's itch), but the city's environmental authority is fighting the closure, The Local reported.

Kerstin Graupner, a spokeswoman for the environmental authority, told The Local that she blamed natural causes and ice-skaters.

"The ice-skaters make a noise that wakes the fish out of hibernation," Graupner said. "Then they can't breathe and freeze. That's a very common phenomenon."

Graupner’s agency called on a university in Hamburg to test the anglers’ theory. According to The Local, it appears the anglers may have a point – the scientists found anabaena algae blooms, which produce a toxin that ultimately restricts fish breathing.  

The German lake isn’t the only place where officials worry about swimmers; signs at the Great Barrier Reef ask swimmers not to urinate in the water. Doing so apparently kills the corals, which grow in low nutrient waters.

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UPDATED April 19, 7:25 p.m.: Princess Cruises says the captain of a cruise ship that passed by a disabled fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean last month without stopping was never told about the vessel or the three men aboard.

The company says in a statement Thursday that concerns raised by three birdwatchers who spotted the disabled boat were never passed on to Capt. Edward Perrin, or the officer of the watch.

Judy Meredith of Oregon says she told a sales representative who assured her he notified the bridge, but the ship did not stop.

Three men set out in a small boat from Rio Hato, Panama on Feb. 24. Two of them later died. Survivor Adrian Vasquez says he saw the ship and thought they were saved, but it kept going. 

Original story: A cruise line is investigating allegations by passengers that crew workers ignored their pleas to rescue three fishermen adrift in the Pacific Ocean, the Guardian of London reported.

The allegations cast an uncomfortable light on a hopeful story about the sole survivor of that fishing boat, an 18-year-old hotel worker who survived for 28 days aboard his 10-foot vessel, named the Fifty Cents. He was rescued near the Galapagos Islands, nine days after he had to push his friends’ bodies overboard.

Now cruise ship passengers say those boys could have been saved. Three bird watchers say they alerted the crew of the Star Princess, owned by Carnival Corporation, which also owned the Costa Concordia.

One of the bird watchers told her version of events to Don Winner, an English-language blogger from Panama who tracked down the survivor, Adrian Vasquez. Vasquez confirmed that he and his friends had seen the cruise ship and signaled frantically with his red T-shirt and orange life vest, the Guardian reported.  

The cruise line issued a statement about the allegations Tuesday: "At this time we cannot verify the facts as reported, and we are currently conducting an internal investigation on the matter.”

One bird watcher, Jeff Gilligan of Portland, Ore., told the Guardian that while scanning the ocean, he saw an object that looked like a little house.

“We then used spotting scopes with a fixed tripod and I could see this strange little boat and at least one person standing up waving a piece of cloth high over his head, up and down,” he said. "We could see it was not moving – there were nets pulled on to the boat and apparently no nets in the water. So we soon questioned – is this a stranded, disabled boat, signaling us for help?"

They contacted United States authorities when the boat did not turn around but nothing happened.

Vasquez was saved when a rainstorm hit a few days later, which allowed him to fill four gallons of water, the Daily Mail of London reported. He ate raw fish to stay alive.

He was ultimately rescued by fishermen working off a mother ship, the Duarte V.

After he slept and was fed and hydrated intravenously, Vasquez woke.

The captain of the Duarte told the Guardian that he reacted slowly but that he cast down his gaze when the subject of his friends arose.

Information from the Associated Press was included in this report.

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AP

Adrian Vasquez, left, an 18-year-old Panamanian who worked in a seaside resort hotel, receives medical attention aboard an Ecuadorean navy ship on Sunday.

Updated at 6:01 a.m. ET: A teen has apparently survived 28 days adrift in the Pacific Ocean after going on a fishing trip with two friends, according to reports. Adrian Vasquez, who was rescued by the Ecuadorean navy on Sunday, said he stayed alive by drinking rainwater and eating raw fish, the BBC reported.

AP

Adrian Vasquez receives medical attention on Sunday.

The 18-year-old was found drifting alone near the Galapagos Islands on his friends' 10-foot fishing boat more than 600 miles from where they had set out.

He was first found by a commerical fishing vessel then handed over to Ecuador's coast guard. The trio had been missing since February 24.

The Associated Press reported the three were heading back to his home port of Rio Hato when the boat's motor failed.

Rainstorm
Vasquez told the Ecuadorean navy crew he likely owed his survival to a sudden rainstorm that replenished his water supply.

The young Panamanian recounted his story to Hugo Espinosa, captain of the navy vessel, after being treated for malnutrition and severe dehydration. He recalled they had caught a lot of fish, and had a big jug of water.

The AP quoted Espinosa as saying Vasquez had identifed his dead friends as Oropeces Betancourt, 24, and Fernano Osorio, 16.

Arnulfo Franco / AP

Rescued castaway Adrian Vasquez is surrounded by family members upon his arrival to Tocumen international airport in Panama City on Tuesday.

Panamanian navy boats began to search for the vessel but did not find it. Espinosa said the ice melted and the fish rotted, leaving the trio to live off what they could catch with their net.

"The spirits of the survivors began to wane with the passing of days," Espinosa told The Associated Press.

The report said Betancourt stopped eating and drinking after two weeks and died on March 10. Three days later, his body began to decompose and Vasquez threw it over the side.

AP

Adrian Vasquez, center, poses with Ecuadorean sailors onboard a navy ship on Monday.

Osorio died on March 15, also apparently of dehydration, sunburn and heat stroke. After three days, Vasquez pushed his other friend's body into the ocean, the AP said.

"When he was nearly dead, on March 19, it rained, and Vasquez was able to fill up with four gallons of water," said Espinosa. He spent the next five days eating raw fish before being spotted by commercial fishermen working on a skiff from a mother ship, the Duarte V.

'He was quiet'
Once aboard, Vasquez asked for a telephone so he could make two calls, the AP reported. The first was to his mother. The second was to the hotel manager to explain why he had missed so many days of work.

"He didn't know what was happening. He was quiet, looking lost," Espinosa said.

Vasquez was flown on Monday to Guayaquil on the Ecuadorean mainland before flying to Panama City on Tuesday where he was greeted by a crowd including family and friends.

The AP report said the teenager shed some tears as his relatives hugged him but he didn't talk to reporters.

The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

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