Tag Archives: Lowcountry Living

Shrimping off the coast of South Carolina

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Our friend, Rusty, is moving away in a few weeks. He called the other day and asked if we could get together for one last “drunk” before he goes. Sounds like a good plan! 

We first met Rusty after we moved to Folly Beach. We met him at the Holiday Inn bar during happy hour one afternoon after he had just gotten back from shrimping. We had often seen his shrimp boat, the Miss Ella, docked at Crosby’s with several other commercial shrimping trawlers. My brother was already friends with Rusty, and, as a matter of fact, Dennis had turned Rusty down several times on joining him on a shrimping expedition to be his mechanic. 

Well, Brian and I were hooked from the beginning and knew we would sign on to be his crew for at least one outing during shrimping season. 

We ended up going out twice. The first time lasted only a day and half. We came back, not because our hull was filled with shrimp that quickly, but because we were pulling no shrimp up in the net and Captain Rusty made the decision to stop wasting fuel for nothing. 

Our second trip lasted four and a half days. I consider this one of my truly ultimate experiences in life.  I’ll let my journal entries tell my story:

August 26 (Trip 1)

My brother took this picture from the dock. We would be leaving on our adventure in about an hour.

My brother took this picture from the dock.

Brian, Captain Rusty, Craig, and I finally left Crosby‘s dock today at high tide (5:25 p.m.) We ran aground once near the tip of Folly Island. One of the channel markers must be wrong! Getting out to open sea from here is very difficult. It took three hours to get through all the channel markers and get anchored off of Keowah Island for the night. I cooked chicken thighs and fried potatoes on the gas stove. I’m getting my sea legs, I think, but it’s wise to always hang on to something, though. It’s hard to read at night, the lighting is dim, everything runs off the generator.  Slept very good. 

August 27

It is morning and we are getting ready for our first drag. Once the outriggers are down and the net is dropped, we will drag for three hours. The goal when we pull the net up and dump its contents on the deck is to have a ton of shrimp. After the net is emptied, it is dropped in the water and the next drag is begun while the crew sorts the catch, separates the shrimp from the by-catch and pushes the by-catch back into the water. Shrimp are sorted by size, headed and put down into the hull on ice. Hopefully, the crew completes this process in three hours, so there is room on the deck to dump the next net full. And on and on it goes. 

It is difficult to hold the pen steady to write this journal at times with all the bobbing and swaying going on. We dropped the net at 9:15 a.m. We are hoping to be very busy heading shrimp soon. I’m watching spinner dolphins off the stern. They are beautiful and love to play around the boat.

I drove the boat a little. Scary! Miss Ella didn’t seem to want to go where I wanted her to go. The guys were all out on deck raising the anchor. The anchor is huge with hundreds of feet of thick bull rope that can hurt you in a second. I was to keep the Miss Ella straight and try not to let her rock too much, while the guys did their dangerous work. Ten minutes of ultimate stress!  

Even cooking is an adventure out here. You have to take a wide stance and sort of roll with the swells to keep your balance. The stove burners also have lips around them to help keep a hot pot from falling off.  Since the Miss Ella has no refrigeration, our perishables are packed in coolers. Each day, we have to empty any melting water and refill them with ice from the hull. The cooking is a great way for me to be able to contribute more, since the guys don’t want me to be near the outriggers, anchor, or other dangerous pieces of equipment. 

Rusty needed a few shackles, so I looked in the bottom of the tool box (a whopping huge wardrobe looking thing that I had to empty of tons of big dirty tools to even see the bottom). I found a few shackles at the bottom, got very dirty, but hey, good contribution on my part! 

We’ll be pulling up the net soon to see our first catch. 

We pulled up a lot of fish on that first drag, but only six shrimp! What? That’s not even enough to make a decent shrimp cocktail! We pulled up whiting, mackerel, flounder, star fish, sand dollars, beautiful little tropical fish, a few squid and lots of jelly balls (jelly fish). We decide to keep enough of the flounder, whiting and squid to fry up a sampler plate for our dinner. 

Captain Rusty decided to find another spot to try our shrimping. We headed north towards Charleston Harbor.  

After another drag, no shrimp. So, we go in search of another place to try our luck.  

The shrimper captains get on their CB radios and talk to each other a lot. They don’t say much. There are long pauses in their conversations. They speculate on the shrimp, but mostly tell each other tons of lies! After all, a shrimper having great success does not want the other shrimpers infringing on his territory! Almost every conversation ends with the mantra, “It will be better next time.” In Captain Rusty’s case today, he is not lying. But, they don’t know that!

We anchored at sea for the night and had a fabulous dinner! After dinner, Rusty popped a VHS tape into the little 13 inch screen VHS player. We watched A Perfect Storm.  (No kidding)

The stars are beautiful at night. I’ve never seen so many stars.  Mars is closer than ever. It’s beautiful, too. I think I will sleep on this huge mass of spooled up rope on the bow. 

August 28

We’re waiting for low tide to put the nets out. I’ve been reading a book. Glorious day! We had scrambled eggs for breakfast.

Since we get about eight miles to a gallon of diesel and we aren’t making any money, Captain Rusty makes the decision to cut this outing short and head back to the dock. I am very disappointed. 

September 10 (Trip 2)

Full moon tonight. We haven’t left the dock yet. I filled up the coolers with ice and took a Dramamine for motion sickness. The engine is warming up. We have no water. Not because the tank isn’t filled, but because the pump might not be working.  

Oh, oh. Just found out something is wrong with the steering. This could be bad. Very bad. So, it has been decided that we can’t go this evening.  Good thing. If the steering went while we were trying to cross the bar between Folly and Kiawah Islands, who knows what could have happened? 

To fix the steering, we need the welder and an unknown number of man hours labor. So, the guys dismantled the steering mechanism, so Captain Rusty can take it to Jimmy, the welder, in the morning. 

While waiting for the next part of this adventure to get underway, we watched the Hailey Marie come back to the dock. She’s Captain Neal’s boat. As if floating across a sea of grass, she came through the channel, slowly making her way to the dock. How breathtaking! The wives of the men on that crew stood on the dock and waved at their returning wayfarers. The crew on the Hailey Marie were gone longer than usual. They had to hole-up at sea for a few days because of Tropical Storm Henri. But, she’s back now. 

High and low tides are more extreme than usual because of the full moon.  

Captain Rusty has taken to calling me Buttercup. I think he’s trying to make me mad as I’m sure it’s in reference to me being a girl and hating to get my hands dirty. I like him calling me that, though. Somehow being given a nickname makes me one of the crew. 

I volunteered to re-plumb the sink. It is always leaking. Tomorrow may be a good day to work on it since we have no running water anyway.  

Sleeping on the boat at the dock tonight.  

September 11

Waiting for Captain Rusty to return from the welder. I think I’ll read in my book awhile. 

At the last minute, Craig decided not to go with us. It will just be the three of us this trip. It means more work for us rookies, but also a bigger payday!

(Well, dear readers, we did have much more success on our second outing and stayed so busy, I did not write in my journal again until after we returned)

September 17 (The day after our return and my final entry)

I think we can say I’m not a whiner. I just got back from four and a half days at sea on the Miss Ella. Wow! Life on the Miss Ella is surreal, unbelievable. Her cabin and galley make me shake my head in disbelief. Honestly, if she were a woman and not a boat, she’d be a filthy whore, but you are in love with her anyway. Her stove is rusted and you can’t use the oven and if you use the wrong burner, you’ll start a fire. You may start one anyway as all her jets are choked with soot. Her cabin and galley are a patchwork of plywood and torn pieces of fiber board. Grease, soot and diesel fuel cover everything. Cockroaches and mice abound. (Yes, they do make the trip out to sea with you and crawl on you at night while you are sleeping!) The smell of diesel fuel burns your nostrils.  Peeing and pooping in a bucket on choppy seas is difficult on a good day.  Perishable foods begin to look a bit wilty on the third and fourth day. Your back is aching from sitting in a squat for hours on end heading shrimp. Your hands hurt from this exercise. 

But, sunrises and sunsets are beautiful at sea. The quiet is astounding out there. The constant rocking of the boat is comforting. The stars are more bright, more beautiful, more plentiful. There is nothing quite like it.

Sunset

We got 6 boxes of shrimp (six hundred pounds)! That was a lot of heading! 

After we unloaded and changed our clothes, we went to the Holiday Inn bar for Happy Hour. The idea is to get drunk so you can get your equilibrium back! Actually, it does take several days to get over the swaying feeling going on in your head!  (End of journal entries)

I think Rusty went out two or three more times that season, but we couldn’t go. We had our regular lives, regular jobs back on the mainland. 

By the next shrimping season, Rusty had gotten a regular job, so he could eat and pay his bills. And he found a buyer for the Miss Ella. For him, the shrimping life was over. 

He’s not alone, though. Many local shrimpers cannot make a living at it anymore. It is a dying industry. Now, most of the shrimp you see in grocery stores or order at your favorite restaurants is imported from Asia or some other place, raised on shrimp farms, using chemicals to stimulate growth and color. Big business it is. Add the cost of diesel fuel and dock fees and boat maintenance, most shrimpers cannot compete. 

Rusty is a good friend. Because of him, I had what is surely one of my greatest life adventures!  I’ll miss him. 

P.S. By the way, if you ever see a sign at your local fishmonger or on a restaurant menu advertising “wild” shrimp, you’re buying the best!

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The day I killed an anole

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What is an anole, you ask? Well, it is the correct name for the little reptiles we have running around all over the place around here that we typically call chameleons.

Green anoles are found throughout the southeastern U.S. and in parts of Texas. A green anole has the ability to change its colors (usually green but can be brown, yellow, gray or any mixture thereof) to better match its surroundings and mood. The male anole has a large flap of skin under his neck known as a dewlap that protrudes during courtship or while defending his territory. They get to around 6 to 8 inches long and feed on a variety of insects, which is a very good thing.

I didn’t mean to kill it and felt very badly for a time afterward. Here’s the story.

This is an anole. This one ruled my my deck and my brother-in-law name him Clyde.

This is an anole. This one ruled my deck and my brother-in-law, Ken, named him Clyde.

The other day, while driving to work, I was thinking about the work day ahead and cruising at 55 miles per hour on the two lane road that connects me to the interstate. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of something on the passenger side window. I looked over to see a green anole hanging on the window. The wind was making his green skin shake and his little face contort in such a way that he looked as if he was smiling.

I slowed down until I could find a spot on the road to pull over. I talked to the little guy gripping the glass while I looked for a place to stop, “Hang on little fellow, I’ll save you!”

Stopped at the side of the road, I got out of my car and walked around to the passenger side. That little lizard that had been seized with fear only moments before now was faced with a new dilemma. Frightened of me, he took off running across the hood of my car. I tried to reach him, but to no avail. I walked back to the driver’s side of my car and he went across the hood again to the passenger windshield wiper for cover. So, I walked around to the other side of my car again, determined to save him from sure death.

Well, the little bugger skipped across the car again. This time, after I circled the car, though, he made a leap and took off running across the highway. I looked both ways and saw no cars. I watched him cross the double yellow lines and get oh, so, close to making it to the other side, when a pick up truck began its approach from the distance.

I yelled to my little lizard friend, “Hurry up, get going.” I prayed out loud, “Oh, please let him make it.”

And then… And then, splat.

I watched these events unfold and could do nothing to stop the inevitable. I stood at my car for a few minutes, unable to get in. Dumbfounded and shocked. The pickup truck driver never had a clue.

I told myself it was silly to feel bad; after all, it was just a little lizard.  But, all I could think was that I could have saved him and failed.

There’s no moral or message to this story. I told Brian that night what happened and it cracked us up in the telling. I almost peed my pants.

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Zoom, zoom, zoom

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This is a female Ruby-Throated Hummingbird. She and her man were the first hummingbirds to come to my feeder. I named them Fred and Ginger!

This picture pulled from my old archives is a female Ruby-Throated Hummingbird. She and her man were the first hummingbirds I ever had at this house. I named the pair Fred and Ginger!

 

Spring has offically sprung and in my neck of the woods it means it’s time to feed the hummingbirds! 

Hummingbirds arrive in South Carolina sometime in late March or early April. They come after wintering in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean Islands. It takes 18 to 20 hours for them to cross the Gulf Of Mexico, which must burn up an awful lot of fuel. And so, I like to have my feeders ready for when they arrive. 

Let me tell you some interesting tidbits about these tiniest of birds!

There are about 17 species of hummingbirds in North America. Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds nest east of the Mississippi and are the most common in our area.

They flap their wings 55 times per second. That wing beat is what produces their “hum.” Their normal flight speed is about 25 miles per hour. They fly upright and not flat like most birds.

After feeding, they pull away from flowers by flying backwards, the only birds capable of this maneuver.

They are the smallest bird, but have the largest brains relative to their size. Their hearts are the largest, too, comparatively speaking. They live about four years on average, although a few have been documented to live to 12 years.

Hummingbirds don’t live in houses. Their nests are the size of walnuts and their eggs are the size of peas. Typically, a hummer lays two eggs.

Hummingbirds are smart. They know when to come in the spring and leave in the fall. That myth about leaving a hummingbird feeder out too late in the fall, causing the birds to stay and then, die from the cold,  is false.  They migrate due to the changing length of daylight, not whether or not you provide them with food. Although, I like to keep food available right up until the time they leave for their winter homes. After all, it’s a long trip!

And, speaking of their trip, I read another myth that hummers migrate on the backs of geese. Well, that would be something to see. But, really, this is a pretty silly idea and not true.

While it is true that hummingbirds don’t walk like other birds, they can perch and do so as often as possible. About 80% of their time is spent perching.

Hummingbirds feed on insects and nectar. Feeders are easy to maintain and provide these little creatures with an additional food source. If you don’t have a feeder, consider getting one. Make sure it has perches so the birds can take a little rest while dining. 

I have two feeders. I keep one near our back deck and one on the other side of the house near our screened porch: both strategically located for my enjoyment!

You can buy nectar, although, I think that is a waste of money. It is so easy to make your own. Mix 1 part granulated sugar to 4 parts water. I make two cups of nectar at a time (one cup for each feeder).  I use a glass Pyrex cup to mix the solution and then microwave it to get it hot enough to dissolve the sugar. After it cools, fill your feeder. (Do not add food coloring.)

Then, sit back and enjoy the show!

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