Newspapers / The Brunswick Beacon (Shallotte, … / July 1, 1993, edition 1 / Page 54
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Brunswick Shrimpers Tell Their Stories In New Book BY ERIC CARLSON From Maine to Miami, Seattle to San Diego. Key West to Corpus Christi, our coastal communities are undergoing pro found and often painful changes. Families who have lived for gener ations in simple harmony with the sea. gathering its bounties and weathering its storms, see their way of life disappearing in a flood tide of land development, environmen tal pressures, foreign competition and government regulations that threaten to run them out of busi ness. I remember watching it happen on North Carolina's Outer Banks, where the once-thriving community of Wanchese saw its fishing fleet ? and its sons ? driven away by "progress." A new bridge that car ried tourists to Hatteras Island also disrupted the tidal flow through Oregon Inlet, slowly filling the channel with sand and choking off their only access to the sea. When politicians promised to stabilize the inlet, many invested in larger boats and leased dock space at the government's new multi-mil lion-dollar Wanchese Seafood In dustrial Park. But the inlet only ROACH REALTY Holden Beach Road 919-842-2488 HOME-4-BR. 2-bath house on paved street. 200x150 lot, county water, short distance from ICW and one mile from Holden Beach. $80,000 LOTS Lots on Intracoastal Waterway, starting at $35,000. Owner financing available on most lots. $5,600 and up. One to four miles from Holden Beach. Paved streets and county water on some lots. Some camper lots available. Call for mora details. LAKESIDE SANDY BLUFF FOREST HILLS WATERWAY ACRES SEA BREEZE HOLIDAY PINES SHORELINE ESTATES GREENWOOD ACRES MOBILE HOMES SEA BREEZE ESTATES-Lot 137. 1990 Kentuckian mobile home by Champion. 14x70, 2 BR. 2 baths. 50x195 lot with county water and paved streets. $37,500. SANDY BLUFF-1 988 Sterling 14x70, 2 BR, 2 baths, unfurnished. On 50x175 lot. $28,500. FOREST HILLS- 1 981 Redman 14x70, 3 BR. 2 baths with 4 lots Paved street, stocked lake. $52,500. HOLIDAY PINES-1 985 Statler 14x70, 2 BR, 2 balhs. On 100x125 lot Paved street, county water. 3-1/2 miles to beach. $36 500. HOLIDAY PINES-1 988 Champion 14x56, 2 BR. 1 bath, 75x125 lot $35,000 FOREST HILLS-1987 Flamingo. 2 BR, 2-bath 14x70 Screened porch, C/H/A. furnished. $31,900. AFTER HOURS William Roach 842-3685 1 199.1 THf- BRUNSWICK BEACON grew more treacherous. Most of the fishing boats left. Today the sea food park remains a rusting monu ment to broken promises. Gazing across Roanoke Sound, old timers there can still remember an unspoiled horizon of marsh grass dotted with a few hunting camps and summer cottages. Today they see an endless row of beach front hotels, condominiums, shop ping centers and housing develop ments. Here in in coastal Brunswick County, the old fishing and boat building families have similar tales to tell; men like Thurman Skipper, the manager of Bellamy's Fish House, a rigger of shrimp boats and a part-time poet who once looked across the Intracoastal Waterway toward Holden Beach and wrote: "I remember when there weren't nothing over there And now it's full of mobile homes and folks from everywhere. And I remember when you could sit and rock all day. Only traffic you would see was the mailman on his way..." Reminiscences like this ? from local boat builders, shrimp boat captains and fish house owners ? are lovingly recorded in Richard and Barbara Kelly's new book, The Carolina Watermen : Bug Hunters and Boatbuilders. Scheduled for July release, this fascinating glimpse below the decks and be hind the docks of our local seafood industry will be a treasured addition to the library of anyone who lives or vacations on the South Bruns wick Islands. Regular visitors to Holden Beach, the Kellys found themselves I I An Excerpt... "...The outriggers are lowered, and the nets and heavy wooden doors are pushed overboard. Within seconds after hitting the water and bal looning out, the huge nets create so much friction that they jerk the boat to a slow crawl. The great torque of the diesel engine, however, allows the boat to continue forward despite the enormous drag. The boat is now moving not unlike a plane or an automobile pulling a huge para chute behind it. Fuel is being consumed at a dizzying rate, and unless shrimp are entering the nets, the boat will have to move on to other wa ters... ? The Carolina Watermen: Bug Hunters And Boat Builders mesmerized by the offshore ballet of shrimp boats pirouetting across the water in their hunt for the tasty When it comes to pools, we can be quite analytical. We're a BioGuard? Authorized Pool Care Center. Pools are our business. That's why we offer complete computerized water analysis-to let you know just what your pool needs to keep it clear, clean and ready for fun. Bring us a water sample. We know pools. Relax. Bring your pool to BioGuard' OoGuarfJ PROFESSIONAL POOL MAINTENANCE Hwy 179, Island Village Specialty Shops, Ocean Isle Beach, Behind IGA Bldg. 579-8828 OPEN MONDAY - SATURDAY Daily Maintenance * Chemicals ? Accessories & Equipment ????????? ? " crustaceans the shrimpers call "bugs." They grew to recognize familiar names on the classic wood en shrimp boats tied up at local fish houses: the Capt. N.C., the Andrea Dawn, the Miss Caison, the Scorpion, the Cape Fear, the Bug Hunter. The Kellys began to wonder what the crews do on those boats. Who built them? Who are the cap tains? How do they use that confus ing tangle of nets and cables to catch shrimp? And what happens to those little delicacies between the decktop and the stovetop? Their curiosity piqued, they start ed hanging around fish houses, talking to the owners and listening to tales told by the men who build those boats and take them out to sea. Recognizing a story that begged to be told, the Kellys recorded these conversations and created a unique portrait of this once-thriving local industry now threatened with extinction. Carolina Watermen doesn't pre tend to bo a scholarly history of the South Brunswick Islands, or a com prehensive treatise on shrimp biolo gy, or a textbook analysis of com mercial fishing techniques. Still, ir. its early chapters, the book offers enough information to help the reader understand the terminology and the context of the personal re flections that follow. It is here ? in the heart and soul of their book ? that the Kellys wise ly step back and let the watermen tell their own stories. Captains William Varnam, Danny Galloway, Henderson Cai son and Thurman Bass take us aboard their boats and describe how much shrimping has changed and how much it has remained the same. We visit the craftsmen who build these classic, functional vessels; men like Norman Bellamy, Weston Varnam, Clyde Vamam and Billy Vamam; men who can all trace their techniques back IOC) years to John Vamam, the first major boat builder to settle in this area. We listen in on the conversations at Bellamy's, Fulford's and "Capt'n Pete's" fish houses and hear their owners describe the increasing complexity of buying and selling shrimp in a marketplace that is un der growing pressure from foreign competitors who grow their shrimp in holding ponds. And we meet artistic watermen like painter Bryan Vamam, who us es acrylic and canvas to create serene portraits of coastal North Carolina and to conjure visual memories of his boyhood days on the Brunswick backwaters. Time and again we hear the shrimpers speak of their frustration with federal regulations requiring them to install turtle extruder de vices (or TEDs) in all nets. These trap doors allow endangered sea turtles (and a significant portion of the shrimper's catch) to escape cap ture. The Kellys do an admirable job of presenting both sides of this heated controversy. They describe the loggerhead turtle's fascinating life cycle and the efforts of environ mental groups, government regula- ; tors and local residents to protect nesting sites and improve their chances of survival. And they quote shrimpers who say they are being forced to pay the price for an envi ronmental problem caused not by them, but by overdevelopment of the coast. With the costs of fuel, repairs, equipment and insurance steadily rising while shrimp prices continue to fall, watermen say the reduction in their catches caused by TED reg ulations may prove to be the finai straw that drives them out of busi ness. While it carefully avoids taking sides in this emotional issue. The Carolina Watermen reminds us that these bug hunters and boat builders ? like their sea turtle I brethren ? are an endangered 1 species, dependent on the sea, I stressed by modem pressures and j valiantly struggling to survive.
The Brunswick Beacon (Shallotte, N.C.)
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July 1, 1993, edition 1
54
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