80-year-old shrimper still selling catch to St. Helena’s Gay Fish Co. ‘Kids won’t do this’
With muscly tan forearms that belie his age, Jim Buchanan hoists a 60-pound basket of white shrimp fat with roe onto the dock at Gay Fish Co. on St. Helena Island. “It’s hard work and, if you don’t like it, good God, it would be absolute misery,” Buchanan says. Buchanan, who is 80, won’t retire, he says with a smile, “Until somebody finds me on the back deck.” He enjoys being on the ocean and the hard work. Buchanan is one of five captains who own boats that dock and sell their catches at one of the surviving docks — Gay Fish Co., a St. Helena Island landmark that turns 75 this year, making it one of the oldest shrimping businesses in Beaufort County. Video, Photos, >click to read< 07:57
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