Tag Archives: Florida
Annual blessing of the fleet helps after Hurricane Ian’s devastation
The blessing of the historic shrimping fleet is an annual tradition on Fort Myers Beach. After the devastation of Hurricane Ian, the shrimping fleet could use some blessings for even more hurdles ahead. Still, the Fort Myers Beach shrimping community was happy to have at least one day to celebrate. Photos, video, more, >>click to read<< 07:49
On Sunday The Fleet Will Be Blessed
St. Raphael’s will hold its regular Sunday Service at 10 AM at the Erickson and Jensen Shrimp docks (1100 Shrimpboat Lane off Main Street). The Blessing Service will take place at 11 AM. This is a short service of prayers, songs, and readings followed by the Blessing of the Fleet where Reverend Rowe will walk along the docks and personally bless each boat. After the Blessing, St. Raphael’s will be serving its famous peel and eat shrimp. Thank you to Ellie Bunting from the Estero Island Historical Society for sharing these 2 classic photos. more, >>click to read<< 17:35
Commercial Fisherman Juan Bueno Sanchez Found Dead in St. Petersburg, Investigation Underway
In a heart-wrenching incident off the coast of St. Petersburg, Florida, the local community and the maritime industry are mourning the loss of 45-year-old commercial fisherman Juan Bueno Sanchez. Sanchez, a dedicated shrimp boat worker, was reported missing by his concerned wife on February 23, when attempts to contact him failed for several days. This tragic discovery was made on Monday, following an intensive search operation led by the St. Petersburg Police Department and the Coast Guard. The disappearance of Juan Bueno Sanchez prompted a swift response from local authorities. Over the weekend, the St. Petersburg Police Department, in collaboration with the Coast Guard, launched a comprehensive search operation in the waters surrounding the area. more, >>click to read<< 07:50
Fort Myers Beach shrimpers face uncertain waters post-Hurricane Ian – Captains point to imported shrimp
On San Carlos Island, just off Shrimp Boat Lane, the local shrimp fishing community is navigating troubled waters in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian. Even with their ships repaired, the challenges for these shrimpers are far from over. Henry Gore, a seasoned shrimp boat captain of over 40 years, tells us it’s the worst state he’s seen for the local shrimping industry. The decline is due to two main factors: the high cost of boat repairs, often exceeding $100,000, and the competition from internationally imported farm shrimp. Video, more, >>click to read<< 10:53
Captain Darren Stanwood Sr. of Orland, Fla, has passed away
Darren Stanwood Sr. of Orlando, FL, formerly from Gloucester, MA, died on January 9, 2024. He loved and worked at sea. On his last 10-day trip, on the way back to port, he became ill and passed away at the St. Petersburg Hospital in Florida. His final moments were at the sea doing what he loved. He was an accomplished commercial fishing captain. He fished out of Gloucester, the Gulf of Mexico, and the southern Atlantic. His passion was fishing, and he was great at it. He was admired and respected by those who worked with and for him for over 44 years. more, >>click to read<< 08:10
Coast Guard suspends search for missing 50-year-old boater in St. Lucie County
The U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday morning it has suspended the search for a missing commercial fisherman in St. Lucie County. Brian Ronshausen, 50, was last seen launching a small boat from Stan Blum Boat Ramp at about 11 p.m. Monday. The St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office said a concerned boater called 911 at approximately 3 a.m. Tuesday after finding an unoccupied 20-foot Carolina Skiff in the channel near the Riverside Marina in the Fort Pierce Inlet. “The Coast Guard has suspended its search for 50 y/o Brian Ronshausen pending the development of new information,” Video, >>click to read<< 13:27
50-year-old man presumed missing after boat found in channel in SLC
Rescue officials continue searching for a 50-year-old fisherman, who last was seen Monday night launching a small boat from Stan Blum Boat Ramp, according to the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office and a family member Tuesday. About 3 a.m. Tuesday a boater contacted 911 after finding an unoccupied Carolina Skiff in the channel near the Riverside Marina, the agency stated on social media. The marina is in the 2300 block of Old Dixie Highway north of downtown Fort Pierce. The missing man was identified as Brian Ronshausen, 50, of Fort Pierce. “He’s a commercial fisherman. He has a license. He’s been doing it his whole life, fishing,” said his mother, Trulee Snell, 68, of Okeechobee. “He fishes in the evenings because that’s the best time.” Photos, more, >>click to read<< 17:46
Sixth Right Whale Calf is Sighted
Right whale calf number No. 6 was born off Cumberland Island on Dec. 28, 2023. Halo is a 19-year-old mother of three known calves. Her last calf was born in 2020. Halo has three siblings and five nieces/nephews, all of whom have been entangled on more than one occasion. Halo has callosities behind her blow hole which look as if she wears a halo. Halo’s sister Calamari – #3946 and her son Jagger #5046 both received their names just this year. Halo’s nephew, Kingfisher was entangled eight times in his short life. The last entanglement included a rope around his flipper which persisted until his last sighting in 2015. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, Halo is known to enjoy the shoreline of Florida beaches. Halo and her calves have been spotted from shore on many occasions. more, >>click to read<< 06:56
Bad weather? Rough seas? No problem for Florida fishermen looking for their money catch
When low pressure followed by a strong cold front crossed Florida with tropical-storm-like conditions this past week, you would think boat ramps would be completely empty. No one is crazy enough to head out when seas are calling for 6 to 10 feet, are they? But for generations of local families, these conditions are what is needed to start money rolling in as they head out to fill boats with one of the most commonly seen Florida fish. “Two of my buddies had two boatloads a day during this past front,” says angler Trever Flathman, who is a full-time commercial fisherman. A boatload could be 3,000 to 6,000 pounds depending on the size of the boat. What Flathman and others are looking for this time of year are roe mullet. Usually after Thanksgiving, mullet head offshore in giant schools to spawn. more, >>click to read<<08:12
Family of shrimp boat captain found dead in Tampa hopes to get body back to Virginia
The family of a shrimp boat captain who was found dead after a powerful Gulf storm blew through over the weekend is looking for help from the community. Curtis Lee Cowling lived on the shrimp boat full time and his body was found onboard the submerged boat around 10:30 p.m. Sunday, according to the Tampa Police Department. Now, his family is trying to get his body back to Virginia. A GoFundMe page was made to help with funeral and memorial costs as well. There’s a goal of $11,000 to be raised. Video, more, >>click to read<< 06:37
UPDATED: Missing shrimp boat captain’s body recovered from sunken ship
Divers recovered the body of a missing shrimp boat captain on Sunday night. Tampa police say the body of Curtis Lee Cowling was discovered inside a sunken vessel around 10:30 p.m. “Although our Dive Team members, joined by multiple agencies, all worked tirelessly in their efforts, we now share in the sorrow of this tragic outcome,” said Chief Lee Bercaw. more,>>click to read<< 17:37
Tampa police drivers found a body while searching for a missing shrimp boat captain, according to a release. The Tampa Police Department said divers found the body on board the sunken “Miss Jodi,” which is owned by Curts Lee Cowling. Cowling was last seen alive at about 11:00 p.m. Saturday, as storms began to hit the Tampa Bay area. After receiving several reports about Cowling’s boat being found submerged off Causeway Boulevard, officers found the boat at about 7:44 a.m. Sunday. more, >>click to read<< 10:39
Tampa Police searching for missing boat Captain
At approximately 7:42 a.m. on Sunday, December 17, 2023, the Tampa Police Department received multiple reports of a shrimp boat being submerged underwater in the 2600 block of Causeway Boulevard. Tampa Officers arrived on the scene and located a 63 ft vessel named “Miss Jordi” underwater. The vessel also leaked thousands of gallons of diesel fuel into the water. The boat’s captain, Curtis Lee Cowling, was last seen on 12/16/2023 at 11:00 p.m. Cowling is now listed as “Missing and Endangered.” Currently, officials are unable to confirm the captain’s whereabouts. more, >>click to read<< 13:39
Man with rifle fires 2 shots across commercial fisherman’s bow off Florida Keys
An argument between a recreational angler and a commercial fisherman off the Florida Keys nearly turned fatal Tuesday morning when the angler fired a rifle across the bow of the other man’s boat, police said. The incident happened around 9 a.m. on the oceanside of the Keys, about seven miles off Rodriguez Key, which is east of Key Largo, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the lead investigating agency. Arielle Cellender, an FWC spokeswoman, said the two men’s vessels were close to each other when they began arguing. >>click to read<< 07:01
‘Catastrophic crisis’: Imported shrimp flood US market
Foreign shrimp imports are overwhelming the country’s inventories of shrimp and driving market prices for locally sourced shrimp to record lows, prompting widespread calls from elected officials and organizations throughout southern Atlantic and Gulf Coast states for the federal government to declare a fishery resource disaster. Governors of coastal states from North Carolina to Florida to Texas are being pressed to ask U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to determine a fishery resource disaster for the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico shrimp fishery. In what one North Carolina coastal county’s board of commissioners refer to as an “unprecedented catastrophic crisis,” shrimpers are struggling to maintain operations because they’re making substantially less for their catch while paying historically high fuel prices and other inflation-driven costs. Shrimpers are also being forced to dock their freezer boats, or vessels with onboard freezers, because they can’t move their product in a market flooded with frozen shrimp from overseas. >>click to read<< 09:40
New regulations aim to protect Florida’s stone crab population
For Floridians, October has one more holiday than what might be on most calendars: the start of stone crab season. Starting Oct. 15, recreational and commercial fishermen are able to harvest the species that holds a spot as one of the five most important fisheries in Florida, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Although stone crabs are found from North Carolina to Belize, 99% of the stone crab harvest for the entire United States come from Florida. And this year, the FWC began implementing new regulations in an effort to conserve the longevity of this important fishery. >>click to read<< 08:29
One Year after Ian: Shrimping Industry
Grant Erickson’s family spent 70 years building their shrimping business on San Carlos Island. Hurricane Ian destroyed it in about 12 hours. “Devastating. We’ve never been damaged so bad,” he recalled. “You come back to that, and you’re stunned. You’re in shock. You don’t even know where to start. It’s too much all at once.” It’s just hard to put in words the last year,” Jesse Clapham, the fleet manager for Erickson and Jensen Seafood. “We had a meeting, and everybody said, ‘Do we want to give up and go home, or do we want to put it back together?’ And everybody unanimously said, ‘Put it back together,’” he recalled. But doing so would be a Herculean challenge. Photo, Video, >>click to read<< 10:57
Longtime Fort Myers Beach shrimping operation dissolving after disputes between owners
As the Fort Myers Beach shrimping industry claws its way back after Ian, one of the last remaining companies on the historic waterfront is not returning, though the end of Trico Shrimp Company is not due to the hurricane. The demise of Trico Shrimp reduces the size of the historic “pink gold” fleet as two local families with several decades of business history part ways. The partnership splintered over how the shrimping operations were run, court records show. The directors of Trico Shrimp, incorporated in 1986, have been ensnared in legal action since 2021 when Dennis Henderson and wife Ranell Henderson filed for the dissolutions of various companies, including several shrimp boats, they own with wife-and-husband Christine and George Gala Jr. Video, photos, >>click to read<< 12:57
Beaufort’s shrimping industry on the brink. Local boats sit while imported catch floods market
Thursday at Village Creek on St. Helena Island was another picture postcard-worthy morning with an American flag lilting in a slight southeast breeze near the shrimper Gracie Bell — idly tied to the dock. At Sea Eagle Market, a catch of shrimp swept up in the nets of trawlers in recent days are being processed by small group of dockside workers. They clean the valuable seafood crop harvested from waters as far away as North Carolina to the northeast coast of Florida before being sold locally and up and down the Palmetto State’s coast. After this recent harvest was completed, the boats returned, as they always do — to Village Creek, home base for shrimping on Fripp and Hunting Islands in Beaufort County and beyond. Against this serene backdrop, a storm is brewing that threatens destruction. It is not the threat of foul weather, these shrimpers have seen generations of bad weather days. The storm brewing is economic for the community of shrimpers and related businesses. >click to read< 10:10
Florida Gov. DeSantis Requests Aid For Fishing Industry
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday sent a formal request to the U.S. Department of Commerce seeking assistance for the fishing industry after last week’s Hurricane Idalia. Without putting a dollar figure on the potential damage, DeSantis said in a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo that the commercial and residential fishing communities in North Florida’s Big Bend region were “greatly affected” by the Category 3 hurricane. Florida’s Big Bend is an important cornerstone of the state’s fishery,” DeSantis said in the letter. “This region includes over 600 fishermen, 160 fishery wholesalers and retailers, 240 aquaculture shellfish farmers, and 450 for-hire charter captains, all of which play important commercial fishery roles.” ><<>click to read<< 07:54
Cortez fishing village inundated by Hurricane Idalia
As residents and business owners cleaned up on Thursday morning following the storm surge from Hurricane Idalia that flooded local roads, the recurring consensus was: “We got lucky.” “There was no boat damage (to the fleet of fishing boats). We lost a few boards on the dock,” A.P. Bell Fish Co. owner Karen Bell said. “We were very lucky.” Cortez is one of Florida’s last commercial fishing villages. It hugs the north shore of Sarasota Bay. On Wednesday morning, its roads were underwater, but by that evening, the waters had receded and roads were passable. In advance of the storm, A.P. Bell workers had secured the fleet of fishing boats with extra dock lines. 11 photos, >>click to read<< 17:27
Shrimp Alliance request fisheries disaster declaration
There’s no other way to put it if you ask Aaron Wallace. Despite a decent catch by the eight shrimp boats that supply Anchored Shrimp Co. in Brunswick, the prices fishermen are getting for their hauls aren’t what they should be. “It’s been one of our toughest years,” Wallace said. He and his father, John Wallace, own Anchored Shrimp and operate the Gale Force, one of the boats that serve the company’s retail and wholesale business. The Southern Shrimp Alliance, for which John Wallace serves as a member of the board of directors, is calling the flood of imported shrimp a crisis. The alliance asked the governors of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas in a letter on Aug. 25 to collectively request a fisheries disaster determination by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce for the U.S. shrimp fishery. >>click to read<< 11:06
Idalia demolished some Florida fishing communities. But locals say they’ll rebuild
For five generations, Austin Ellison’s family has toiled in the shrimping and fishing business here in this picturesque shoreline community nestled in what’s known as Florida’s Nature Coast along the state’s northern Gulf Coast. But when Hurricane Idalia barreled into the coast as a Category 3 storm on Wednesday with 125 mph winds, his family business, Ed’s Bait House, was pounded to the ground. Ellison points to his shrimping boat, named Miss Laura, floating in a nearby canal. The storm smashed out its windows, but the vessel survived otherwise. To Ellison, rebuilding means not just the cost of construction, but the additional expense of meeting modern storm-proofing requirements — a daunting task for someone who makes less than $30,000 a year as a seasonal fisherman. Photos, >>click to read<< 09:37
Florida Gov. DeSantis To Seek Aid For Fishing Industry
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday said the state will seek federal help for the fishing industry in the Big Bend region, as cleanup efforts moved into a second day from the devastation caused by Hurricane Idalia. Meanwhile, the state reported its first confirmed death related to Idalia, while utility workers still had about 135,000 customer power outages to tackle from the Category 3 storm, many in sparsely populated areas of North Florida. The governor’s plan to seek help from the U.S. Department of Commerce for the fishing industry followed White House approval of a separate request for a major disaster declaration. >>click to read<< 17:22
Hurricane Idalia at Category 3 strength ahead of Florida landfall
Hurricane Idalia strengthened into a powerful Category 4 storm Wednesday morning, then weakened slightly to a Category 3, ahead of landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region. According to the 7 a.m. advisory from the National Hurricane Center, Idalia has maximum sustained winds of 125 miles per hour, and catastrophic storm surge and destructive winds are nearing the Big Bend. WPTV First Alert Weather meteorologist Jennifer Correa said landfall is expected around 8 a.m. Wednesday, and Idalia’s center should stay east of Tallahassee. After making landfall on Wednesday, Idalia will weaken to a Category 2 hurricane over southeastern Georgia, and then a tropical storm by late Wednesday. >>click to read<< 08:04
Coast Guard establishes Area Command Post ahead of Tropical Storm Idalia
The Seventh Coast Guard District has established an Area Command Post in advance of Tropical Storm Idalia, Monday, at Coast Guard Air Station Miami in Opa Locka, Florida. For information and interviews relating to the Coast Guard’s preparations and response to Tropical Storm Idalia, please contact the Joint Information Center at 954-546-4979 or by email >>here<< Updated Port Condition changes by the Captain of the Port will be available on the Homeport website and announced on official unit social media pages throughout the Seventh District. Check below for your local Coast Guard Sector page: >>click to read<< 19:00
Idalia emerges as threat to Florida with potential as category 3 hurricane
The National Weather Service warned on Monday that Tropical Storm Idalia is expected to intensify into a major category 3 hurricane by Wednesday. As of 8 a.m. E.D.T. on Monday, Idalia was about 90 miles south of the western tip of Cuba and was expected to become a hurricane as it approached the coast of Cuba. Idalia had sustained maximum winds of 65 mph and was moving north. While the track of the hurricane remained the same, the expected intensity has increased. Florida’s Division of Emergency Management on Monday morning said its state emergency operations center was activated to a “level 1″ in response to Idalia. >click to read< 09:50
Imported shrimp eaten in U.S. may not be safe – U.S. Rep. Castor wants to do something about it
With inventories of shrimp sitting at docks throughout the Gulf Coast due to an abundance of imported seafood, the shrimp industry and U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor of Florida want to increase the purchase of domestic shrimp in the United States and provide more federal funding to regulate imported shrimp for consumers. John Williams is the executive director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance, which represents members of the shrimp industry from Texas through North Carolina. He said a lot of his members that are suffering right now. Castor’s bill, the Laws Ensuring Safe Shrimp Act (LESS Act) would address that issue by vastly increasing funding for the FDA to do inspections of foreign produced shrimp. >click to read< 16:07
Derelict Shrimp Boat finally removed from St. Andrews Bay
On April 10th, 2022 a shrimp boat named Phi Long Hai caught fire. Coast Guard officials determined the boat’s ignition sparked the fire. The 50-foot boat sank just a few hundred yards off St. Andrews Marina and has been sitting there ever since until earlier this week when salvage crews from B-REX Industries pulled from St. Andrews Bay to the McKenzie Boat Ramp in Southport. The owner of the boat has since been charged with a misdemeanor and is responsible for the $65,000 dollar clean-up cost, says Horning. Video, >click to read< 12:06
Miz Shirley’s Shrimp Shack after Hurricane Ian
Captain James and Shirley Driggers, owners of Miz Shirley’s Shrimp Shack, have been shrimping for nearly three decades, before Hurricane Ian. Shirley and James sell freshly-caught pink shrimp in Key West. “We started doing this because we need a house but also we need to stay in business. We need to keep our boat up,” Shirley said. Before Hurricane Ian, Shirley and James would pack their boat (named Miz Shirley) with shrimp and unload at the dock on Fort Myers Beach. The couple hired a captain to take Miz Shirley into Key West waters for shrimp, while James and Shirley sell. Video, >click to read< 09:05