Tag Archives: Fort Myers Beach shrimping fleet
Shrimp and Grit: Fighting to save the Fort Myers Beach shrimping fleet after Ian’s devastation
The Perseverance sunk. The Penny V was crushed. The Pleiades cracked in half. Aces & Eights had five holes. The Babe took a beating. The Capt. Ryan was boxed in. The Kayden Nicole tipped. Boats were scattered along the San Carlos Island waterfront in clusters. Six boats were flung into bushes, sea grape trees and dead mangroves not far from Trico Shrimp Company, the other major shrimp player on the waterfront. Ten floated maybe a quarter mile west, up into an RV park and a boatyard. Most of these boats were old before Ian arrived. They had been built to last one decade but stretched for five, held together with the glue of ingenuity, by owners and mechanics unwilling to concede to those who called it a dying industry. Right after Ian, just one boat was fit for sea. It was the F/V Malolo, the namesake of the boat Anna’s great-grandfather had first brought to Fort Myers. Photos, >click to read< 21:30
