Tag Archives: Shem Creek
Bucking rumors of a dying industry, young Lowcountry shrimpers take to the sea.
In pre-dawn’s inky stillness, brackish water floods the back roads leading to Haddrell’s Point near the mouth of Shem Creek on Charleston’s harbor, the full moon’s gravitational pull swelling tides to record heights. Where pavement turns to gravel, a lone street lamp illuminates old signage for the shuttered Wando Shrimp Company, a once vibrant seafood-processing warehouse that closed in 2014 after a sixty-five-year run. There, a ramshackle wooden walkway stretches toward the glaring floodlights of a shrimp trawler named the Miss Paula. Her tangle of furled nets, steel winches, chains, and ropes reach into the night sky. Water laps the dock as three young men pass buckets of ice up onto deck. One by one, their feet anchored in a scupper hole for leverage, they hoist themselves aboard. In an industry dominated by old salts, some of whom have been trawling shrimp for more than fifty years, the Miss Paula is remarkable for the youth of her crew. Captain Vasily “Vasa” Tarvin, at the time of this outing in late 2016, is 25. His deck mate, Franklin Rector, 23. Manning the wheel is Michael Brown, who at the age of 37, wryly pronounces himself “babysitter” on today’s run. click here to continue reading the story. 13:22
The struggle to preserve Charleston’s ‘working waterfront’
In McClellanville, longtime commercial fishing businessman Rutledge Leland is mulling retirement from Carolina Seafoods and talking to the town’s cadre of shrimpers and other fishing professionals about forming a co-op along Jeremy Creek. In Mount Pleasant, town officials stepped in to moderate an intensifying feud among residents, recreational boaters, commercial fishing interests and others over just what to do about Shem Creek. The town formed an ad hoc committee from among them. At issue is whether the working waterfront can be saved. As those two towns suggest, the answer might just vary from spot to spot. Read the story here 07:59
This Week in Print – Did you know Charleston once produced scallops?
In 1978, Mount Pleasant was a sleepy little town, with very little to report on to include crime. So the article about a nine and ten year old being charged with attempted breaking and entering might bring quite a few chuckles. But the boys were caught on Easter Sunday, crowbar in hand, trying to pry open the vending machines at a Coleman Boulevard service station. An employee there caught them and detained them until the police got there. Police Chief Chuck Dawley told the Moultrie News that despite their age,,, Read the article here 10:48
The Easy Lady – Restoring the wooden boat from keel to chine and one plank above
More often than not, the sentimental and historical value of something is more than the sum of its parts. Such is the case of The Easy Lady, a well-known commercial fishing boat in Shem Creek. She’s owned by Captain Kenneth Ezell who considers her the crown jewel of his career. The Easy Lady has a hydraulic pot hauler and is designed to catch 100 bushels of crabs a day to be delivered to local picking houses. The ship can also be converted to a shrimp boat in under 45 minutes. There is nothing else like it on Shem Creek. Read the rest here 16:32
Shem Creek down to eight shrimpers, almost down to seven with F/V Mrs. Judy Too taking on water – Video
Captain Tommy Edwards says if he wasn’t able to get to his boat when it began sinking and if North Charleston’s Fire Department had not arrived with a pump, his livelihood would be dead. Read more here counton2.com 12:34
F/V Lady Eva sank at the Wando Seafood Company dock in Shem Creek
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Members assigned to Coast Guard Sector Charleston are monitoring a sunken vessel Wednesday for potential pollution in Shem Creek, in Mount Pleasant, S.C. The owner of the Lady Eva informed the Coast Guard the vessel had little to no fuel aboard due to operations over the last few days. Soft sorbent padding and sausage boom has been placed around the vessel in an effort to capture any residual pollution. more@uscgnews 15:40
