Tag Archives: shrimp boat owner Timmy Jordan

Last haul? As Georgetown eyes redevelopment, shrimpers brace for end of working waterfront

Timmy Jordan has spent most of his 49 years on the water. No wife. No kids. Just days and nights of dragging coastal waterway bottoms for shrimp, hoping for a good haul. But over the last few months, he has grappled with the stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining and depression. He’s been preparing to moor his trawler alongside sailboats scattered in the Sampit River because he and this city’s other five shrimp boat owners were told the dock at the end of Cannon Street will close this month. The target date for the closure has been fluid since last year as the Tarbox family worked through selling Independent Seafood, the former wholesale market on the dock that originally opened in 1939. The shrimpers have tried to find open dock space from the North Carolina line toward Georgia but have been told no one has room. For them, an anchor is the only option. “This is my life ending,” Jordan said aboard his Miss Lue. “This is death for us that’s been in the business for so many years. We’re dying. It’s dying, and we’re dying with it.” 63 photos, more, >>click to read<< 11:55

With dock closing, Georgetown shrimpers ask if local port could become new home

Waterfront seafood vendor Independent Seafood will close after more than 80 years, leaving Georgetown shrimp boat owners without a long dock that has been key to their livelihoods for generations. The sale of the lot and its brick building at the southern end of Cannon Street comes at a time that Georgetown County is seeing lower seafood sales than years past and fewer trawlers in county waters. An idea to replace the lost dock space to keep remaining shrimp boats in town involves a spot not far away from Independent Seafood’s dock — the dormant Port of Georgetown, soon to be turned over to Georgetown County from the state ports authority. >click to read< 08:25