It was in the early 60's when I arrived as the "striker" on the shrimp trawler, "skimmer" It was a new 72 ft trawler which drew only 4 feet of water while most trawlers that size drew about 9 feet. It was made that way in able to trawl in shallow SC shrimp grounds such as bulls bay.
At the time the shrimp dock were located at the little bridge across the creek from the local restaurant. The place was booming then. I came there after fishing on the skimmer in key west. The captain I worked for in key west was the owner who lived in mount pleasant. He hired a new captain who I knicknamed calvin snippersnap which was a play on his second name. He was a stone recent recovering alcoholic who was shaking like a leaf on the trip up the inland waterway from key west.
He was a total "wheel house captain". That's a captain who stays in the wheel house and never comes on the back deck to help his stricker (me). That dude was totally weird. He didn't even leave the wheel house to eat. He ate nothing but cheddar cheese and crackers which he kept in the wheel house. He wouldn't ever let me take the wheel although I was a very efficient helmsman. I hated that.
The owner liked me and it was mutual. The owner told snippersnapper that he could never fire me. He knew he could trust me to drop a dime on snippersnap if he touched a drop of booze which I would have done immediately, if not sooner. Unfortunately he stayed sober.
The "big bugger" (a term used to describe the most productive shrimp boat captain) owned a boat called "bulls bay". about a small 40 trawler. His name was captain Barry who had a crew of two huge black gentlemen. Captain Barry never left the wheel house. He was always spotlessly clean and cut quite a striking figure as he constantaly smoked his pipe. I remember him coming to the docks many times with his boat full of shrimp.
Just up the street there was a gas station where they sold beer and white lightning. I was really shocked when I saw a gas station that sold alcohol. Welcome to SC. There were a few bars outside of town of which I would describe as "bucket of blood" redneck bars. I was always afraid to visit them for good reason.
(too be continued)