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NORMA JEAN II
The Norma Jean II is a one of our local shrimp boats and it is moored at Sasser’s Docks located on Turner Creek. The captains and first mates also known as strikers are so friendly! They are always playing music and take the time to offer up a friendly wave! But I have to say, “Every time it passes us by it brings to mind my father’s shrimp boat the BLUE BEEP!
“BLUE BEEP”
If you have been reading the stories that I have been writing about Daddy you already know that he never did anything half way. So when it came to the shrimping business you guessed it “we had it all.” Daddy brought a small shrimp boat or should I say, “A boat that he turned into a shrimping boat.” The boat once purchased was painted “cobalt blue.” So therefore he named it the “Blue Beep!” Believe me I wish I knew why he picked this color, but if I had to guess somehow he most likely already had the paint on hand. As I am writing this I am smiling and every now and then I have to stop typing so that I can laugh. This truly happened.
After Daddy had purchased the boat, he re-powered it, and added the necessary trawling equipment making us ready. The engine was removed from a junk yard wrecked car and was made ocean ready by my father. All the trawling equipment was master minded by my father. As a child, I just thought it was a bunch of pipes sticking in different directions. And All I remember about the small engine that turned the pulley that pulled the shrimp net in was removed from a broken lawnmower.
The “Blue Beep” was basically a cabin cruiser that had been gutted of all of it comfortable interior design. So therefore it was really now a true “Shrimping Boat!” My father knew how to do almost everything when it came to fishing and shrimping, but he didn’t especially want to be a shrimp boat captain. So he hired a captain to run the “Blue Beep.” The captain would receive as pay 30% of earnings from the boat. This all sounded good to the new employee/captain. According to the newly hired captain, he knew it all when it came to shrimping. In fact according to his story I thought he should have had his own boat, but being a child what could I possibly know.
The first day that the “Blue Beep” was out fishing the captain accidentally, while pulling in the net, drifted over it, and badly tangling it in the wheel. There were no wrecker services such as SEA Tow or Boat US in the ocean during this time. So therefore Daddy had to get in his boat, go to the ocean, and tow the “Blue Beep” back to the dock. After a little discussion of which I wasn’t suppose to hear, they repaired the net, at least what was left of it, and back to the ocean the “Blue Beep” went. The second day wasn’t much better. At least the net didn’t get tangled in the wheel. However, the captain forgot about the rocks at the mouth of the Savannah River at least until he hit them. Once again, Daddy had to tow the “Blue Beep” to the dock. I went to the house for this lecture. The damage wasn’t too bad. Daddy fixed it in less than a week giving the captain a chance to get his shrimping plan together.
On the Captain’s first day back with hopefully all of his mishaps behind him I suppose he was thinking about all that money he was going to make. After all 30% could be a hefty amount especially if he caught as many shrimp out of the ocean as he had figured in his mind. However, after a while my father figured it out. NOTHING FROM NOTHING IS ABSOLUTELY NOT- A-THING! Our shrimping boat business didn’t last very long! And this was about when The Blue Beep went from shrimping to the for sale section!
Thanks for reading! Captain Judy
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