"An Oar And An Anchor" Ernest McIntosh Sr.

Shell to Shore Presents: the SHELLCAST! Episode 4!

Welcome back to ShellCast, a new podcast from the Shell to Shore team about oysters and shoreline conservation. 

Our fourth episode features Ernest McIntosh Sr., a longtime resident of Harris Neck, GA, who was raised in a farming family and has long known the value of hard work. In this episode, Ernest speaks about his connection with the Georgia coast, his experiences working on the water, and the significance that Georgia's oceans still hold in his life. Ernest is the owner and operator of E.L. McIntosh & Son Oyster Company, and one of the most important figures in modern oyster farming in Georgia. He ends with a short story that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up!

Please enjoy this episode and visit https://elmcintoshandson.com/ for more information

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, my name is Mark Hunter, and I have the pleasure of serving as Dean of the Odom School of Ecology at the University of Georgia. The Odom School is an international powerhouse in research, teaching, and service. We're natural partners with Shelty Shore who take a holistic view to food harvesting. In ecology, we focus a lot on cycles, how materials flow through ecosystems back to where they started. We love working with Shelty Shore because they return the shells from oysters back to where they came from, completing the ecological cycle. We are thrilled to support them in their work. Together, we help to make Georgia's coast and communities resilient for generations to come. As they say here at Shelly Shore, eat more oysters, save your shells, protect our coast.

SPEAKER_05 1:28

Sheltershore collects oyster shells from restaurants, festivals, and events across the data storage event, and recycle from monitor to code, enabling natural solutions in issues like erosion, monitoring, and clear. You can support ShelterScore by becoming a member at sheltershore.com forward slash S2S member. Eat more oysters, save your shells, protect our coat.

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SPEAKER_02 2:00

Hey everyone, this is Nick, and I want to welcome you to another episode of Shelter Shore Shellcast. In today's episode, you're going to have the pleasure to hear from Mr. Ernest McIntosh Sr. He's going to share about coming up in a farming family and how he learned the value of work. He's going to talk a bit about his ancestral home of Harris Neck on the Georgia coast. He'll share about getting out on the water first through crabbing with his father and brothers and the ebbs and flows of the crabbing industry. He'll share his experiences helping bring oyster farming to the Georgia coast and talk about the connections between wild harvest and farmed oysters. He'll end with a story that will make the hair on your neck stand up. Or at least it made me understand why so many people think of Mr. Ernest as a legend along the Georgia Coast. We hope you like this episode, and please subscribe and share with others if you do. From all of us at Shelter Shore, stay salty, y'all. It's a pleasure to be here with you today. I'm sitting here with Mr. Ernest McIntosh Sr. And uh usually Hunt Revel is with me, but we had a special occasion where I was on the coast with Mr. McIntosh, and so we just thought we would uh we would just do this conversation, the two of us. Um so thank you for being here. I appreciate it. Thank you. Um let's just get into it. Uh I know that you are not from Georgia, and I think that many people will be interested in just your your childhood, your roots, how you came up. Maybe you could start us off just talking a little bit about coming up as a as a child.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Actually, really, I I wasn't born in Georgia, but um in the northern state of Pennsylvania. When when did you come to Georgia? Well, home was here. I just was born during the time that my father was doing farm work. He was doing migrant farm work. He was a crew leader that had high as 200 head of people on his on the Chesapeake Bay on the um eastern shore of Virginia.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

So where where in Georgia did you grow up?

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Harrisnake.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Harris Snake. Where we're sitting right now. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. Wow. Harrisnake. That's amazing. Harrisnake's a beautiful spot.

SPEAKER_04 4:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Uh do you know much about the history? You must know uh I know that Harris Neck has a lot of history. What are some of the the historic things about Harris Neck that you think are are important for people to know about?

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Well, it was before my time, back in 1942, because I was born in 52, and um the government came in and used uh used uh the land that my ancestors and my people was living on for defense for the country, you know. So they built the army airport base there. Over the years they took it from them and they were supposed to return it, but when they return it, they return it to the county. But you know, that was before my time, so you know I don't worry about that.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

We've uh talked to some folks who have been doing some of the organizing and trying to figure out how to get some of that the ancestral land back. Seems like a tough, tough thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Yeah, well. Hopefully maybe one day it'll happen, but maybe I wouldn't be here. You know.

unknown 5:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

Uh you just mentioned farming, that you did a lot of farming during that that time. I know that you've done a lot of farming uh on the land, land farming when you were when you were coming up. Can you talk a little bit about in the field, what that was like?

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Well, my father, he had a lot of people working for me. We would go out there and these people would pick all of those vegetables and stuff like that. And my brothers and I, it was seven boys and seven girls. So we had a chance to get in them fields and during the summer month, we we all was big, yeah, you know, and then we'd be profiling, doing all this hard work, you know, and be around the girls, and you know, it was real exciting. But um my mother, she would come to the fields, she would bring sandwich and cold drinks and stuff, and they would have lunch for people, you know, and then when she leaved, we'd go right back to work. Like every day we would get up to go to work. Sometimes I would have to drive one of the school buses. Daddy had two school buses, and he never would carry no more than about 20 people from out of Florida. You do about 20 migrant people from Florida and carry them to Virginia. Okay. But when we get into Chesapeake and Eastern Shore, Virginia, Daddy have about 200 people working for him, because all the people in that area loved to work with the Macintoshes. Yeah. Yeah. So and we and then we would go to school up there. We would go to school a half a term in Northampton County, Virginia, and then um come back and go to their school here in um Georgia. Yeah. Sounds like that was a lot of hard work. No, yeah, we loved it, man. Yeah, yeah. Now you talk about it, it seemed like hard work. But we grew up in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometime when the when all those people leave the fields to go to another field and they move, the loading crew would stay there and we would keep loading the trucks. Okay. And man, those bushel bass of sweet potato probably weigh about 80 pounds. Yeah. And there they had trucks to hold six and seven hundred bushels. Got strong. Yeah, and then the bushels of um tomatoes and beans, white potatoes. So I mean, you know, right now today, me and the wife, we try to go one side every year to visit.

unknown 8:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

It was real good people. Yeah, that's nice. That's great.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

Many people know you to be kind of a foundational person in another kind of farming in in Georgia, which leads to the question, how'd you get on the water?

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SPEAKER_01 8:42

My father, this is home, Georgia. Harry Snake is his home. And he was born in that area. That's his roots. He was raised up on the water. Harry Snake is working, you know, basically his uh fisherman area. And um, so that's where his roots started at. It was part of him. Yeah. He loved it. But when he left away from it, then he made a living doing farm work to take care of his family. When we was here in Harrisnake, to our old home spot, the way his mother had, you know, where he always lived, he started um working on the water when he was young. So when he broke away from the water, then he went to the farm doing field work, you know. He stayed into farm work for 30 years. And when our mother died, everything changed. And that was in 1973.

unknown 9:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

So Daddy decided to quit and go back and stay home. And he started back on the water. And I was a young man. I went out on the boat to crab with him. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

We he so he started off crabbing.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He went back to doing what he used to when he was young growing up. And I fell in love with it. And I wanted to be a part, you know. You know, I was I was doing construction work on carpet work on 95, and um I got laid off and went out on the water, and I fell in love with it. So I asked my dad, I said, um, you think I can get a boat on my own? He said, Yeah. So I started in 1978.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Do you remember what you loved about it or how it made you feel?

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Well, that's something my wife often talked about. She talks about it today. It was just freedom. It's a peaceful time. You know, you out there on the water, and it's nobody there but you and that good Lord, you know, and if you got that problem, you take it out there with you. You're talking, you're singing. It's peaceful. And you see Mother Nature all the time. It's you would think you're seeing the same thing every day, but it seemed like it's something different every day, exciting, you know. And it's just something that that hits you to just feel fresh air, breathe, you know, and I don't care how hard it is when you get on that boat and running, then it's it's comfortable. Only when you stop the boat in the heat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

Alright, so you were crabbing with your father, you got your own boat, then what happened?

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SPEAKER_01 11:44

Well, my father started crabbing, then I started. Then my brothers came along and they wanted to crab too. I'm not the oldest, but I had some older than me. I had three brothers older than me, and the two oldest ones wanted to crab. So they got them a boat. So what happened? We all had enough boat in the family. My dad had his boat, my oldest brother had one, my second oldest brother had one, and then I had one. Then daddy turned around and bought a boat for um my younger brother. So we had think about five crab boats in the family. So after daddy quit the farm work, he um he seen something. He seen where we had enough in the family. So he said, let's build a crab plant. So my oldest brother, you know, was real excited with him, you know. He said, Yeah, daddy, let's do it. Growing up, daddy had about 20 acres on the back of us with an old home spot. And we used to do uh with cows and hogs and just something for him to do. You know, he'll raise them hogs, and I loved it that because I was young, you know, and um over the years and when he got out of that, that land was just there. So when he came up with that idea about that crab plant, and um we said, well, it's gonna take a lot of money. So what money that he had, we ran out.

unknown 13:33

Okay.

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SPEAKER_01 13:38

When we was measuring it out, the building, he kept telling daddy, make it longer, make it wider. You know, I said, oh man, it's gonna be so big we can't build it. You know, and that's what happened. We ran out of money. So they went on and got an SBA loan. Yeah, so then we were big in it then. You know, and it got so big until 50 women's cutting crab meat. You know, we was catching a lot of crab, you know, each boat was catching anywhere from a thousand to two thousand pounds a day.

unknown 14:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

So it was something to really look forward to, you know, but he got right in it during the time during the turnaround of the picking house. Now look back at what he did, he was a giant, what he was doing. Yeah. Out of all them times that after he shut down, nobody else went into that picking house and could have done anything with it. You know, and I often think about how strong he was with what he was doing. But how he did it, he was a hard worker. He didn't ever give up. He had crab meat shipping all over the United States. We would have the freight truck come down and he had his own label. Macintosh seafood.

unknown 15:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

And I loved it.

unknown 15:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

And my oldest brother really did, and I believe it bothered him today because it didn't stay we didn't stay in operation long. Yeah, probably about ten years. So we got hit right at the time, then this country made a turnaround by buying a lot of import meat. You know, they bought all this import meat and then it hurt the picking houses in this country. Now today it's a very few crab houses around.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

Do you remember what about what year it was that it closed down?

ææ

SPEAKER_01 15:44

It had to been probably ninety, late 89, something around now. Mm-hmm. We started it in '79 or eighty.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

So until that time you were mostly doing crabbing?

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Yeah. When I started crabbing, I never stopped.

SPEAKER_03 16:05

I'm still crabbing.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

So when did oysters come into your life?

SPEAKER_01 16:21

My father was really, I was a carpenter. He could have do a lot of carpenter work and he worked underwater and he knew how to catch crab and shrimp and stuff, but he was more or less like a carpenter. He played a part or big part of building that plant and he had a lot of people coming in, buying and working for him and stuff like that. So but these other older people original from here, when I started fishing, I learned a lot by watching different ones. My brother used to always say I had horseshoe in my boots, but I took pride in what I was doing. I bought my own equipment. I had a lot of traps, and I sent my um kids to college some crabbing. And uh both of them. And I worked hard over the years and and um it kept on, kept on, and and then I started um doing the summer month, crabs, fall of a year, oysters start, and the older people would be picking wild oysters. So back then we were crabbing for like crab price would hit as low as ten cent and twelve cents a pound. And you had to catch a lot of crab. And then oysters was like two dollars a bushel, like ten dollars a barrel. And we would have like ten barrels of oysters on the boat per boat.

SPEAKER_02 17:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

And it was a lot of shucking houses around. So when Daddy built that crab plan, he uh went and got a lease for oysters and he tried it and it didn't work out too good at that time. But so over the years I kept crabbing and I just it just kept billing up. When you think that you're gonna make a lot of money, then they bust us the price. The price goes down to nothing. So now when you was making good money to take care of your family, then it came to the part that you can hardly survive. You know? So then I got a little worried that I need to start doing something else. So when my son, he was doing um CETO. When he came, say he wanted to start working with me on the water. We started crabbing. So then I say, you know what? I would talk to myself. I gotta get into something else. At least for him to be involved in it, you know. So then I had a chance to to get a lease. So this guy came from Texas and been here for many a year. So I asked him, I called him, and um I said, What I need to do to get your lease.

unknown 19:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

He said, Well, we'll talk about it.

unknown 19:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Well, I hit the ceiling.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

What year was that?

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Or about an oyster farming 10 years, so it had to been maybe about 12 years. It's during the time when UGA came in. So um the lease a wild, we got 3,200 acres of wild lease. That's a lot of acres. Yeah, it's a large area. Yeah. So as we've been wild harvesting over the years, then the time came put up that UGA wanted to try something in the state of Georgia. They contacted me and asked me if I was interested in oyster farming. So it was seven harvesters for the state of Georgia, wild harvesters, that started. And we was one of them. Everybody else quit because those cages that they gave us started us with um, I think it was uh 50,000 seeds.

unknown 20:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

And about um, mmm, maybe seven, ten, about maybe about ten, twelve cages.

unknown 20:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

I fell in love with it.

unknown 20:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

I stuck with it. All the ones that was doing it, they quit. Those wild harvesters that they say it was too much work involved. Cause it started with the bottom cages. And those cages were the whole six bags.

unknown 21:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

And sometimes they would get mudded up. You gotta wash them out. So all all the ones that that UGA started with, majority of them called me. Say, man, I don't want to do this. I said, I got some cages. You can come and get them.

unknown 21:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

So my seven cages, and the next person gave me like five or six cages, and you know, and it started me. Yeah. It was a big start. And I never forget it was a guy down in um Woodbine somewhere. He called me, he said, Mr. Ernest, he said, I'm not gonna do this hostile farming. He said, I got a lot of bags. I want you and your son to have 'em. And I said, Okay. He said, Come down and look at 'em. So I went down and looked at him, and he had two hundred bags and you know, and they were new bags. That's huge. Yeah, and God had been good to us, you know. And so we went on and put that with what we had, and we kept billing and kept billing, you know, to it, you know. Then I started building cages because my dad taught us how to build cages. And now today we build our own cages.

SPEAKER_05 22:23

Shelter Shore is a community built by friends, neighbors, and partners across the state of Georgia. A partner to save our legacy ourselves, a nonprofit dedicated to gheachy culture and land reclamation on Zapalo Island, educating the next generation of environmental stewards, taking community-based action against climate change. Surely a way to get your shell to our shore.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

So your son started farming with you when was that?

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Well, we was already crabbing together. Right, right, right. And that was in uh 10 years now in an oyster farming, so it had to been two years before that crabbing. But over the years, yeah, I had him on that boat with me since he was as high as a duck. You know, I would take him on the boat and doing the summer and work and he knew how to do a lot of the water. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

How would you say that over the over since you started the last ten years the the oyster industry in Georgia has changed? What are the changes that you've seen other than a lot of people packing it in because it was too hard? Are there other insights, other things that you know, many people uh like to say that we're uh we're starting to experience this renaissance, southern oysters.

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SPEAKER_01 23:58

Well, I would say uh ten years back when I started, when they knew that I had farm oysters, they didn't want them. You know, some of the locals they had the wrong idea about a farm oyster. They were coming by oysters and say they want oysters and um say if it's them farm oysters, we don't want them. You know I said it's no different. But you know, they didn't want to understand that because that farm oyster comes from that wild oyster. It is what it is. Yeah. And you know, UGA used to um start I need to back up, but when I started ten years ago with UGA, they played a big part with us in, you know, as scientists and and us doing the legwork. It's a lot different in that in a lab or the uh nursery working as a scientist than being out there watching that product grow. So if you don't know what you're looking at, when you leave your s your your science work and then get out on the field, it's altogether different. So we played a part on them helping us and we helping them over the 10 years to help grow it. In fact, a lot of stuff that we did with UGA helped them to get a lot of what they're doing today. You know, rather they wants to go back to it and admit it, but at one time it wasn't nobody. You know, and it is it's the truth. So we played a big part for the state. And for years we was the only one that was doing it.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Yeah, yeah. So now now that there are more leases, I just saw that last week there are three new leases in Glenn County that just opened up. They did open them up? Yeah, they just opened them up a couple days ago. Really? Yeah, yeah. Did you get started yet? I think. So yeah, so it's it seems like uh, you know, everything is starting to move, you know, which uh so I guess that that raises an interesting question, given you and Junior were the the two oyster farmers for the state for a while there. Like what what kind of advice do you have for folks that are are getting into it now? What would you advise people interested in getting into oyster farming?

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SPEAKER_01 26:43

Well, I would say number one advice is produce a good product and love what you do. And don't love it, don't get in into it for what you think that you can make money because you're not it's not gonna happen that easy. When we started it the first year doing and you're not gonna let anybody tell you what to do. Because you think that you got money to do what you wanna do, but it don't work that way. The first year you have the experience of oh I know what I'm doing. But the second year you're gonna throw that, throw it down and say, you know what? I should have did this, I should've done that. Then still you're not gonna listen to somebody trying to help guard them, you know, to do the right thing. Then the third year you're gonna say, you know what? I'm gonna do it this way. So now it's gonna take you three years to realize your mistake. You know, and it's gonna happen, I don't care how much money they might have because when Mother Nature decides to come in to do his thing, it's gonna do it. And it catch you off guard right quick.

SPEAKER_02 28:02

Be patient, pay attention, yeah, learn, learn from mistakes.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Well the stake is just trying to catch on, they got a lot to learn. And I listen at them. They're going by other stakes, some decisions that they the ideas that they got, it's gonna they'll find out that it's a lot that they have to learn. Because they're trying to learn from somebody else. You know, but but now you got somebody out there spending all this money, spending this money to get in it, now you're gonna tell somebody what to do. You got to have some good advice. But then the most important thing out of all of it is being able to keep a safe product so you won't make nobody sick.

unknown 28:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

And they'll be all right once they look at it that way.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

I had them to tell me they didn't want no farm oysters, they wanted the wild oysters. At one time when I started, I believed in that farm oyster when I had that opportunity because it was so pretty, and on real low tide, we can get wild oysters to be just as pretty as that farm Mother Nature.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

You know, but you got to get down to the bottom of the bank on a on a real low tide, and you pick some real nice, beautiful singles. Okay, now that oyster, that wild oyster, we used to take and give UGA like maybe two dozen. They'll take that wild oyster and put it in a um nursery, in their hatchery, and they'll trick it. And they cross spread it. So now people telling me, oh, they didn't want that farm oysters, but what they're getting? They're getting that wild oysters, but the only thing it is is being raised in a cage.

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unknown 29:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:57

Well, it seems like a lot of people have changed their tune on far oysters. Yeah. I had to convince them. Yeah. Education. Yeah. Goes a long way.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Yeah, I had to convince them, you know, they didn't want it. No, no, they're thinking that you were raising an oyster in your backyard. I said, wait a minute, now I'm in the same form because well, what happened? Because some states is real fresh. Yeah. They don't have that salt or their blind taste, uh sweet grass taste. Some of them just got a real bitter taste. I mean, no taste. Yeah, yeah. It's because of their water quality.

unknown 30:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

You know. And uh, I had to convince them to shuck one of them and let them taste it. And then they started seeing the difference.

unknown 30:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

It's really ain't that much difference.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

That reminds me, when I was driving over here, I was thinking about uh last time I saw you was at Landlocked, and I was at the shucking table shucking oysters, and you came up behind me and you asked me how they tasted. And uh I remember thinking, I mean, I love oysters, but I don't know how to tell this man who is, you know, king of the oyster farmers, my words, not yours, like what an oyster tastes like. How do you tell uh what people what oysters taste like? What what's some of the words that you use as a language to describe the different flavors of an oyster?

SPEAKER_01 31:23

Well this is what I learned, what God have taught me and I feel close to is something that just growed on me. You know, and I have been in a lot of conversation with people, ask someone a question, and the way they answer it might be so much on the education side that sometimes you can't really even understand what you're saying. And you know what I'm saying. I've been in a lot of positions where I wanted to speak and and to meetings, and I got up to express myself and they didn't want to give me time because I wasn't the one that got up and use all these fancy words. Yeah. You know what I mean? But it ain't about that. No. I can tell you what it tastes to me. Yeah, you know, and it's being my own way of mother nature, you know what I'm saying? And you'll have to taste it yourself. Yeah, yeah. Some people just feel they just get to talking about names that they really don't even know what it they sing.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

I would just say it tastes like the sea. Uh but I I know that's uh uh a a blanket statement that is not very useful.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Yeah, they come up with some names that I think they don't understand what they're saying.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

You know, let's be real about it, you know. When you get two tastes of oyster and taste it, you know, now it's the showdown of what we got.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

You know, so and that's where my oyster is at. Yeah. Harris Snake oysters. Yeah. It ain't just me, my neighbors, too. They got good taste. Yeah. You know, it's just our water quality. So good. Yeah. Yeah. So it's got a nice, not a salty taste, because you can get it too salty, then that cut down a person tasting them out. Uh-huh. You know, they might say it's too salty. It just got that right, it's got that right taste. It's it's got that grass, sweet grass taste. And you could taste that. Yeah. That marsh grass, and you can taste that freshness. And you could eat one and hot dog, it'll make you want to eat another one.

unknown 33:48

Yeah.

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SPEAKER_01 33:49

You know, I had them sit with me with landlords as fast as my wife could open it. The guy standing there leaning, he he just kept eating, kept eating. It tickled her, you know, because she couldn't even open them fast enough. He said, I want another one. Yeah. You know? So I mean, yeah, yeah. I mean. That taste is something there that you can't almost describe it, you know. Yeah, it's got a sweet, yeah, bland taste, you know. It ain't salty, salty, you know, because I have tastes and moistures that's real salty.

SPEAKER_05 34:26

Shell Tatore is grateful for the Berkeley Hynan Environmental Foundation, working toward a better environment through the spirit and legacy of Berkeley Hynan. Burke cared deeply about the environment and people, and he did all he could in life to help both. He was part of the very first crew of Shell to Chore interns, and his loving spirit created an energy that holds our internship program together today. The intern program is made possible thanks to unwavering support from the Berkeley Hynan Environmental Foundation and further support from the UGA Odom School of Ecology, Wilson Center for the Humanities, Office of Sustainability, and Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. More information on the Berkeley Hynan Environmental Foundation can be found at heinenfoundation.org and on Instagram at Instagram.com forward slash Berkeleyhyn Ef. If you or someone you know wants to become a Shell to Shore intern, please send an email and resume to N-H-E-Y-N-E-N at UGA.edu.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

I got two more two more questions for you. Uh Helene just came through, and I know that you took on some damage from the storm. And I don't need to ask about that, but I'm just curious because you've spent so much time on the water, if if there are changes, you know, as far as what people call climate change or sea level rise, if if you in in your work are are kind of seeing those changes in any particular way.

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SPEAKER_01 36:00

Well, before Eileen came, it was changes for years now on the water. And I've been out here 52 years and I could see it. You know, it's been I remember backing up, I remember crabbing and we could have go out and crab any stage of tide. You know, when I first started crabbing, we didn't have to wait for high water to crab. Now, during the summer month when the crabs hit the small estuaries in the summer months and the little creeks, you can't catch 'em. You have to wait for high water to get your boat up in there to fish your trap. But when I started, you could have put that trap anyways as long as it's in water and fish all summer long and catch plenty of crab. But down over the years, every year this changes. Mother Nature, pretty much, nature, everything is changing. Even the um I remember back in the day we used to catch a bushel of catfish in the crab pot. If you see one now you get happy. And for some reason everything just keeps changing along. Today now we have to go and catch the tides to fish. So when Alina came and the storms and stuff, we get more storms than we used to. You plan for it, and then man itself can't even keep up with it. Yeah. Yeah. They predict it and then it it be worse than what they thought.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

Yeah, yeah. You told me a story once about your boat cutting out. Is that a story you think uh other people uh like to hear?

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SPEAKER_01 38:07

Yes, uh. It's a living true story. Yeah. You know, it left a mark on me. My father back in the day, and when we was crabbing, I had a boat. When I started crabbing, he said, son, you can crab, but always keep your holes and um anchor. He said it's important. I said, All right, David. Okay. I was out there in the middle of that sound. I didn't want to stay when I first started crabbing, he wanted me to stay in the little small water. I had to get out in the big water because I wanted to make money. I would see them out there in the big water, you know, and I'm up in the little creeks. So I eventually moved out in the big water, and he kept telling me, son, keep your anchor and o's on that boat. So this particular day, I had a brand new boat and a new motor on it. It shut down, it wouldn't crack. I was in the chipping channel of Sapalo Sound. And it shut down. I said, oh boy, I look around, didn't have no anchor. I was young, in my early 20s, and no anchor. Figured what man made wasn't gonna shut down. And it did. So it started drifting and I tried to crank that mode and tried to crank and it wouldn't crank. And I got to praying, Lord, and it had uh it was springtide, that tide was getting out strong. I said, oh my goodness. One or two. I fought and fought and tried to crank that mode for about an hour. And he kept going, he kept going. So I gave up. I said, well Lord, I don't know what else to do. Oh by myself, I what I did, I walked up there, I had a Sea Ox. 20-foot brand new Sea Ox boat. I got up there and lay up on the bow of the boat. That was in 1979, too. Laid up on the bow of that boat. I said, well, somebody I'll find me. I see, I was studying talking to the Lord. I said, I don't know where I'm weighing up. That boat drift on out to the mouth of Sapalo, out to the channel, they kept going. I fell asleep, I didn't give up. That boat went right on down the markers, right on out offshore. They passed the red can and they passed the black can. I'm up there asleep, done gave up. Later on that evening, I heard somebody hollering at me because I was sleeping on the bow. He said, Hey, you alright, young man? I woke up, look around, didn't see nobody. Cause my boat had a tall bow on it. I didn't see him. He holler again. He said, Hey, I'm down here. When I looked down, he was in one of them little canoes. You know, one person in it, yeah. He said, How long you been out here? I couldn't hardly answer this question. Cause I was excited where I was at. I looking all around, he asked him questions. Um, this was amazing where this boat done come back. And you know, he said, how long you been out here? He said, he wants some water. I said, yeah. And I didn't know that man. But I drank that water. And um, when I looked, that boat came back across that bar on a high tide. He didn't come back in the channel. He brought, good Lord brought that boat back across that bar and brought us me back into the intercoastal waterway and hid me north going up Liberty County waters. And when he woke me up, I was so far up in there that he knew I was alright. When I woke up, I was down in there about the second green marker down in the intercoastal. So then when I reached here and tried to crank it again, it cranked up. So it's amazing what can happen to you out on their water. Yes, and God can bring you through it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:06

Glad he did. Amazing.

SPEAKER_05 43:34

This shellcast was produced, edited, and engineered by McKendrick Bearding, featuring music by Chris Master Vernica and the shellcasters, a copy by Mary Margaret Cozart, and visual art by Michelle Dramas and Killer Leslie. Special thanks to Jordan Cut for early organization of video files and editing at the same time. See y'all at the show.