| TRAVELS OF DURSMIRG VOLUME IV THE ROGUES OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND OTHER SOCIAL MISFITS Chapter 25 |
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THE SCALLOP INDUSTRY came to St. Augustine, and these were “The glutton’s fishermen” who did their damn
best, equipped with their high powered clean sweep machines to scoop up the last scallop and possibly did.
They filling their vessels until the gunnels ran awash with mountainously high hoards of scallops piled on the back
decks.
The gluttonous loads brought the trawler’s stern down and the bow up so high that the person steering the vessel
had to have a spotter stationed out on the gunwales shouting steerage instructions to the helmsmen. The helmsmen
couldn’t see anything ahead because the bow was up so high it blocked out his forward view.
This was the routine used just to negotiate their way back to the dock with their “gluttons’ load.
Several vessels took a trip to the bottom over laden with their catch but the greedy harvesters did not miss a
moment of relentless fishing with dollar signs glinting in their eyes.
This was exactly like a bunch of thirsty beer drinkers all eagerly trying to extract the last drop of beer out of the keg
before it run dry.
Scallops were first discovered in Florida off of Cape Canaveral and that initiated a gold rush mentality that caused a
stampede of greedy fishermen who quickly refitted their shrimp trawlers to pull the heavier nets and trawl rigs
required for scrapping the bottom clean of scallops.
It was much like the shrimp boom years down in Key West back in the late 1940s and early 1950s when anyone that
wanted a job was hired on and makeshift processing plants were thrown together to handle the inflow of shrimp that
quickly converted to dollars.
Like night follows the day, the bars, floozies and fleecers moved in to separate the funds from the fishermen.
After the wave of scallop wealth began to ebb down at Cape Canaveral the hunt was on to perpetuate the feverish
frenzied cash flow.
So, low and behold, someone found what they were looking for off the shores of St. Augustine and that type of
secret could not be kept for long.
The boom hit little old St. Augustine with a thunderous roar and almost overnight the transformation was made from
Canaveral to Augustine.
This boomtown mentality is interesting to watch and over my lifetime I have seen this happen exactly the very same
way repeatedly again and again.
Hastily erected refrigeration and processing facilities were set up along Riberia Street where the heavily laden
vessels quickly unloaded and turned around in order to make yet another lucrative haul.
I called it the “one more syndrome”. No matter how much or how many scallops were harvested the irresistible urge
for just one more was there.
I have known this very same syndrome while digging clams myself and with each one I would say, “Just one more”
and so on and so on it went when greed overpowered rationality and reason.
Huge mountains of scallop shells were piled and stinking of rotting and decaying marine life baked by the hot Florida
sunshine along the banks of the San Sebastian River.
All along the San Sebastian River the scallop docks reeked of an insufferable overpowering and disgusting
suffocating stench.
Dead marine flesh rotting in the hot Florida sun attracted rats and other rodents but drove away the gasping
retching city residents.
Scallop shells became “dirt cheap” sold by the truckload as driveway fill. We actually bought several truckloads for
one of the houses that Jane and I were building and we had second thoughts after the shells arrived.
The disgusting odor that nearly took your breath away and hung heavy over our entire neighborhood made us into
the “bad neighbors” of the area.
In less than a week however this ungodly all-pervasive stinking stench finally eased up and went away but the
neighbors in the interim held their noses and dreamed of some reprisal.
The bountiful ocean waters were soon dragged clean of their treasures and that promising industry moved on to
scoop up yet another undiscovered prize of the deep in these days of cheap diesel fuel.
This was another brief chapter of St. Augustine’s long and colorful history unfolded.
This scallop shell is the logo for the Dutch Shell/BP Oil Company .
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