Shrimping Roatan Style

It is enjoyable to reminisce about when shrimp was king and so much of French Harbour life revolved around the yearly shrimping season. Today, one could come across and old shrimper friend at Eldon’s Supermarket, or drop in on another at his home for a cup of coffee, and so easily settle into talking about those shrimping heydays of the 1980s. Those days, when the Agua Azul marine supply store was a bees’ nest of activity, with hectic men readying shrimpers for the season, when the excitement and expectations of what the season would bring, was palpable and thick in the air. Shrimp boats were docked everywhere in the harbour, and a good deal of them were also up in the French Harbour Lagoon. Most were steel hulls, and there were also a number of wood hulls and several fiberglass hulls. All told, in the 1980s, there were some 75 to 80 shrimpers operated out of French Harbour, each with its captain.

The shrimping season [La temporada] typically opened on the first day of July. Though some departed at dawn, other shrimp boats began leaving at midnight, one after the other. Their hulls were painted in patterns unique to the owners, colors not easily discernible in the night, But their back decks, all painted white, were ablaze in light with their outriggers spread wide.

Once passing the reef breakers to the port and starboard and with a course set at 110 to 115 degrees, the captains opened up the shrimpers’ throttles and the Cummins and Caterpillar engines roared. There was the Gulf Wave, Silver Seas, Captain Dale-O, Active, Thunderbird, Lady Val, and Lady Barbara, the last two being wood hulls. There was the Captain Carl, Three Brothers, Miss Verna, Sheena Mc and Geechee Boy, the last being a fiberglass hull. And there were so many others, with each becoming a world on to its own for the next three months, the standard length of the first trip of a shrimping season.

In the 1980s, there were some 75 to 80 shrimpers.

On board a shrimper, in addition to the captain, there are the winchman, the cook, and the regular crew. Given the large hauls of shrimp at the start of the season, the regular crew can comprise eight to ten men. At the start of the season, many boats work around the clock, fishing offshore at night and along the beaches during daytime, with the captain holding the 6 a.m. to noon and 6 p.m. to midnight watches, while the winchman holds the other two. The winchman is responsible for the maintenance of the nets and a myriad of other duties. The cook is paramount, preparing two meals per day.

The shrimping grounds are vast and are nowhere near the Bay Islands. Depending on where a captain wishes to spend his first night shrimping, his boat could be running continuously for twelve hours or more before the nets are put down for the first time. On a given night, well into a season, some shrimpers can be dragging the grounds off of Punta Castilla, while others are off of Punta Patuca or Caratasca. Still others are at the same time working up near Cabo Gracias a Dios, or the big open grounds west of Bogus Keys (Cayos Vivorillos) or in the vicinity of The Hobbies (Cayos Cojones).