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Mississippi Gulf Coast Waterways

As told by Lynn Meadows Discovery Center Students
Gulfport, Mississippi

Story Narrative:

The Gulf of Mexico is a significant waterway in the United States, connecting land and sea for millions of people all the way up to Chicago. Interviews with Frank Willem (The Willem Group), Jonathan Daniels (Port Authority of Mississippi) and Captain Bobby Barnett (Shrimper) discuss the significance of the Gulf for the Mississippi Coast in terms of industry, recreation and their personal connections. Whether for fishing, trade or fun, the Gulf is the lifeblood for Gulfport and the multitude of towns along the Mississippi Coast.

 

Frank Wilem: I'm Frank Wilem and I'm the CEO of The Wilem Group.

Jonathan Daniels: (0:29) We're the second largest green fruit import facility in the United States.

Frank Wilem: (0:41) I think the Gulf Coast, the option of riding down the beach, I mean, there's not many places say in California where you can ride for miles and miles along the beach, like you can in Mississippi. And I think, for most people, that close access to the ocean it's hard to describe, as I said earlier, I think either the sea is in you or it isn't. And I can go on a freshwater body of water and I can enjoy myself, but it's not the same, even if I'm on the Back Bay here, I know that's connected to the ocean and the possibilities for where you can travel are limitless. And to me, it just changes the whole dynamic.

Jonathan Daniels: [inaudible 00:01:23] I worked in the commandant's office and worked with men and women that were pursuing careers in the maritime industry. Part of my responsibility was to serve as a watch officer, one of four watch officers going on the annual training crews. I was fairly young at the time, I'd only been out of school for a couple of years, but for me, it was absolutely incredible. So when we came to ashore, it was a very interesting experience, is that the very first time we docked and at the port of Gibraltar, the gangway went down and this gentleman walked onto the vessel, and that was the times when you didn't see many cell phones, but the gentlemen had a cell phone, it was a big kind of flip phone bag phone and he was making arrangements to get food, he was making arrangements to get fuel for the vessel. And he was a ship's agent, and from that point I kind of followed him around for a couple of days. And I've just thought was absolutely incredible what he was doing, that was my first introduction into the maritime industry. And then from that point, I was hooked. Once you go to sea, or once you do something like that, work in the port, it gets in your blood and ultimately is something that's difficult to get out.

Captain Bobby Barnett: (2:30) I'm an outdoors man. I really enjoy being on a water, commercially and recreational. We have two fishing boats and we have a recreational boat, a fun boat too, that we gather up at the islands and in the Back Bay. So there's a lot of fun that's to be had on the water.

Frank Wilem: (2:50) And so, when I was out in LA in high school, a friend of mine kept trying to get me to go snorkeling with him. And I told him I'd done that, it was kind of boring and he kept on. So finally I agreed. So we climbed down this cliff to go out in a place called [inaudible 00:03:02] Bay. And we swam out through the breakers in this rocky coastline. We only had one mask and I don't think we even had a snorkel between us and he had the mask. So we swum out there and I was swimming along and I would bump into rocks and kind of scare me. And then finally it was my turn to use the mask and I put the mask on and looked down and all I saw was these giant gold Garibaldi and all sorts of fish, and there's a lot of kelp there, and a sea rays, a little bit everything. And I was hooked. I mean that instant, it was like the light bulb went off. I knew that that's what I wanted to do.

Frank Wilem: (3:42) I think the quality of living here is really good. I've lived in Miami and Dallas and LA and I think, overall, the quality of life and the outdoor environment here is really second to none.

Captain Bobby Barnett: (3:56) A typical day on the boat would be you come down to the boat this afternoon, get everything checked out, crank up, go fishing, work all night, come in in the morning, have your catch pre-weighed, everything in order and customers start typically coming down this pier pretty early, or people will be waiting on you sometimes. You sell your catch for two or three hours or til you sell out and lock the boat up, secure a boat, go home, sleep four, five hours, come back and do it again. Seven days a week.

Jonathan Daniels: (4:34) The city of Gulf Port actually sprung up around the port of Gulf Port. The port was here and then the city really came in around it. And that's not rare. You take a look at a lot of coastal communities and they grew up around transportation assets in and around ports.

Captain Bobby Barnett: (4:50) We catch orders. If people walks up right now and they say, "Hey, Bobby, I need 100 pounds in the morning. I need 200 pounds." Or my phone would ring all week and I'll have a list of people that order the product, the shrimp, and the first come first serve. If we catch 500 pounds, then first 500 customers, then I'll have to roll them over to another day.

Jonathan Daniels: (5:12) The Gulf plays an absolutely essential part of what we do here. You take a look and it's the lifeblood. It's the waterway where we see the vessels come in, primarily from Central America, South America, up into Mississippi. We have vessels that come out of Honduras, out of Panama, out of other areas in Central America. So for us, it's absolutely the lifeblood. For our operations, how the Gulf and how [inaudible 00:05:46] behave actually determines the way in which we do our operations. So it's extremely important to us, but ultimately, it is that waterway, it's that highway that runs from Central America and the shipping all the way up in the Mississippi.

Frank Wilem: (6:00) While I was out at the NASA site, I started a dive club and [inaudible 00:06:05] purpose of that was to get like minded people together and be able to go on trips together and that sort of thing. And it became, at the time, the most active club and most well-funded club out there. And I think it helped engage people out there, a lot of who had moved to the coast recently and had a chance for people to meet other people with a similar interest. And I think it was a good thing and I enjoyed it.

Jonathan Daniels: (6:29) And when you take a look at the Gulf of Mexico, ports and industry have not been known to be extremely friendly toward the environment. That is changing and it's changing rapidly. The port of Gulf Port about four and a half to five years ago, took a very proactive role of becoming the second salt water US port, behind the port of Seattle, to join the group called Green Marine. We take our environmental stewardship and our responsibility to the environment very seriously.

Jonathan Daniels: (6:57) And I think what's interesting about the ports is the way that we have changed. We're a little banana port, and a little fruit port on Mississippi, but [inaudible 00:07:05] Chiquita utilize our operations to be able to get all their fruit, whether it's plantations, whether it's pineapples, whether it's bananas or other seasonal fruit up, into Chicago. So it's very easy for the port, which just celebrated its 100th year, to be able to look back and say, "What started us is something that continues to feed us and we've only built upon that."

Captain Bobby Barnett: (7:29) Well, the Gulf Coast is it's beautiful and it's great in two ways because you have the Gulf and you have the inner rivers and you have the Back Bay. And it was a well kept secret for a long time, but we're getting more and more discovered and there's a lot of tourism here, but the Gulf is a beautiful place to be.


Asset ID: 8601
Themes: Water, waterways, environment, nature, recreation, transportation
Date recorded: 2018
Length of recording: 8:14 m
Related traveling exhibition: Water/Ways
Sponsor or affiliated organization: Lynn Meadows Discovery Center, Mississippi
More informationhttps://museumonmainstreet.org/blog-node/moms-mississippi-alum-immersed-youth-storytelling


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