JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- For those who make their living on the high seas, the raging ocean from Hurricane Sandy is keeping them idle and costing them money.
Crewman Rick Nichols has plenty of time to clean the Mayport Princess party fishing boat. It's been docked since Tuesday due to the nasty weather offshore.
The crew would normally take 40 people out fishing everyday, with customers paying $80 a day, but not this weekend.
"It's terrible," said Randy Estes, a crew member of the Mayport Princess. "They are calling for seas to be 20 feet through the weekend, and probably with that much swell out there, that will stop us from going out until Thursday. Not good for the pocketbook, not good at all. It is how we make we make our living. Something like this happens, just nothing you can do about it."
Local charter boat captains who do inshore fishing trips say that is a wash as well, as the weather is too bad to go out and throw a line in the water.
Carl Moore, known as Captain Crab, has been shrimping for 43 years. His boat Sea Angels had to come in Thursday after 21 days on the ocean -- no shrimping in this weather.
"Our production is probably $2,000 a day or something like that that we are losing. You can't do nothing about mother nature. You have to take it as it comes."
Moore is hoping this loss of thousands of dollars in production could mean some good news, that this nasty weather could actually increase the number of shrimp in the ocean later. It could force shrimp that are in the Savannah River, the St. Johns River, and the Banana River to seek deeper water and come out into the ocean.
"I think it will help a lot, this wind and all, shrimp on the inside some will come out and we can start catching a little bit better. I'm pretty sure it will help. If it don't, we're in trouble for the whole year."
Moore says the shrimp season started out strong in the spring, but the numbers were down in the summer and now in the fall. They need something to happen to increase their catch and they are hoping Sandy will be it.
First Coast News