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hrimp were in abundance this summer on the Pamlico Sound and nearby waters. For more than a month, the harbor was packed with trawlers during the weekends unloading their catch and waiting for Sunday afternoon to come so they could go trawling for more.

Shrimp trawlers are required, by law, to pull their nets out of the water by sunset on Fridays. The trawler San-Dia of McClellanville, SC, pulled up to the Garland Fulcher docks on a Thursday morning in early July with roughly 5 tons of shrimp.

Catching the shrimp is just the beginning. A visit to the Garland Fulcher Seafood plant in Oriental during one of those busy Fridays showed that many more people than you might think play a role in getting the shrimp ready for market.

One of the shrimp-heading lines at Garland Fulcher Seafood. A bucket of shrimp at a time, the workers remove the heads. There will be many to process this particular, weekend in July, as at least 15 boats have said they have shrimp to unload.

Physically, the pace at the seafood plant was faster than one usually finds in Oriental. There were fisherman leaning in to their ships holds to get the last crustaceans out, while inside the plant, trays and crates and boxes of shrimp were pushed and pulled and fork-lifted across the wet floor and lines of workers popped the heads off of the shrimp.

While workers inside were heading shrimp, the off-loading continued outsid. On board the San-Dia, crew members Clint Belangia, an Oriental native, and Shawn White were hauling orange baskets of shrimp up out of the hold. Crawling over the hold of the boat is Shawn’s brother, Steven.

Shawn White transferring shrimp from a laundry-style basket in to the waiting bucket that would bring the shrimp in to the seafood plant.

Robert Jones, at Garland Fulcher Seafood, runs the lift that raises the metal bucket from the trawler and dumps it in to tank that runs in to the seafood plant.

Inside Garland Fulcher Seafood crews of workers stand at long tables and take the heads off of shrimp before putting them in to a sluice.

Headed shrimp are placed in the sluice running down the middle of the table. For each bucket worth of shrimp the workers remove the heads from, there is a punch put in the white paper stapled to their sleeves(or apron or hat).

Two employees, Aldofina and Aida, had stepped outside the seafood plant to get a soft drink.

Shrimp sorter.

Posted Thursday August 26, 2010 by Melinda Penkava