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Feathered Disasters ne day I was patrolling in my boat along the docks on Shem Creek and spotted some activity on the deck of Captain Lewis Porcher’s green-painted trawler, the Miss Glena, which was tied to the dock on the west side of the creek. Captain Lewis and his crew were on the stern of his shrimp boat cleaning out the nets and tidying up after a day of trawling. I pulled alongside and stepped up on the bow of my boat. Holding on to the port rail of the Miss Glena, I began asking Captain Lewis about how things were going in the business—the price of shrimp, the amount of shrimp they were catching—and just making general conversation. A man possessed of a gentle nature and a quiet dignity, Captain Lewis was one of the few African American trawler owners in the Shem Creek shrimp-boat fleet. He was knowledgeable about the business and much respected by others in it. I used to enjoy hearing his comments and his laugh on the marine VHF in the predawn hours as they lowered the outriggers and readied the nets for trawling just offshore of Morris Island. As I stood there talking with him, one of several brown pelicans that were perched atop the outriggers turned itself wrong side out and let fly with a voluminous and vile downpour that managed to wash over me from head to toe. If I had been dipped in a bucket of whitewash, I could not have been more covered. I don’t know who was more surprised, me or Captain Lewis. His crew, who had been busily at work on the deck, quickly exited the scene and stampeded through the wheelhouse door. I could hear their O Feathered Disasters 199 squealing, hissing, and muffled laughter emanating from within. Captain Lewis just stood there mute, appearing absolutely stunned. I could tell that he was trying desperately to contain his amusement over my predicament. Knowing him to be a good Christian, I was equally desperate to refrain from abusing the King’s English. In a sudden burst of lucidity, I asked Captain Lewis if he had a water hose handy, and he replied that there was one on the other side of the deck. I asked him if he would mind dragging it over to me. He stepped across the deck, pulled the hose across to the rail, and started to hand it to me. I said, “No, I want you to hose me down.” By this time the situation had attracted the attention of many people on the raised deck of the nearby restaurant, and the rail there was beginning to become quite crowded. I asked Captain Lewis to just give me a good, thorough hosing down to get all that stuff off me. After a little initial reluctance, he aimed the nozzle and proceeded to wash me down from top to bottom, a spectacle that created quite a stir among the onlookers, who by that time were beginning to cheer and clap and attract even more attention to my dilemma. I also saw several of the crewmen peering through the cabin windows, wide eyed and wheezing thorough their teeth in a feeble attempt not to be too obvious in their mirth. After that public ablution, I took the hose from Captain Lewis and washed down my boat, thanked him for his help, started my engine, and slowly exited the creek, still listening to gales of raucous laughter receding behind me in the distance. Belle did not seem impressed, sneezing and snorting at the odoriferous residue of pelican. Not too many years later, I exacted an accidental revenge of sorts on a—if not the—pelican. I had been giving my friends Danie Malan and Johan Spies, both professional hunters from South Africa, a midwinter boat tour of the Santee Delta and Cape Romain and was heading south down the Intracoastal Waterway. They were seated forward of the console in my fifteenfoot Whaler, and I was pointing out the fauna and flora of the passing marshscape. There were numerous flocks of oystercatchers, semipalmated sandpipers, cormorants, wimbrels, and pelicans arrayed on the white oyster banks bordering the waterway. As we approached the intersection of Price Inlet and the waterway, I noticed a large flock of pelicans standing atop the shell bank. To give my friends a closer look, I steered the boat over, running parallel to the bank, explaining over the noise...

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