Florida Charter Boats Gird for Losses as BP Leak Ruins Fishing

[phantom power]

June 9 (Bloomberg) -- Gary Jarvis, a charter-boat captain from Destin, Florida, says he planned to make at least $60,000 this month taking anglers out in the Gulf of Mexico to catch red snapper. Instead he’s living on $5,000 he got from BP Plc to help cover income lost to the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

“This is crushing,” said Jarvis, 58, who says he has $20,000 a month in bills and normally grosses about $350,000 a year as a charter and commercial fisherman. “I’m already calling creditors and saying, ‘Look, this may go really south.’”

Florida’s fishing industry is reeling as oil spreads through the Gulf and shuts down the waters that typically draw millions of tourists and fishing enthusiasts to the state. Recreational saltwater fishing in the state generates $8 billion in revenue a year and commercial fishing produces an additional $4 billion, according to Robert Zales II, president of the National Association of Charter Boat Operators in Orange Beach, Alabama, on the Florida border.

“We aren’t fishing anymore,” said Zales, 57, who runs a family charter-fishing business in Panama City, Florida, and has been in the industry for 45 years. “Everybody is scared as hell because no one knows what our future is.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601072&sid=aNa1UGHdk.mo

[no_hypocrisy]

1. The oil disaster won't "hit home" until some billionaire's white sand on his beach

in Miami or Boca is despoiled and discolored and the fumes of oil overcome the salt air.

[aquart]

2. $5,000 from BP? Those cheesy bastards.

People were making good livings which have been destroyed. Subsistence is NOT what is owed. The whole damn amount is owed.

Take it out of the dividend.

BP thinks it is going to recover. The Gulf, not so much.