Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum. Biloxi, Mississippi

The Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum was established in 1986 to preserve and interpret the maritime history and heritage of Biloxi and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. It accomplishes this mission through an array of exhibits on shrimping, oystering, recreational fishing, wetlands, managing marine resources, charter boats, marine blacksmithing, wooden boat building, net-making, catboats/Biloxi skiff, shrimp peeling machine and numerous historic photographs and objects. In August 2005, the Museum was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Nine years later, a newly constructed museum opened to the public.

There are three floors to the museum and we started on the third floor where most of the exhibits are. The top floor talks about the Commercial Fishing Industry (which I did not take pictures of), the Coastal Environment Gallery and Hurricane Gallery (these last two I took pictures of).

The Mississippi Sound is a shallow, coastal lagoon stretching from Mobile Bay to Lake Borgne, Louisiana. The Gulf of Mexico is separated to the south by a string of sandy barrier islands, which consist of beaches, dunes, marshes, bays and tidal flats. The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway parallels the mainland coast along the entire length of the Mississippi Sound. Waterfront areas along the coast and barrier islands are great places for water activities. 

The barrier islands provide a first line of defense from the damaging effects of wave activity for navigational channels and for the beaches and infrastructure of the coastal mainland. Over the past four decades, Mississippi's barrier islands have been subjected to a number of devastating hurricanes. The elevation of the barrier islands have been reduced, so the navigation channels and beaches have been exposed to increased storm energy.

The barrier islands typically have sea oats, morning glories, and pennywort. Some have slash pine, saw palmetto and was myrtle. They serve as a boundary between the salty seawater of the Gulf of Mexico and the brackish water of the Mississippi Sound. Island loss leads to more salty water, which endangers the existing ecological habitat of shellfish and other forms of sea life. 

Inland wetlands exist throughout the United States. They may be found along the edges of lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams as well as depressions surrounded by dry land. They feature marshes, wooded swamps, wet meadows, and shrub swamps. Other inlands types include saline and alkaline marshes, prairie potholes, vernal pools, playa lakes, cypress-gum swamps, riparian wetlands, wet tundra, and tropical rain forests.

In 2005 Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi Gulf area as a Category 5 hurricane with maximum winds of 175mph. It was the worst storm to hit the area in more than its 300 years of recorded history. It caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damages. 

Hurricane Camille hit the area in 1969 with winds in excess of 200 mph and a water surge of 35 feet. 

The Second Floor of the Museum houses the wooden boats. The biggest wooden boat they have in here is the Nydia. Such a beautiful boat with sleek lines and tall masts.

The Nydia

Half Shell

This New England work boat is classified as a New Haven Sharpie. It was built in Baton Rogue, Louisiana in 1983. It is 28 feet in length with a six foot beam and 12" draft. Crafted from Spanish cedar with special attention given to details and workmanship, it features a cross-planked bottom. Its single mast measures 32 feet and its sail is Marconi rigged. Sharpies are a shallow-drafted, hard chine sailboat which features a flat bottom, centerboard, and straight, flaring sides. Originating in New Haven, they were used for oystering and fishing in shallow waters.

This sailboat sank during Hurricane Katrina and remained submerged for more than a year. It was salvaged just days before FEMA barges were scheduled to remove and destroy it from a bayou in the Bay of St. Louis. Restoration is currently underway.

Sea Bat

The Sea Bat is a 17 foot catboat constructed in 1933 with cypress sides, frames, and skeg, its deck beams are of Spanish cedar, its deck and bottom of juniper with mahogany combings and trim, and its mast and spars of Sitka spruce. All hardware on this boat was originally galvanized by a process, invented in the 1830's, which required applying a coat of zinc over steel or iron, to prevent rusting.

The Sea Bat was built to race, and in the 1930s and 1940s, it dominated its class. Cat boats were originally work boats for the seafood industry, and it was only after the larger, more efficient schooners took over that they became popular racing boats. Large crowds lined the beach and docks when Biloxi's famous cat boats raced down the channel and out into the Mississippi Sound.

The Sea Bat is now 80% restored, a process that requires the skill and knowledge of a master boat builder along with time and materials. The sign stated that they hoped the restoration would be complete by the spring of 2015. -- Since it is now 2022, it does look like the restoration is complete.

The Museum has brought life to local maritime history and heritage by replicating two 65-ft two-masted Biloxi Schooners. They offer what they call "Walk on Sails" where we could have taken a ride on one of the Schooners. We were all set to do that Wednesday (the 2nd) but when I called to inquire about it, I was told that the captain was in the hospital and all sailing was cancelled until next week. It wasn't that expensive for a two hour sail -- only $30 per person.