Wednesday Alorning, January 26, 1977

Page A-5

After 35 years, home is the sailor, home from the sea

" I must go down to the seat again, to the lonely sea and the ky. And all I ask Is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;" Sea Fever by John Masefleld By MARIANNE BROADUS
SPECIAL TO THE SUN

MOSS POINT For more than 35 years, the sea has been a home away from home for Hilton Floyd. Even now after having retired from his career as a research vessel captain with the National Marine Fisheries Service, the sea is still a way of life for the somewhat disabled mariner, who .suffered a massive heart attack which curtailed his voyages and left him severely limited in his activities. He owns a 36-foot boat which he pilots for his pleasure and donates his services to the Jackson County Sheriff's Flotilla. He is never alone on the boat and any task requiring physical exertion is performed by someone else aboard the vessel. Floyd is proud of the little fishing village of Mayport, Fla., where he was born. "Boys where I came from cut their teeth on oars," he boasts. "They are seamen and I don't think there are better seamen anywhere than in Mayport. You can't go to any port in the world without running into someone from Mayport," he said. He has traced his ancestry back to Ponce de Leon and said his great-grandmother "was "a Ponce" from St. Augustine. Up to the time he was 10 years old, Floyd remembers fishing in the ocean with his father for shad or beach seining. His father, a marine engineer, spent a good deal of his life on the sea. The summer he was 10, Floyd started going out as a helper on shrimp and snapper

boats. At IS, his family, like many In the nation, faced financial hardship and Floyd decided to quit school and go to sea. It was not until he was 35 that this very articulate, self-made man attained his diploma after attending adult education classes at night. His first long voyage was made at the age of 15 when he sailed on a Panamian oil tanker from Savannah, Qa. as an ordinary seaman. On this trip, his love and knowledge of the sea enabled him to earn a promotion to the rating of able-bodied seaman. The ship was getting ready to sail from Baltimore, Md. to Venezuelan ports where it would haul crude oil to an oil refinery in Aruba, West Indies and then haul refined petroleum products across the Atlantic Ocean to the Canary Islands. As the ship sailed from Baltimore in a blisxard, the captain came to his cabin, awakened him and asked him if he could steer a ship. Floyd didn't waste any time in confirming the captain's faith in the youngster. The man who had been sent to the captain as an able-bodied seaman had no experience and, on the long and rough journey, the captain needed someone with experience. Floyd worked on dredge boats and fishing vessels until he was 17 and then joined the Navy. A few months after his enlistment, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Floyd was sent to Charleston, S.C. where he built submarine nets to keep enemy craft from coming into the harbor. Jack stays, which resemble huge barbed wire, were used to "hang the nets and they would be strung on buoys. The jack stays could rip the hulls of ships entering the. area. "We must have strung seven miles of net in Char-

leston," Floyd said. In wartime, the Navy assigns gunners to merchant ships and Floyd volunteered and was granted armed guard duty. "We had a life raft but we were not assigned life boats because, in case of combat, we were expected to stay on the ship and fight the enemy." He was assigned to the European theatre and took part in the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Normandy, where he was wounded by fire from German tanks while preparing a breakwater out of scuttled ships so Allied troops could go ashore. "I spent the next few months, including my first wedding anniversary, in a hospital in England. I don't like war but I don't regret any of my experiences," Floyd said. On one trip his ship was part of a convoy that was going from Glasgow, Scotland to Halifax, N.S. "Normally, it should have taken 13 days to make the trip but it took us 38 days," Floyd said. "The convoy was broken up in a bad North Atlantic storm and we were attacked by German submarines. We had already sighted the Nova Scotia coast when we saw another U-boat. We fired and we think we sank it," he said." Winds up to 90 and 100 m.p.h. were part of the hazards we faced but we had a very shrewd, 80-year-old merchant ship captain who had come out of retirement during the war. I learned a lot of navigation from him," Floyd said. Before the war ended, Floyd had made 26 round trips across the Atlantic Ocean. For his next tour of duty, Floyd put in for the U.S. Navy's Diving Salvage School in New York and emerged as a qualified salvage diver. When the war ended, Floyd went baek to the sea as a civilian

M M till

SOUTH MIMIMIPPI 8UN/SONNY PIPPIN

Floyd at home with memorabilia from his travels

on a merchant ship. Despite all his travels, Floyd said he has never crossed the Equator. "AH my traveling was done in the Northern Hemisphere ; I've been close to the Equator but never across it," he said. Eventually, Floyd made his way back to Mayport. and bought shrimp boats which he worked from the Carolina 'Coast to the Mexican Coast. In 195? he obtained a master's license to captain a ship from the U.S. Coast Guard, and he joined the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as captain of a research fishing vessel. The license requires passing an extensive test. The Coast Guard evaluates an applicant's sea time to determine what . license he is eligible for. "It would probably take someone about 12 years to get a master's license today" Floyd said. "Getting H involves much study and praotical experience." In his early years with the service, Floyd was based at Jacksonville. Fia. In 1963, he was promoted to fishery methods and equipment specialist. He advised people on rigging vessels, designing fish gear to upgrade the industry and wrote numerous publications on fishing gear for the government. One of the most significant discoveries that occurred while he was doing exploratory fishing was the finding of the royal red shrimp in 140 to 230 fathoms of water. "We need to do a lot more research on the type of gear needed to catch them," he said. "The gear did not perform well in deep water like it does in shallower water. I feel the ruby red shrimp are plentiful but it is costly and difficult to watch gear perform in that depth. Efforts are being continued to help the industry," Floyd said. Extensive research was done on scallops in the early 1970s, Floyd said. The Calico scallop, which is smaller than the sea scallop native to cold waters, was found off the Florida coast. Although smaller than the sea scallop, the taste is sweeter. When you eat a scallop, Floyd said, you are eating the muscle that holds the shell together. The viscera is thrown away, he said. One of the best seafood delicacies, according to Floyd, is the Mako shark. "All sharks have poorly developed kidneys and their waste materials are secreted through the flesh. The Mako is the only shark with a highly developed kidney and its meat is delicious. It tastes like swordfish," he said. Floyd would not expound on his theories about the Loch Ness Monster but he said its existence is a possibility. "There are a lot of strange things in the sea, like giant squid." "I once found a wounded giant. |$uid, 42 to 46 feet long, floating on top of the water off the Florida coast. The suction cups on its tentacles were the size of a half dollar," Floyd said. "Whales have been caught with, fresh suction cup marks on them' that were the size of dinner plates. I'm satisfied there are things in the deepest parts of the ocean that man cannot even imagine," he said. "I've dragged nets to a depth of 1,500 fathoms. While working for the National Marine Fisheries Service, which is the new name for Fish and Wildlife Service, Floyd volunteered to go on loan to the State Department to participate in a fishing port survey in Vietnam. Floyd, as a fishery methods and equipment specialist, worked with an economist and a food technologist to determine the three best ports in South Vietnam

SOUTH MISSISSIPPI

atmoomn

Hilton Floyd on his T-Bomb' for exporting seafood. "We visited hundreds of fishing villages in South Vietnam and traveled by jeep and helicopter. We had to consider the ability of the ship to get into the part. While he was in Vietnam. State Department and Vietnam officials asked him if he would return after his tour of duty was up as a fisheries advisor and help upgrade their industry. "Their largest source of protein is from the sea." Floyd completed his first assignment in Vietnam, returned home and then was loaned for a two-year period to work as an advisor. "I would go to a fishing village, survey their operations and schedule a seminar for two weeks later. I went back to my office in Saigon and do a lot of studying so I would be prepared to tell them what procedures would improve the methods they were using," he said. "I always had an interpreter with me and I always made it a point to tell them I was not there because 1 knew more than they, but so we could combine our knowledge. I can learn from you and you from me," he said. " I wanted to help dispel the Ugly American image. The Vietnamese are a very intelligent people. Although there may be a lot of illiteracy the people are highly educated in their fields." "Shrimp is the most lucrative fishing in Vietnam. I saw 11 species while I was there. Here in the southeastern part of our country, we have four main species, the white, brown, pink and royal red," Floyd said. Floyd's wife, Helen, has done considerable writing on research Ashing for trade magazines. "As far as we can tell, the first shrimp caught in this country with a trawl was done by the Portuguese in 1913 off Fernandina, Fla. They caught plenty of shrimp in Mississippi and Louisiana before 1913 but they used a different method," Floyd said. The bush shrimp, which is a tiny species that you see dried and salted and packaged in some stores, used to be harvested in the bayous by hanging seine nets on thick bushes and then pulling them up. The Indians probably marketed the first shrimp in 1865 in Louisiana, Floyd said. A massive heart attack while he was in Vietnam ended Floyd's seaman career. "I was really lucky that I.had the heart attack while I was in Saigon. They had a modern hospital and I spent 15 days in the intensive care unit. I spent about 60 per cent of my time , in the boondocks and if I had the attack there I wouldn't be here now," he said. Because he is permanently disabled, Floyd spends a lot of time reading, especially about things pertaining to the sea. He does his reading in a room his wife jokingly refers to as "the sea-sick room." " I spend a lot of time in here reminiscing among all the memorabilia that adorn the room. "I enjoy providing the services of my boat to the Sheriff's Flotilla. They are a devoted group of people," he added, and said Us Uniited activity keeps him near the water. "I'd be lost if I didn't have anything to do with the water."

Single prefers to live at home

DEAR ABBY: I'm a single 24-year-old woman who lives at home with her family. I love my family and they love me. They have plenty of room and I feel that I belong here. When some of my friends hear that I don't have my own pad, they ask what's wrong with me. Abby, why do so many young people leave perfectly wonderful homes to move into a cramped, crummy apartment just to "get away" from home? I have a good job and insist on contributing financially to our home, so it's not as if I'm freeloading. I can move out any time I want to, but I like it here. Is there something wrong with me? I know others my age who also live at home, but they seem embarrassed by it. LOVE MY HOME

An unlikely revolutionary

Matlovich not out to be just a

BY KEN RINGLE WASHINGTON - Leonard Matlovich was always an unlikely revolutionary a decorated Vietnam veteran with a spotless service record; a lifelong Republican; the sort of earnest, sincere young man Mother always recommends to a daughter. Just over a year ago he was discharged from the Air Force because he is homosexual, after a landmark civil rights case still under appeal. Since then the 33-yearold former sergeant has moved in many directions: Physically from Hamtpon, Va., to Washington, D.C.; culturally - from the military, to the civilian world; and psychologically from reluctant acknowledgement of his^ own sexual identity to a certain hesitant pride. "I want to help people understand that sexual ftereotypes are nb more vilid them ratiai sterotypes ...," he said ... "that there are gay people who are virtually celibate and gay people like myself with very traditional moral values ... that whether or not you're gay is determined not by what you do but
THE WASHINGTON P08T

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l i A R LOVE: There !i'nothing wrong "M* yon. And there is nothing wrong with people who prefer their own pads* Different strokes for different folks.

the message? TOat noman can be trusted with s female domestic antler ft? Sorry, I don't bay it. The message I get from your letter Is that YOUR husband can't be trusted, period.

DEAR ABBY: I hope that you will print this letter to warn other working wives. My husband and I lived in a comfortable house in the suburbs. We have two young children. For a long time I. had asked my husband to hire a live-in housekeeper, but he was never very fond of the idea. Then out of the blue he suggested hiring this girl. (I'll call her Amy.) I thought she was too young, but my husband said she would bp good tor the kids. Good as she was for the kids, she was better for him. We are now divorced. I hope you get the message. CLEANING ALONE DEAR GLEANING: So what's

LEONARD MATLOVICH by how you feel -r about others and about yourself/' There are things Matlovich himself has only recently learned and, he says, islearning still.

"I used to live in pure terror thinking I was the only one who felt this way." he sa|d. "But in Washington I find myself meeting new poeple and saying 'wow, a civil engineer who's gay .. or someone in the White House,' It makes me so proud." At the same time, he says, his biggest adjustment problems have come from the very gay community he moved here to join. Crackpots, he says, have tried to attach themselves to him and profit from his status as * symbol of gay liberation. Other homosexuals have shunned him, he says, apparently jealous of his new fame. He has been disturbed by what he sees as factionalism and discrimination within the gay community itself* by racism and cultural isolation among the very people who, he feels, should be leading the way toward a mors open, more tolerant society. Having sacrificed a promising military career, he Is now collecting unemployment and living off savings. "And suddenly,", he said, " I find

myself with virtually no straight friends." But to Matlovich, the price of "coming out of the closet" and acknowledging his homosexuality has not been too high. He doesn't even speak of it as a tradeoff. "I did what I had to do for myself," he says. " I don't know what I expected tofindafterward. There was so much happening to me so fast at the time (of his hearing and discharge from the Air Force) that I didn't even think about afterward. Anything would; have been better than continuing to Hve in v fear. v Matlovich lives today In a Capitol Hill town house he shares with; two friends. He spends Us mornings swimming (1 % miles * day "two years ago. I couldn't swim a stroke") and his afternoons on porrespondence. Most of the 1*11? relates Ho speaking dateCtiM to ftSgtftliUMU vftb NBQf ' ' " ' sion special based on. Miftl InhispubOellfe, l<ct^airtmt;h|id onVH&jfrflAltfJ* lawavttaV'Cftn m l his Hvelihood.