A Day Aboard the Miss Cortez III

There’s a postcard from old Cortez that makes a day on the water look awfully tempting. The Miss Cortez III is underway, white wake curling behind her, with passengers gathered along the rail and the Gulf stretching out ahead. The promise on the card was just as inviting: an all-day fishing trip, 20 to 50 miles offshore.  It seemed like all you had to do was call the number, climb aboard and see what was biting.

Jim and Barbara Berry were the people behind the trip. By the mid-1970s, their family was building what would become a sizable deep-sea fishing operation out of Cortez, carrying locals and visitors far enough into the Gulf that the shoreline disappeared behind them.

Over roughly two decades, the family built and operated 17 boats under the Cortez Fleet and Miss Hampton Fleet names. According to the Manatee County Historical Records Library’s Herb Loomis Postcard Collection, Jim Berry had previously served as general manager of the Admiral Fleet before the Berry family established the Cortez Fleet.

There was already a tradition of taking folks fishing from the east end of the Cortez Bridge. The Admiral Fleet had been doing it since the 1950s, first with the 65-foot Admiral and later the Admiral Too. Old advertising for the latter promised an “ultra modern” deep-sea fishing boat with a snack bar and “everything for your comfort and safety.” Jim began managing the Admiral Fleet in 1970 and eventually purchased it in 1978, operating those party boats alongside the Miss Cortez vessels.

But it wasn't just Jim behind the helm of the fleet -- this was a family operation. Jim's wife Barbara was just as much a part of the business. Promotional material for the Miss Cortez X introduced Jim and Barbara personally as the visitors' “hosts,” offering four-, six- and nine-hour fishing trips with tackle and licenses furnished.

The beauty of the operations was that targeted to novice boaters. You didn't need to know your way around a fishing boat. You just had to show up in Cortez ready to spend a few hours on the Gulf, and plenty of people did.

That mattered in a fishing village where the water had always been tied to the household pocketbook. A history compiled by the Cortez Village Historical Society in 1987 credited the expansion of the Miss Cortez Fleet and its “influx of people” with making a financial contribution to the village. The same account says Jim and Barbara bought the deep-sea fishing business and “lived and worked in the village.” According to The Cortez Families, the Berry family had become part of both the business and community life of Cortez.

Most days, the arrangement was pretty straightforward. People came to Cortez to go fishing, and the Berrys had boats to take them. But May 9, 1980, was not most days.

The weather that Friday morning was bad enough that Jim Berry canceled the fishing trip. Instead of carrying anglers offshore, the boats remained at the Cortez docks. Then word came from Tampa Bay: in blinding rain, the 600-foot freighter Summit Venture had struck the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. A section of roadway collapsed into the water, taking vehicles and a bus with it. Thirty-five people died.

As the scale of the disaster became clear, the Coast Guard called for help from area boaters. According to a 2015 retrospective by The Anna Maria Islander, Berry's boats were available to respond precisely because the morning's fishing trips had been canceled. Three of them headed north to the site of the trajedy.

Capt. Art Zalampas and mate Eddie Ranft took the Miss Cortez. Capt. Kevin McGeary and mate Phil Hepler went aboard the Miss Cortez II. Jim Berry joined Capt. Bob Locke and deckhand John Chapman on the Miss Cortez III.

Jim and Barbara's daughter Jamie, then 24, went out with Rick Ellis aboard the 22-foot Little Miss. They left Cortez hoping they might find people alive. Before long, it became clear that they were doing recovery work. “It was a horrible day,” Jamie remembered years later. According to The Anna Maria Islander, the Berry boats were among several Manatee County vessels and crews that responded after the bridge collapsed.

In addition to their willingness to step up during disaster,  the family's place in Cortez wasn't limited to being aboard a boat.

By the 1980s, residents were becoming increasingly concerned with documenting what made their village different and holding onto it as the coast around them changed. In 1987, Jim and Barbara both served on the committee behind the Cortez Community Portrait Project. Villagers conducted a community census, gathered old photographs, collected family information and worked to put generations of Cortez history down on paper. The point wasn't simply to reminisce. Project director Mary Fulford Green wrote that by learning a little more about “where we came from,” perhaps the community could work together to control “where we are going.” According to The Cortez Families, the project grew out of a broader effort by residents to understand and preserve their village.

In short, the Berrys made part of their living bringing outsiders into Cortez, then joined their neighbors in trying to make sure the Cortez those visitors came to see wasn't lost in the process.

The village history gives them credit for both. It notes the financial contribution made by the growing fleet and then says, without much fuss, “The Berry family are committed to the preservation of the fishing village.” According to the Cortez Village Historical Society, Jim and Barbara's involvement was part of a community where fishing, family businesses and the preservation of village life were closely intertwined.

Which brings us back to that postcard, where the sky is blue and The Miss Cortez III is clipping along. Everybody aboard looks headed for the sort of day that ends with sunburned noses, tired arms and a story about the one that got away.

You can't see May 9, 1980, in that picture. You can't see Jim and Barbara sitting with their neighbors a few years later, helping gather photographs and family histories. You certainly can't see all the changes coming for Cortez.

It's just a fishing boat headed out into the Gulf. But sometimes an old postcard hangs onto a lot more than the picture on the front.