By Jay Cook
The exhaust of a docked fishing boat’s engine, coupled with a steady chilled breeze of salty air from the Raritan Bay, creates a familiar scent for the Belford Seafood Co-op marina. A pair of forklifts can be heard shuffling fishing cargo from one end to another.
Meanwhile, a Verizon bucket truck, with a lineman fastened in, extends roughly 30 feet up to replace damaged phone lines. The area behind this utility pole is surrounded by bright yellow caution tape, outlining the charred remains of the icehouse, one of the most vital buildings on site.
On the evening of May 27, at the start of Memorial Day weekend, the two-story icehouse was engulfed in flames. Joe Branin, the co-op’s general manager of 20 years, received a call informing him of the situation at 901 Port Monmouth Road. “We closed at 4:30, and I got the call at home at 6:30 at night that there was a fire,” he said.
“I didn’t make any speculation. That’s what the Middletown Fire Marshal said, that it’s electrical,” said Branin, regarding the cause of the fire.
Six separate companies from the Middletown Township Volunteer Fire Department responded within a half hour to the structure fire, according to public information officer Dennis Fowler. The second floor had been destroyed by the fire, while the first floor suffered from immense water damage.
“The initial call was Port Monmouth, Belford Engine and Belford Independent,” Fowler said. “Because of the potential of how close the structures are, Chief Citarella had the additional departments come, in case the fire grew or to help contain it to the single building.”
“Progressively we take the next step. We get an architect, we do demolition, we build a new building, we buy a new ice machine; that’s where it goes,” said Branin. “Just like if your house burns down, what do you do now? You clean it up and you start building again. Same thing here.”
No one was harmed in the blaze, since the co-op had been closed for almost an hour and a half.
The co-op has not had working phone lines since the blaze, and on June 2, Verizon crews were working throughout the day to have telephone service up and running by that evening.
Vastly more important than having no phone service was having no readily-available ice for the fisherman.
“It’s the most important thing besides the fish. It’s the second most important thing,” said Cory Sisler, a 29-year-old fisherman from Belford. “You have to keep the fish cold or they spoil, and then there’s no point in catching them.”
Usually, a day’s catch will be brought into port, sorted out and then packed with ice to one of many fish markets on the east coast. With the icehouse now gone, Branin has taken to the phones to help support his co-op.
“In the meantime, we’ll buy ice from wherever we can buy it. All week I’ve been tracking down sources of different ices, pricing it and what not,” he said. “I’ve called as far as Connecticut to Crisfield, Maryland to get the different pricing and availability and whatnot.”
The Belford Seafood Cooperative Association, led by Branin, consists of 18 members and numerous other independent fishermen who contribute. The co-op brings business to local communities like Belford, as well as sending catch to major seafood markets in Baltimore, Philadelphia and even the Carolinas.
The fire is a setback for Branin in his long-term rebuilding efforts from Super Storm Sandy, a common theme on the Jersey shore. “Your typical hurricane doesn’t faze us. Hurricane Sandy destroyed us,” Branin said. “We had over a million dollars worth of damage here.”
In his office, situated between the fish market and Pirates Cove, the restaurant damaged in Sandy, six feet of water came in from the bay, destroying virtually everything.
While the fish market and offices were salvaged post-Sandy, Pirates Cove is a project Branin longs to see finished. “Eventually, but not any time soon,” he said. “It takes a lot of money to reopen; there’s $100,000 worth of equipment in there.”
Although Pirates Cove has yet to open, seafood is still being sold on site at the fish market. Placed just next to the icehouse, it had not sustained any damage from the fire. Inside the market, customers can choose from a plethora of seafood items to bring back home. Options such as fluke, lobster and sea bass can be regularly found. The fish market also sells littleneck clams at $6 per dozen and $20 for 50 clams.
The co-op is open every day 8:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., except Sundays, when they close at noon. Additional information about the Belford Seafood Co-op can be found through its Facebook page by the same name.
