REFLECTIONS OF A SHRIMPER'S DAUGHTER

Editor's Note:  This week's guest blogger is Jennifer Ray, who comes from a long lineage of shrimpers.  Her father, Captain Wayne Magwood Junior, is one of several longtime Shem Creek shrimpers in Mount Pleasant, SC with whom I worked during my research for "Last Light over Carolina," now available in trade paperback. 

I grew up here in Mount Pleasant.  Reading "Last Light Over Carolina" brought back so many memories of growing up here.  I recall the fun and adventure my sister and I had along the Shem Creek. 

Some days were spent playing "fort" among the stacks of large shrimp nets at the dock.  Some days were spent in the backyard of my grandmother’s house facing the boat landing.  Nets were strung from the trees where my grandfather, Capt. Junior, would repair them for the boats.  These nets made great hammocks to lay in with the shade of the large live oaks in their yard.  Everyday at lunch, the crew from the docks would come up to the house for a delicious home cooked meal. My grandmother cooked for an army of hungry hardworking men and a few grandkids!

Back then our family had seven boats tied up at our fish house.  Our “fleet” was painted the traditional orange and green and named after members of the family.  My dad’s, Capt. Wayne Magwood, was the Scotty and Sherryl, named after his brother and sister. 

My sisters and I loved going out shrimping.  Grudgingly waking up before the sun only to be rewarded with the most beautiful sunrise that spanned the horizon.  Curled up on the bunk in my dad’s room, we were at least able to sleep a few more hours before the nets came up.  When the nets were opened on the deck it was time to work.  The crew, including us children, sorted the shrimp, fish and blue crabs.  As we grew into teenagers we would sunbath on the roof of the cabin.

Once my son, Matthew, was born he too would go shrimping with his Papa.  Matthew spent many days on the boat with my dad.  Other shrimpers would tell me stories of how my son would talk on the CB radio telling them where to find the shrimp.  Even at five years old he was working just as hard as any other crewmember on the back deck of the Winds of Fortune.


With another shrimp season upon us, I look forward to gathering up the kids to head out to open waters to enjoy a very beautiful sunrise, the first light, on board the family shrimp boat.

GROWING UP MAGWOOD

Editor's Note:  This week's guest blogger is Tressy Magwood Mellichamp, the daughter of a fourth-generation Shem Creek shrimping family.  She is the co-author of "East Cooper: A Maritime History," which documents the history of the area's maritime industry and its continued impact on the region.  I am eternally grateful to Tressy for answering countless questions and connecting me with the Shem Creek shrimpers when I was doing research for "Last Light over Carolina," now available in trade paperback.

Growing up Magwood has been one of the biggest privileges I have been given in life. Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you how proud I am of my heritage. My family has been plying the coastal waters of South Carolina for generations. I grew up a tomboy on the back deck of my dad’s boat. I can remember as a child telling my father no man would ever make me change my name. This made my dad grin with pride having four daughters and no male heir to call his own. But he knew that I would shed my tomboy image one day and he would be thankful for grandchildren.

Growing up Magwood means your family is a little different than most. It means brownies are not always little brown chocolate treats; they are small sweet shrimp. It means you smile as other mothers gasp when your children leave the Aquarium starving for a fish sandwich. It means your dad's cologne doesn’t come in a bottle; it is the scent of a hard day's work mixed with the brine of the sea. It means you don’t go out to dinner for seafood. But more seriously, it means you are a part of an extended family that calls the water their home and my family's bonds are woven as tightly as the nets we cast.

Growing up Magwood has given me some of the greatest joys of my life. We take great pride in our product; taking shrimp from the sea to the table is what we love do. My family motto-- Support American Fisherman: Eat more Seafood, Live and Love Longer!

With that said, my father and I began reading "Last Light over Carolina" on the same day. We instantly were transported back in time and couldn’t put the book down. We finished it in three days calling each other constantly celebrating, crying, and laughing. We were both in amazement of how the story touched us. It was difficult having a father who spent so much time working away from home as a child. We both relived some painful truths about our relationship while we also celebrated what made us unique as a family. We saw many elements of our family’s story and other families we knew captured in the novel. I think a piece of every fisherman’s story is written in the pages.

Mary Alice Monroe did a magnificent job portraying the difficulties facing this endangered breed of men and their families.

BLESS THIS FLEET

A longtime tradition will unfold along the banks of the Cooper River in the coastal South Carolina town of Mount Pleasant this Sunday. And, I plan to be there among the crowd of thousands enjoying an afternoon of shagging (South Carolina’s official state dance) to beach music, admiring local artisan work, and enjoying shrimp eating contests. But the highlight, the heart of this festival, is blessing the local shrimping fleet.

Together we will bow our heads as a local minister makes a public prayer for each freshly painted shrimp boat chugging by on the river. I’m sure that I won’t be the only one in the crowd whispering my own personal prayer for this year’s season to be a bountiful one for our local shrimping families, where every boat trip ends with a safe return to the docks and full nets dripping with plump, wild-caught shrimp.

While the Annual Blessing of the Fleet has swelled in popularity over the last 23 years, the coastal business it celebrates has experienced just the opposite. The Shem Creek boat docks in Mount Pleasant, once boomed with shrimp boats, busily unloading their day’s haul. But today, the number of people in the shrimping business has dwindled so low that this type of lifestyle is threatened. Competition from overseas farm-raised shrimp has been the biggest threat, but the price of diesel fuel to keep the vessels trawling has skyrocketed. So, many of them have left the business in search of land jobs that provide a steady paycheck for their families.

A shrimper’s life is far from a fairytale. However, they will be treated like kings of the waterway this Sunday! With more than 10,000 people attending the annual event, the Blessing of the Fleet has outgrown its usual backyard location of Alhambra Hall and will be held this year at the newly built Memorial Waterfront Park at the foot of the Ravenel Bridge.

On Sunday, when we stand together waving and smiling at our diminishing fleet of shrimp boats, my prayer for them will be that the tide changes in the shrimpers favor. May their nets not only overflow with succulent shrimp, but may they also receive a fair price for their catch. May the tens of thousands of seafood lovers in this coastal community and every city across the country ask for wild, American caught shrimp. May they make their demands known to their local grocers and restaurants.

See you at the Annual Blessing of the Fleet on Sunday, April 25th at Mt. Pleasant Memorial Waterfront Park!

SHRIMP LOVERS TO THE RESCUE

The shrimp were plump, pink. A side of crunchy, creamy coleslaw rounded out this perfect Southern meal served earlier this month at a local fundraising event down the road from my house. It was a great opportunity to help one of the Lowcountry’s beloved shrimpers and the crowds turned out on that warm, sunny Sunday afternoon. Hundreds of well wishers from across the Charleston area came out in support.

Captain Donnie Brown is no stranger to tough times. As a longtime shrimp boat captain at Shem Creek, he and his family have had to ride out the storms that come along with his line of work. The latest storm to strike—a fire on board shrimping vessel, the Miss Karen—destroyed his trawler. His source of livelihood was gone and another shrimp boat lost to the area.

Even on the best of days, American shrimpers have a hard time making ends meet. A flood of farm-raised, flavorless (in my opinion) imported shrimp sold on the cheap has undercut the local market. But the shrimpers have hung on. So imagine the toll it takes on a shrimper’s family when your business literally goes up in smoke.

This is a fire that affects more than just one local family. It affects the shrimping community, which dwindles each year as folks look for land jobs that promise a steady paycheck. It affects me, my neighbors, our local restaurants and the U.S. industry.

So as I filled my tummy with shrimp on that particular Sunday, my heart was filled as well to see hundreds of people enjoying the shrimp boil at Goldbug Island, right next to Sullivan’s Island. Great food, good drinks, toe-tapping music and a lot of smiling faces. No smile seemed to shine quite as bright though as those of Captain Donnie Brown and his wife, Karen, for whom the lost boat was named.

My hope is this flood of community support is exactly what Captain Brown needs to make sure the Miss Karen is a common sight along the Atlantic Coast horizon when the shrimping season begins this spring. See you at the Blessing of the Fleet at Shem Creek on April …..

SWIMMING LESSONS: True Tales at the Sea Turtle Hospital

There is no denying my deep affinity for sea turtles, particularly the threatened loggerhead. This ancient creature of the deep blue swam its way into the pages of two of my novels, THE BEACH HOUSE and the sequel SWIMMING LESSONS.

SWIMMING LESSONS is being re-released as mass market this July with a fresh seaside front cover. My hope is a new wave of readers will find themselves taking interest in the loggerhead as well as the sea turtle hospitals that care for the sick and injured.

In SWIMMING LESSONS, my protagonist Toy Sooner, a single mother raising her young daughter on Isle of Palms, is also caring for injured sea turtles at the Sea Turtle Hospital located at Charleston's South Carolina Aquarium. Each turtle Toy handles at the facility are reflective of actual case histories there.

Biologist Kelly Thorvalson, who is the South Carolina Aquarium Sea Turtle Rescue Program Coordinator, blogs about the amazing turtle cases the staff and volunteers handle. Their mission is to help sea turtles survive in our ocean by healing the ill and injured for their return to the wild. It is through her dedication, and that of the volunteers, aquarium staff, and a long line of generous donors, that the SC Aquarium’s Sea Turtle Hospital has grown into the amazing facility it is today.

After reading, or re-reading, SWIMMING LESSONS when it makes its return to bookstores in July, I encourage you to plan a trip to the SC Aquarium. We have two fabulous new exhibits—an extremely rare albino alligator and a 3D theater that lets you feel the splash of water and more as you watch a film. Also, the penguin exhibit has been extended. And don’t forget to take for a tour of the Sea Turtle Hospital. I hope the pages of my novel come alive when you see with your own eyes the spectacular sea creature that inspired me to write my turtle novels. I hope they capture your heart just as they did mine!

SWEETGRASS: Then and Now

Almost six years after its nationwide debut, my Lowcountry novel SWEETGRASS is gearing up for a springtime comeback. This May will be the first time it appears at bookstores in trade paperback (It’s one of four paperback releases this year).

In preparation for this literary redux, the publisher has given the book cover a makeover (I think the pop of green and yellow color is eye-catching).

As for the story of Mama June Blakely-- her family’s crisis and unlocked secrets—I left the story untouched.

I was inspired to write this story by watching a woman’s strong hands weave together the disparate grasses into a work of art. How like a mother and her family, I thought. And in a flash I knew what my story would be about.

During Mama June’s tumultuous personal journey, the reader also learns about the intricate southern art of weaving sweetgrass baskets. The story raised many harsh realities about the current issues threatening this centuries-old craft.

I’m delighted to report that since its first publication in 2005, some progress has been made to help preserve the ancient African art of Sweetgrass basket weaving.

• Sweetgrass basketry was named South Carolina’s state handcraft in 2006.
• In 2006, the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor was designated by Congress, thus helping protect one of Southern America’s unique cultures shaped by enslaved West Africans.
• In 2009, the Sweetgrass Cultural Arts Pavilion opened at the new Mount Pleasant Memorial Waterfront Park in South Carolina, in an effort to help keep the basketmaking tradition alive.
• Local efforts have been made to encourage residents to plant sweetgrass for basketmakers.

However, commercial and residential development in coastal islands and marshes continue to make the indigenous sweetgrass difficult to find. It’s an ongoing issue, one that was prevalent when I was writing SWEETGRASS years ago and continues today. Southern coastal communities must continue to work to find ways to protect our precious coastal resources.

My hope is that anyone who reads or re-reads SWEETGRASS when it’s released in May will enjoy this family saga of a plantation family and come to appreciate the sweetgrass basketmaking culture.

If you don’t have a sweetgrass basket in your home, go out to the new Cultural Arts Pavilion in Mt. P, or to the Market in Charleston, or stop at one of the many basket stands along Hwy 17. Each sewer is a unique artist. By learning about the baskets, you’ll better understand the cost and appreciate that the baskets are a historic and impressive art form of the Lowcountry. I adore them and have them all over my house. 

Here's a photo of the baskets in my office. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The REAL Last Light over Carolina”

I can’t say I was shocked when I heard the news, but my heart was still saddened by the truth. The real-life vessel that sparked the name of the shrimp boat in my latest book “Last Light over Carolina” is no longer trawling the waters for shrimp off the Carolina coast.

Captain Wayne Magwood, a lifelong Shem Creek shrimper, who graces the pages of the story, told a Charleston news station that his nephew Rocky Magwood is quitting the family business and selling his shrimp boat, the Carolina, because he can’t make a living off of his catch.

Wayne Magwood told the reporter, “With him not having a boat, it hurts him and hurts me too.” He went on to say, “I know how much he loves it and he wants to be in this business. It is in his blood.”

This story playing out in the local media is nothing unique in any coastal community. The forces have been building against our shrimpers for quite some time—the glut of cheaper, imported shrimp, the high cost of diesel fuel, and the disappearing docks.

“Back then they felt like kings of their world. And for a shining moment, they were. Today they were paupers. No matter how hard he worked, no matter how many hours, he couldn’t make it. He was sick of the boat, sick of the shrimp, and sick of scraping by.” (pg. 52, “Last Light over Carolina”)

In my novel, shrimp boat captain Bud Morrison was a fourth generation shrimper, like Rocky Magwood. His tale, and that of his family, reflects the challenges, struggles and commitments of shrimping families past and present.

“For three generations, the pull of the tides drew Morrison men to the sea. Attuned to the moon, they rose before first light to board wooden shrimp boats and head slowly out across black water, the heavy green nets poised like folded wings. Tales of the sea were whispered to them in their mothers’ laps, they earned their sea legs as they learned to walk, and they labored on the boats soon after. Shrimping was all they knew or ever wanted to know. It was in their blood.” (pg. 1, "Last Light over Carolina")

I hope people not only fall in love with the story of Bud Morrison and his wife, Carolina, but also gain an understanding of the shrimping communities all along the southeastern coast.

What can you do to prevent the last light of day from permanently falling upon other shrimps boats like the Carolina? If you live on the coast, like I do, buy your fresh, local catch straight from the fishermen’s docks. It’s cheaper! And, no matter where you live, ask your restaurants and grocery stores for Wild American shrimp. If you do, I’m guessing Rocky will be back on the water with Wayne Magwood and the other captains along our coast.

Learn more from the Wild American Shrimp organization. http://www.wildamericanshrimp.com/.

Also, thanks to Barbara Bergwerf, a talented photographer and dear friend who provided this photo. 

Friends Don't Let Friends Eat Imported Shrimp

Spotted on shirts and bumper stickers throughout the Lowcountry, is the common phrase, “Friends don’t let friends eat imported shrimp.” It’s a mission statement that hardly a crustacean-loving soul seems to be against. Yet, as the number of those bumper stickers swell on the backside of vehicles, our American shrimping industry is quickly vanishing; a real problem conveyed my latest novel, Last Light over Carolina.

The protagonist Bud Morrison thought to himself while on his family shrimp boat, "One thing he knew for sure, though, was that sitting on board the Miss Ann that day with the best damn captain on the southeastern sea and the boast's belly full of booty, the men had felt proud. They were the hunters returning with their kill. Thousands of little critters were nestled on ice. Back then, they'd felt like kings of their world. And for a shining moment, they were."

If we choose to live out the slogan "friends don't let friends eat imported shrimp," our simple actions could help in the fight to save the livelihoods of shrimpers families by living out the bumper sticker message.

So what can you do? Read more at: www.wildamericanshrimp.com