THE LIFE CHANGER

Editor’s Note: "Swimming Lessons" will be re-released in paperback this July.

This week’s guest blogger is Sue Foster, a devoted reader who dedicates her time as a volunteer at the South Carolina Aquarium’s Sea Turtle Hospital.

Summer 2007-- My life changed forever after reading “Swimming Lessons” by Mary Alice Monroe. On page 233, she writes:

“Once smitten with sea turtles, it was a love affair for life.”

How true! I loved reading the previous book, “The Beach House” that tells about the turtle ladies on Isle of Palms monitoring the turtle nests. “Swimming Lessons” introduced me to the sea turtle hospital at the SC Aquarium in Charleston. I was fascinated about the work that was being done with the rehabilitation of the sea turtles. By summer’s end, I had e-mailed the project manager, Kelly Thorvalson, about volunteering part time. Our schedules didn’t match and there were no openings in the hospital.

Fast forward to March 2009. Kelly e-mailed me and wanted to know if I would be interested in doing tours of the turtle hospital because they were expanding the tours. Would I, a retired teacher, be interested in educating people about sea turtles? Best e-mail of my life! I started May 1st.

(Here's a recent group photo of the Sea Turtle Hospital volunteers.  I'm third from the left in the back row.  Thank you, Barb Bergwerf, for sharing this snapshot.)

I finally got to see what excited the novel’s main character, Toy Sooner, in “Swimming Lessons” so much. Sick sea turtles came in, healthy turtles were released. I read what I could about them and asked endless questions of the staff and volunteers. Everyone always takes the time to talk about the turtles and their treatments. If it were not for "Swimming Lessons", I may have never fallen in love with these beautiful animals.

Visitors coming on the tours all love the turtle hospital and the turtles. One young lady from Pennsylvania came on a tour last fall and told me she was in the middle of reading "Swimming Lessons" and had to come. A person from Ohio had a copy of the book with her that she had just read and had to come see what the character Toy loved so. I’m asked all the time what got me to the sea turtle hospital after being a Special Educator for decades. "Swimming Lessons", I tell them.

On May 1st of this year, we released 7 turtles. I had the privilege of releasing a baby green sea turtle back into the ocean. The sea turtle hospital has released 51 turtles! I will always be indebted to Kelly Thorvalson for giving me this remarkable opportunity and Mary Alice Monroe for showing me the path to the sea turtle hospital. Lastly, a special shout out for Dr. Shane Boyland (vet), Christi Hughes (biologist), and all of the dedicated volunteer staff.

A LOWCOUNTRY DELICACY

Editor's Note:  This week's guest blogger is my friend Nathalie Dupree who has written 10 cookbooks, including her latest, SHRIMP AND GRITS.  Two of her books, SOUTHERN MEMORIES and COMFORTABLE ENTERTAINING, have won James Beard Awards. She has hosted over 300 television shows for PBS, The Learning Channel and the Food Network. She writes regularly and does videos for the Post and Courier Newspaper. Nathalie is married to author and professor Jack Bass and lives in Charleston, SC.

Living in South Carolina’s lowcountry brings surprise gifts, unbidden, from secret places. This month it is brown shrimp. These are the sweetest of the local shrimp, and are found closer to shore. Some people call them creek shrimp when they are tiny, but the chances are they were born in the ocean, or the mouth of the ocean (in Charleston we say the Ashley and Cooper Rivers form the Atlantic Ocean), according to some shrimpers. They float into the creeks and marshes and live there cozily until it is their turn to swim out and spawn.

There is no rhyme or reason, they say, for when they come. “It’s a bonus from God,” one shrimper said, “all of a sudden they appear, and are easily caught from boat or pier. Any kind of seine can catch them, just about.”

We had gone to McClellanville, South Carolina to see the shrimp coming in and photograph them as they spilled from the shrimp boats into their containers to be sorted and sold. I always think of shrimp boats out at sea as pirate boats – never having seen a real pirate boat. There is something majestic about them, and I hate to reduce them to a word as harsh sounding as trawlers. Their nets hang from them, in the distance changing them to look like mosquitoes on the horizon.

When they come close, or are docked, the ones in McClellanville were day boats, leaving before dawn and arriving home later in the day. They come off the boat in huge baskets, hauled by strong men who dumped them into ever bigger bins which went through a conveyor belt until they went out to be weighed. Their tasty little heads were still on them before they went in to be processed. It is a shame more people don’t know how sweet the heads are, and want them removed.

True connoisseurs of them cook them in their shells, head attached, before tearing off the head and sucking out the juices in the way that Cajuns such the heads of crawfish. When they are very tiny, there are long–time Lowcountry inhabitants that eat them head, shell and all, declaring them a delicacy of the highest order.

Brown shrimp are really gray in South Carolina and Georgia, looking nearly white; the same species is brown when caught off the shores of Texas. In large part this is due to what the shrimp eat. Those caught off the Gulf shore has been living deeper in the ocean, while the marshes of the Carolinas and the bayous of Louisiana provide sweeter tasting shrimp.

Shrimp need not be de-veined (the long black streak down the back) unless they were caught in sandy areas. Most “baited” shrimp caught off a dock have to have the vein removed as it retains the harsh taste of the feed used for baiting. If unsure, cook one from the batch as a test. De-veining takes a bit of time and if it isn’t necessary, why bother?

The heads, as well as the shells, make a succulent broth that produces sauces and soups that last in the memory a long time after they are eaten. Freeze them if waiting to use them.

Whatever way they are cooked, the little gray-brown shrimp of the lowcountry will captivate true shrimp lovers.

A video of Nathalie Dupree on the dock with the shrimp boats may be found at www.Postandcourier.com/food. Her email is Nathalieonly@aol.com.

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.