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Deck hand, Vasa Tarvin separates the shrimp from the undesired catch, sorts them into plastic baskets by size and then ices them down before storing them below deck.
MOUNT PLEASANT — Before the sun has given much thought to hitting the horizon, Wayne Magwood eases his hulking shrimp boat into the waters of Shem Creek, heading east toward the Atlantic. Harvesting these coastal waters has been his life’s work, as it was his father’s and grandfather’s before him.
He’s been aboard boats for 52 of his 56 years and has worked as a shrimp boat captain since he was 16. On this warm June day, he guides the 68-foot “Winds of Fortune,” the boat he’s owned and captained since 1986. With three deck hands on board, it will be another full day of surveying the ocean, filling the nets, hoping for a good haul.
The shrimp from his boat eventually will land on the tables of local restaurants, stock the seafood counter at Mount Pleasant’s Whole Foods or be sold straight off the dock to walk-in customers at Magwood Seafood. Vacationers and locals wind their way through the Old Village and down the dirt road to Magwood’s dock and shrimp shack, passing new homes and construction sites, stark reminders of the changing Shem Creek landscape. They come searching for wild-from-the-ocean, just-off-the-boat shrimp to fry, boil, mix with grits or stir into pasta.
Magwood and a dwindling number of shrimpers are there to provide it.
It’s a life of long hours, difficult and dirty work. Boats leave the dock about 4:30 a.m. and return in mid-afternoon. Magwood said fuel costs have skyrocketed to $4,000 a week for the biodiesel he uses to operate his boat.
“It’s getting harder, physically and financially. For the hours you put in, you’re not making that much. But I love doing it,” he said. “I like being out here with nature.”
It is hard to imagine a workplace with a better view.
About a mile and a half offshore, with the sun glistening off the water, the Morris Island lighthouse visible in the distance, pelicans and sea gulls hitching a ride on the boat’s rigging, the workers get busy.
Four 40-foot nets are attached to the outriggers, which extend from both sides of the boat. Trawl doors hang from the ends of the nets, designed to sink and drag along the bottom where the shrimp are scooped up.
After trawling in the ocean for two hours or so, moving at about 2½ mph, the nets are pulled from the water, their bounty emptied on the boat’s deck. Mounds of red-tinged jellyfish, silver baitfish, small rays and crabs, baby sharks, ribbon fish and an occasional beer can share the space with pounds and pounds of shrimp.
The pile of seafood sits briefly while the nets are sunk into the ocean again for a later pull.
Next it’s time for the workers to start separating. They sit on short wooden stools as they scrape the catch toward them with culling irons. With gloved hands, they pull the shrimp out from the rest, sorting them into large baskets by type and size.
The bycatch — the small fish, jellys and the rest — is thrown back into the water, to the delight of the pelicans, sea gulls and dolphins that follow the ship on its journey.
The first pull of the day brings in about 150 pounds. The shrimp are quickly put on ice, and the men relax for awhile in the galley, grabbing a cigarette, a soda and something to eat. They stretch out and nap on the floor.
In a couple hours, they will haul in another catch — this one heavier with shrimp.
The week before, Magwood pulled in about 2,000 pounds of brown and white shrimp. Magwood quotes another famous shrimper, Forrest Gump, to describe the job. “Shrimping is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”
He said there are all sorts of theories about where to go to find shrimp, related to the wind, the temperature, the tides. Sometimes they work; other times not. “You can guess, but you can’t second-guess nature.”
Once back at the dock, the day’s catch is unloaded, washed and stored on ice. In the building’s screened-in shrimp shack, large head-on shrimp is sold for $4.50 a pound; shrimp with the heads off are $7.50 a pound.
Sallie and Neil Pettigrew of Moore were vacationing at the Isle of Palms and drove over to Magwood’s to pick up a couple pounds.
“We’re going to boil it in beer,” Sallie Pettigrew said, holding a plastic bag filled with the sea’s offerings. As they drove off, another car pulled into the lot, ready to pick up their taste of the day’s catch.
ABOUT S.C. SHRIMP
Shrimp live just over a year, then spawn and die.
Spawning white and brown shrimp release eggs into ocean waters from May to August. Young shrimp live in coastal salt marshes and estuaries for about 2 to 3 months. When they reach about 4 inches, they return to the ocean.
South Carolina shrimp are in season from late spring (May/June) through early winter (December/January).
Three varieties of shrimp are caught within the state’s waters:
• Roe — Year-old adult white shrimp that have just spawned and are available in May or June, after biologists determine that an adequate supply of eggs has been released
• Brown — Shrimp that spawned the previous fall are available in June through August, sometimes as late as October.
• White — Offspring of the “roe shrimp” from earlier in the year. These are the largest shrimp caught in South Carolina and are available in August, September and October.
SOURCES: Clemson University, Gulf & South Atlantic Fisheries Foundation
MAGWOOD SEAFOOD
Address: 110 Haddrell St., Mount Pleasant
Hours: 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday; noon-5 p.m. Sunday
Phone: (843) 884-3352
