William Baldwin is a poet and retired shrimper who grew up in McClellanville, South Carolina, a town known for its shrimping docks and rich fishing traditions.  His grandfather Rut Leland was a boat captain.  As a teenager William worked the fuel docks, and by the age of twenty-one, he was running the shrimp dock.  He attended college and finished a master’s thesis on the Dada artists before returning to McClellanville to work on various shrimp boats.  Though he stopped shrimping years ago, William continues to draw from the experiences of the docks and open water and th

Rocky Magwood, a Fourth generation fisherman, says he was raised on a shrimp boat. He’d head out with his father, Clarence “Skipper” Magwood, before he could even walk. His grandfather Junior Magwood built a rich shrimping empire on the docks of Shem Creek in Mount Pleasant. Rocky followed in his father and grandfather’s footsteps, working as a captain of several shrimping boats, each one painted green, orange, and white – the signature look of the Magwood fleet. For years shrimp caught on the Magwood fleet was delivered and sold at Shem Creek at C. A. Magwood & Sons.

Neal Cooksey grew up on James Island in Charleston, South Carolina. As a teenager, he started scalloping in Charleston Harbor and Savannah, Georgia. When he saw his first paycheck, he decided to stick with it. In the mid-1970s, he took off for shrimping the Texas Gulf Coast and Key West, Florida. Along with his crew of Bubba Jameson and Calvin Chavis, Neal shrimps on the Haley Marie & Sons, named after his three children. The boat always returns to the docks of Crosby’s Fish & Shrimp co-owned by his wife, Joanie.

Nathaniel "Danny" Manigault was born and raised in Charleston. In high school he moved to the Union Heights neighborhood of North Charleston. He worked as a mechanic at R & M Industrial Products, and fished whiting, croaker, spots, and sharks as a hobby. When his neighbor told him how he could make a little money on the side crabbing, Danny decided to start crabbing to supplement his full-time job. Now retired from R & M, Danny usually hits the Wando River by four each morning to make it back in time to delivery blue crabs to customers in North Charleston.

Mark Marhefka is a commercial fisherman originally from Jacksonville, Florida. He owns Abundant Seafood with his wife, Kerry, in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. He delivers his fresh catch to more than twenty restaurants in Charleston, and runs a CSF (community-supported fishery) from Shem Creek where he docks his boat, the Amy Marie.

With her father in the Air Force, Kimberly Carroll grew up living in all parts of the country: Mississippi, Florida, Alaska, and finally Charleston. In 1992 she was working as a radiologist at Roper Hospital when she met Raul Morales, a crabber and native of Cuba, while hanging out on a shrimp boat in Mount Pleasant. They fell in love, and Kimberly started selling fresh catch for Raul’s seafood business, Raul’s Seafood, which was located at Shem Creek on the Geechee Dock. Kimberly sold to 150 restaurants across the Lowcountry.

Growing up on Silver Hill plantation in McClellanville, South Carolina, Julie McClellan spent her days out on a small wooden batteau accompanying her stepfather, Ellis Dawsey, as he scratched clams on his leases at White Banks and Oyster House and sold the catch to Carolina Seafood. After high school she married and went straight to work in restaurants, building houses, and later operated a deer processing plant with her husband before they divorced. For the past twenty-five years, Julie’s made her full-time living off the water.

In 1973 Captain Horace Crosby left his job in law enforcement and bought Crosby’s Fish & Shrimp on James Island in Charleston.  The business started as a live bait operation.  His twin daughters, Ellie and Joanie, grew up in the store.  While their father rarely let people go out on the boat with him, he often extended the opportunity to Joanie.  A fire destroyed Crosby’s in 1987, and a year later the sisters – not a pair for sitting behind a desk – rebuilt the business with the help of their father and brother, Timothy.  The next year Hurricane Hugo took it all

Jamie White grew up on Sol Legare (pronounced Sol Le-gree) Road in James Island. Sol Legare holds a long history of African American fishing traditions. Jamie grew up with marshes and rivers as his backyard. Going out to pick clams and oysters was a daily part of his life. He learned from his uncles, George and Richard Brown. Jamie moved to Atlanta and sold cars then retail clothing but returned home after the 2008 recession.

Fred Dockery was born in Montpelier, France, where his mother worked in a hospital run by nuns. His father traveled as a professor, moving the family from the Midwest to France to Maine to North Carolina. After graduating from Bates College with a degree in philosophy, Fred moved into an airplane hangar and worked as a landscaper before taking a job on a commercial fishing boat called "The Restless." Eventually, Fred and his family moved to Charleston, South Carolina where he took a job on a clam farm.