The shrimp industry has a long history on the Gulf Coast. And, today we bring you a story about one of the industry's oldest traditions: the blessing of the boats. This episode is from the podcast Gravy, produced by our friends at Southern Foodways Alliance.

In “A Shrimp Boat Blessing with no Shrimp Boats,” Gravy producer Irina Zhorov takes
listeners to Bayou La Batre, on Alabama’s Gulf Coast. Long known as the seafood
capital of Alabama, Bayou La Batre has hosted a Blessing of the Fleet – a festival to
bless local commercial shrimp and fishing boats – since the 1940s.
Fishing has long been a dangerous and capricious industry, where luck – in harvests,
weather, accidents – has almost as much to do with a captain’s success as his skill. The
annual blessing, an old European tradition established in Bayou La Batre by a Catholic
family of transplants from Louisiana, was a bulwark to ever-present risks. Shrimp boat
captains would decorate their boats with festive flags and parade along the bayou,
receiving a blessing from the Archbishop of Mobile, a little courage to go back out to
sea.

But as the industry changed and evolved, what the Blessing could do seemed less
obvious. Boats were built bigger and with refrigeration, so people could stay at sea
longer and bring in bigger harvests. At the same time, systemic threats emerged to the
shrimping industry. Competition from imports and farm-raised shrimp is keeping shrimp
prices unsustainably low while prices for gas, insurance, and maintenance grow. The
Blessing hasn’t kept up with the changes. Many captains are too busy hustling for
economic survival to show up. Not a single commercial shrimp boat attended the 2023
Blessing of the Fleet.

In this episode, Zhorov talks to Vincent Bosarge, Deacon at St. Margaret’s Church,
which hosts the Blessing, who grew up going to the festival; Rodney Lyons, a fisherman
whose family once supported the Blessing by donating food but who no longer attends;
Jeremy Zirlott, a younger shrimper who says he’s struggled to make ends meet in the
industry’s current state and who’s never put his boats in the Blessing; and Tommy
Purvis and Kimberly Barrow, who shrimp on the side but for whom the Blessing is a vital
tradition.

Listen to more episodes of Gravy and follow the podcast:
​​https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gravy/id938456371

Sea Change is made possible with major support from the Gulf Research Program of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. WWNO’s Coastal Desk is supported by the Walton Family Foundation, the Meraux Foundation, and the Greater New Orleans Foundation.

You can reach the Sea Change team at seachange@wwno.org.