Iconic local seafood company to hold Blessing of the Fleet ceremony

The iconic shrimp boat docks at Gay Fish Company in St. Helena Island.Photo byPhoto courtesy Pinterest user @firefighterabs

Since 1948, the Gay Fish Company on St. Helena Island has been fishing, shrimping, processing, and selling local seafood to thousands of customers. You would be hard pressed to find another family in the Lowcountry who is more synonymous with the shrimping and fishing industry.

To do something special for the commercial fishermen that are docked there, and to raise awareness to the industry, the family-owned seafood company is hosting its first ever Blessing of the Fleet Ceremony on April 27th, and the public is welcome to attend.

"This ceremony is open to spectators, and will honor our dedicated commercial fisherman who brave the waters daily in pursuit of bounty," Gay Fish Company said in a release on Facebook.

"Due to the current condition of our dock, this year's event will be exclusively for our currently docked commercial fisherman and those invited by private invitation," it said.

"Spectators are welcome to attend and light refreshments will be served. There will be a designated seating area so feel free to bring a chair."

The much-loved sea island seafood company whose iconic boat docks and store are visible along Sea Island Parkway on the way to Fripp, Hunting and Harbor Islands, has been a fixture in the community since 1948.

In the 1960's, they invented the name "Frogmore Stew" for the popular dish of shrimp, corn, sausage and potatoes, and it stuck. Now that is what the dish is most known as throughout this part of the South.

The family also owns and operates the popular, award-winning, Shrimp Shack Restaurant located just across the highway from their docks, and even Paramount Pictures bought all of the shrimp from them for the movie Forrest Gump.

As iconic as their family business is to the Lowcountry, it's fitting that the Gays are doing something special for the commercial fleet.