Biloxi Small Craft Harbor — Blessing of the Fleet

The harbor at Point Cadet is where the Biloxi seafood industry began, and the working fleet that ties up here every day still depends on what happens each spring. In 1929, Croatian and French Catholic shrimpers asked a priest to bless their boats before the season opened. The blessing has been held every spring since. The tradition was brought by the shrimpers themselves. Trawlers and oyster boats go out into water that has always demanded respect. The Mississippi Gulf Coast's position along the Gulf of Mexico made it a place where cultural influences arrived from the Mediterranean — a region, as one state historic preservation officer put it, whose "ties to the rest of the world" came more easily than elsewhere in Mississippi. The Blessing of the Fleet is part of that inheritance. Point Cadet is where the seafood industry still operates. Working trawlers, oyster boats, and charter vessels tie up here daily. The harbor survived Hurricane Camille in 1969. It survived Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which caused historic destruction to the Gulf Coast. It survived the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010. The working fleet still docks here. The waterfront is open. Walk the docks for free and watch the industry at work. Charter fishing trips depart from here. If you come in spring, you'll be here when the boats are blessed — the same ceremony the shrimpers brought in 1929.