Early in the last century a boy, Ivy Flowers, swam across Tar Bay to Hoopers Island to see a girl. In time, Shirley Flowers was born of the union that began with that swim. During the same period, Captain Augustus Elsworth Phillips, Jr. was the captain of the cargo schooner, McCready. In her aft-cabin a boy, Brice Phillips would be conceived. Brice Phillips and Shirley Flowers would marry and have two sons, Steve and Jeffrey. With the family's Hoopers Island packing plant as a base, the Phillips would create a worldwide empire based upon their relationship with the crab. This is the story of that family. It is also the story of the Empires of the Crab.