Tim Carlin, deputy editor for southern Delaware, is the guest for this episode of “Beyond the Headlines.” While Tim’s work for Spotlight normally has him roaming Legislative Hall in Dover, he joins the podcast to discuss the time he spent on the Leipsic River and the Delaware Bay reporting for his article In Leipsic, watermen have toiled for generations to dredge the deep.
Tim shares how he developed his sources among the community of watermen, what his experience was like on Leonard “Limbo” Voss’ boat, and why Spotlight readers can expect to see more stories of “joy, wonder and discovery.”
The podcast was hosted by Director of Community Engagement David Stradley.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
This article marked a different kind of article for you. Readers have mainly seen your reporting on government leaders in Dover. How did reporting on commercial fishermen who called the Leipsic River home get on your radar?
Yeah, a bit of a departure for me, for sure. This story was actually put on my radar by our Editor-in-Chief, Jake Owens. I believe it was something that he had been meaning, or hoping, to get to as part of the “Our Delaware” series that Spotlight puts out.
There is a specific restaurant in Leipsic called Sambo’s Tavern, and that is a very famous crab and seafood restaurant that’s only open from April through October every year. And his idea was originally to focus on the history of this restaurant.
But expanded from there into a story about this really small town that not a lot of people know about, that has a very deep and rich history for crabbing, oystering and just for watermen in general.
I’m glad you mentioned the “Our Delaware” series, because this article actually marks a transition from that series to a more informal approach to telling community stories.
If listeners don’t know, from late 2024 through 2025, the “Our Delaware” series explored the history of communities and the institutions that serve them around the state. People may remember articles featuring places like Kingswood Community Center, the Islamic Society of Delaware, La Esperanza, CAMP Rehoboth, the Seaside Jewish Community, and many more.
This year for these kinds of feature stories, our reporters are shifting their approach from having this specific focus on community institutions. From your perspective as editor, can you tell us about this shift and the strategy behind it?
So this year we’re going to be taking a bit of a broader approach to these feature stories about communities across Delaware. Internally we’re calling them our “joy, wonder, and discovery” stories. The idea behind that is to give us the ability to paint a more full, vibrant picture of Delaware.
I think using the Leipsic story is a great example. It is not something that would really fit particularly into an “Our Delaware” story. It is not pegged on an institution specifically. It is more of an idea, it is an industry, it is the culture of a town. And I think that some of those stories really can tell you some of the best stories.
Feature stories are about these more abstract ideas, and finding ways to pull them into a piece of journalism – I think that is the idea behind “joy, wonder, discovery.”
This article is kind of the first foray into that “joy, wonder and discovery” theme. I know it worked for me. You write in your article about people who probably have driven past Leipsic all their life and didn’t know it was there. I’m definitely one of those people. In fact, I had that exact experience.
Several months ago I was driving downstate for Spotlight. and I had to get off Route One around Dover because of an accident. I ended up driving through Leipsic and I was like, “I’ve lived here 20 plus years. I have never been on this road. I’ve never driven through this community.”
I was just really struck both by that fact and by just how beautiful and interesting Leipsic seemed to be. I wanted to know more. Who lives here? What do they do? Your reporting did just that, that discovery side of it.
What was your goal in writing this article?
Journalism, at its core, is storytelling. It is a way of sharing new information about the world around you.
We live in very precarious and polarized times. I think any opportunity to learn about new communities, new people, or maybe shed some preconceived notions about certain types of people – I relish those opportunities.
Leipsic is a very small town. It is a very blue collar, working class, rural area.There are a lot of preconceived notions that come to mind when you hear some of those buzzwords. I hope that we were able to deconstruct some of that with this story and really get to the meat – the crab meat, if you will – of what it’s like to live in this town and to be part of this generations-long industry in Delaware.
I love talking about this kind of article on “Beyond the Headlines” because there is so much that goes on behind the scenes in an article like this. Can you walk us through your reporting process on this article?
So we might be here for a while.
That’s okay. That’s the fun of it.
Reporting this story for me really started at the end of September and the beginning of October. I had gotten this really cool idea – but it was kind of a nugget of an idea – from Jake.
I had only been in Delaware since July of last year. I certainly didn’t have any connection to the town of Leipsic. I didn’t know anything about crabbing. The best way to find sources sometimes is to put boots on the ground. And so that is exactly what I did.
There is one main road that runs through the town. This is the same road that runs along the Leipsic River and is where the dock on the river is. It is where the boatyard is and it is where Sambo’s Tavern, this very famous crab restaurant, is. And so that was my first stop.
I rolled into town on a sunny afternoon in early October, and I just walked along this very small dock along the Leispic River and hoped to find people on boats. And that is where I bumped into Limbo – Leonard “Limbo” Voss – one of the main sources in my story
He and his crew of fellow watermen were unloading their boat. They seemed very busy. They seemed very tired. I knew that was not the time to give him a full elevator pitch and try to talk to him.
So I slipped him my business card. I gave him the short version of what I wanted, and I went along my way. He gave me his phone number. I was very thankful for that. From there, we talked back and forth and eventually set up an interview in person.
Through Limbo, I was connected to Craig Pugh. I spent about four or five hours in early December with Craig. He very kindly told me, “Come up to Leipsic, and I’ll show you around.”
And so I got in his pickup truck in early December, and he showed me around all the hotspots. He graciously let me inside his home, and he was showing me these beautiful artifacts about the town, and he was just telling me his story, but also the story of his relatives and this industry that he loves so much that he has spent 50 years in. He is 63 and has been doing it since he was about 10.
And while I was talking to Craig, I also had been talking to Limbo about trying to get on his boat. And so finally, also in early December, a few days after I was in Leipsic with Craig, it lined up perfectly, and I was able to go out on Limbo’s boat.
Each one of those elements of the reporting process sounds fascinating. We could talk a lot more about each one of those. But let’s get on the boat, and specifically I want to talk about you on the boat.
In the article, you don’t put the focus on you. You, focus it on the fishermen and on the UD students on the boat. But what was Tim Carlin’s experience like?
Tim Carlin was holding on for dear life on this boat.
So we had to go out super early. They go out before the sun rises to get out on the water when it is calm – in between high and low tides.
I live in Lewes. Leipsic is up near Dover. So I had to get up at around 4 a.m. to leave my house by 5 a.m. to get to Leipsic by 5:45 a.m. to be out on the water just after 6 a.m.
And this is December, so the sun is not anywhere near coming up.
It is cold. I have on three pairs of pants, three shirts, a windbreaker, a pair of rubber boots that I borrowed from our other Deputy Editor, Karl, who used to be a commercial fisherman in his own past life – which, in retrospect, maybe he should have reported this story.
We also had a freelance photographer, Ethan Grandin, who was our summer intern last summer, who is just an amazing photographer. Limbo was kind enough to let us both on the boat.
It was almost like an out-of-body experience. I’m half awake, it is freezing. It was almost formulaic for the fishermen, this is a regular day for them. But I’m trying to take in everything. I’m writing notes on my phone. I’m trying to remember what things look like, what they sound like, what they smell like.
Limbo’s brother, Bird, was a chain smoker. We are in the cabin of the boat, and the window is cracked, obviously, but he is just chain smoking his cigarettes at 6:30 in the morning, and I’m like, “God, I want to ask you to bum a cigarette right now.”
So the experience for me was just trying to hold on for dear life, but also take in as much as I could. When we got out to the Delaware Bay, it was very rough. The boat was really rocking from side to side. So I’m just in there trying to hold on to whatever handles I can find inside this small cabin of the boat to stay upright.
I stayed in the cabin. I took one or two steps out to really peek my head out. I wanted to smell the salty air and feel the breeze. It was a beautiful experience, and I wanted to take that in, but I also was keenly aware of the fact that I did not want to fly overboard and be the guy that fell into the bay and had to be picked up.
So you’re inside and kind of costume playing in Karl Baker’s boots. What’s Ethan doing, and how is he dressed?
Ethan is from Long Island, and he has experience on oyster boats. So he came ready to go. He had a full set of bibs on. Bibs are – rubber overalls are the best way I can describe them. And so Ethan, obviously, had his own pair of bibs because he’s forever prepared.
So he’s fully ready to go. All the watermen are ready to go. Ethan is out on the back deck of this boat as it is just back and forth, side to side, camera in hand, wrapped in plastic to make sure his camera doesn’t get ruined, just making the most beautiful photos.
He seemed very comfortable out on the back of that boat.
And he seemed to zoom in, for lack of a better word, on one of the other boatmen, Zach.
Zach is Limbo’s son. He is featured in a lot of the photos. He’s wearing bright, neon yellow, construction worker color.
Zach was a character. He was very quiet. He didn’t talk a lot, but once he got out on the back of the boat when we made it out to the bay, and we actually started the process of dredging up some of the oysters, he had this really bright smile on his face and just seemed so at ease.
He is standing up on this platform on the back of the boat. There’s no railing around him. He has got the dredge to hold on to, really, and that is it. We were really rocking back and forth, but he seemed like he was just standing up as sturdy as can be on this platform overlooking the bay. And just happy as a clam.
I felt like I was watching someone in their element, if that makes sense. I’m glad that translated to the photos. I remember that experience – seeing it. And so I’m glad that readers got to see it as well.
Writing about an oystering expedition is obviously a lot different than writing about legislation. I’d love to ask you to read a short portion of the article and then I’d love to talk a little bit about what your kind of craft process is with that.
Tim talked about the rocky waves. I want to ask him to read the portion of the article where he goes into those waves. Well not go into those waves, but…
Yeah, try not to go into those waves. [Tim reads the following selection.]
After making it out of the river, Limbo drove down the coast and picked up a group of post-graduate students studying at the University of Delaware’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment in Lewes. While Limbo and his crew hoped to catch some oysters, the students would collect data on the ones not yet ready for harvest.
Out on the bay, the water was rough. Rougher than Limbo had expected.
Waves rocked his 20-foot-long boat to one side and then back again. Water crashed into the cabin’s windshield.
Gone was the man who casually steered through the Leipsic River’s winding waters earlier that morning, charismatically holding court from his captain’s chair and telling stories of gambling woes and wins, boat mechanics, climate change and evolution.
Now, Limbo was focused. His eyes shifted between the wide open bay in front of him and the boat’s back deck, where the crew had assembled in anticipation of the real work beginning.
He decided to abandon harvesting for the day. No need to stay out in that mess longer than necessary, he said.
But he wanted the students to check on the oysters’ growth — to collect the data they needed. So he dropped the dredge — a large, chainlink, basket-like structure with metal teeth on one end — into the murky water.
Thank you so much for reading that. It’s great to hear that.
I tried to put on my audio book voice.
No, it’s great to hear that in your voice. And you know, you talk about how much you love the pictures of this story, but hearing you read that, I almost wish there was an audio component of the story to hear those waves.
So purely from a craft perspective, what writing muscles are you using when composing a passage like that?
It’s a good question, and it is one that I don’t know if I have a great answer to.
A really great professor and mentor of mine – his name is Jim Tobin, I’ll give him a shout out – he had a real penchant for narrative nonfiction writing. This very evocative, visual type of storytelling. I just drank that up in college. I just think that it is so beautiful, and I think that when it’s done well, it can really place you into a story, like you can feel like you’re there.
For me, I think my process when I’m trying to evoke some of those senses when I’m writing, I do a lot of talking to myself. I probably look at the crazy person when I’m out at a cafe.
It starts as an idea in your head. It is like a blurry picture that you can’t really see is the best way I can describe it. So for me, the process is like I have this idea that feels very far away and very out of touch, and I’m trying my best to bring it into focus.
And a lot of the ways that I do that are by speaking different versions of the paragraph that I’m writing out loud. I think that writing is melodic, especially when you’re doing this kind of narrative writing. So I like to mix in short, choppy, punchy sentences with long, compound, flowing sentences.
You can kind of hear it in that paragraph about Limbo and the way that his demeanor changed. I think those two paragraphs are a good example.
“Out on the bay, the water was rough.”
It’s technically a compound sentence, right? There’s a comma in there, but it is these short, choppy – boom, boom, boom. And then you really drive the knife in and you say:
“Rougher than Limbo had expected.”
So you’re telling the story, like, “Oh, this isn’t just bad. This is worse than what the expert thought it was going to be.”
You’re gearing the reader up to say, “We’re in trouble here.” And then you hit them more with, like sensory overload:
“Waves rocked his 20-foot-long-boat to one side and then back again. Water crashed into the cabin’s windshield.”
That’s another one of those short, punchy sentences.
And then after that, you go into the really long, almost run-on sentence territory. But here it is intentional, and it works, and you say:
“Gone was the man who had casually steered through the river’s winding waters, charismatically holding court…”
Because that is also a way to pull in chunks from your reporting that maybe wouldn’t have fit in otherwise. We were out on the river for about an hour just to get out to the bay, and he’s shooting the shit, telling jokes, you know, this funny guy.
That is such rich storytelling that doesn’t fit into the broader narrative. So you’re able to fit some of that into the context of: things were great, and now things are a little bit more precarious.
I want to return to this theme of “joy, wonder, and discovery” that this article represents.
There is a saying that news has a bias towards bad news. Our Editor-in-Chief Jake Owens says reporters don’t write about the hundreds of planes that land safely on the runway, they write about the one that crashes. That is also borne out by the fact that people tend to read those articles more than they read the good news articles – even though people who call themselves “news avoiders” say they don’t read news because of the constant drumbeat of bad news
So, I wonder, can you make the argument – what’s the value for Spotlight Delaware writing articles in this vein of “joy, wonder and discovery?”
I think the argument for “joy, wonder and discovery” is that we’re not avoiding those bad news stories. It can be a “yes, and,” not an “either/or.”
I would also say that “joy, wonder, and discovery” does not by any stretch mean fluffy, soft, non-reported gobbledygook. This story took me months to report. To build the sources, and to build the trust, and to spend the hours in Leipsic, out on the Delaware Bay, to learn a very cursory understanding of crabbing and oystering and how those fields work.
There is a reason for these types of stories because we live in a world that is so segmented. We talk a lot about young kids, and the loneliness epidemic, or algorithms that feed you the same thing and send you down rabbit holes and don’t pull you out of them. To me, “joy, wonder, and discovery” is a way to pull yourself out of those closed loop systems and to understand a little bit more about the world around you.
I think it is more important now than ever to make a meaningful effort to engage with ideas and with people and with schools of thought that fall outside of what you consider to be your own.
We should all want to learn more about one another, and I think, ideally, it can bring us closer together, and, at the very least, help us understand one another better. And I hope that “joy, wonder, and discovery” stories will do exactly that.
Besides this article on the Leipsic watermen, can you give listeners any examples of the kinds of articles that Spotlight readers might expect as reporters pursue “joy, wonder, and discovery?” Looking backwards, or imagining forwards?
Looking backwards, also very recently, José Ignacio, our diverse communities reporter, covered these really cool underground – well not underground anymore because he has covered them and CBS Philadelphia has covered them as well – but these NPR Tiny Desk-style concerts for Mexican musicians at this Mexican grocery store in New Castle County.
Just this unknown world that is out there. Like, yeah, let me go get my groceries and hear an up and coming artist perform some of their latest songs.
I also think about Julia, our education reporter, covering a teacher trying to incorporate positive affirmations into her classroom and into her teaching style. Those stories that have this value that, like I said, will help you understand the world around you that is maybe right underneath your nose that you don’t know about.
Looking ahead for “joy and discovery,” I don’t know what’s out there. The beauty is that we will have the joy and the wonder of discovering them.
I can also see a world where “joy, wonder and discovery” stories are actually approaching the same things that we already write about, just in a new way.
I’m thinking of your coverage of Legislative Hall. At the Legislative Summit when you were interviewing the legislative leadership panel, Minority Whip Jeff Spiegelman shared that Speaker of the House Melissa Minor-Brown every week does a bipartisan leadership meeting together.
That was a little discovery moment for me. So I could see an article like that. We’re going to take you behind the scenes of Legislative Hall and let you discover something you didn’t know about how these legislators are working together.
Exactly. I think that it is not a departure or a shift away from the news. It is just looking at it through a different lens and allowing ourselves the flexibility and giving ourselves the green light to explore things in a new way. Whether that is Legislative Hall, whether it is energy policy.
There’s joy, wonder and discovery in every story that we write. It is just trying to be more intentional about finding some of those things to highlight in fun ways.
Let’s close by coming back to our watermen. I have a couple of fun questions here, and then a final reflective question for you.
In the article you shared that the Leipsic watermen think that Delaware Bay crabs are far better than Chesapeake Bay Blue crabs. Did they give specific reasons?
They did. I think part of it is, you know, you got to take up for the home team. You can’t be a Delaware Bay waterman and say that the Chesapeake Bay crabs are better.
They did say that Delaware Bay crabs tend to live longer than some of their compatriots coming from other places.
They also gave me the inside scoop that a lot of times – let me not say a lot of times – sometimes when you are eating a Chesapeake Bay crab from somewhere in Maryland, it may not really be from the Chesapeake Bay. They may be importing them from places like Louisiana because the number of crabs in the Chesapeake has dwindled a bit.
So they specifically told me that Delaware Bay crabs last far longer than their Louisiana-based brethren. Can I say for certain? No, but I trust Craig and Limbo to tell me about good crabs. So I’m going to go with their word on it.
Connecting your main beat to this article: what qualities do watermen and legislators have in common?
That’s a good question. They both can tell a very good story, I’ll say.
No, that sounds like a jab. I don’t mean it that way.
Both camps are very charismatic, I think, in a genuine way. I got to see that the watermen that I talked to had such a deep affinity and love and fight for their industry and for their community. And I’ve seen lawmakers do the same thing.
Standing up and fighting for what you believe in definitely connects watermen and lawmakers.
So we’ll close on this: Is there a detail from your reporting or a person from your reporting that’s really staying with you, even to this day?
Yeah, I think Craig stays with me a lot. I spent a lot of time with him, four or five hours, like almost a whole day. Longer than I thought he was going to give me, time-wise.
There was so much that didn’t make it into the story. But there were just so many small details of the way that he would talk about the river. Or the way he would talk about his life on the water, and just look out and maybe pause and take a deep breath or a sigh.
He was a very stoic man, so it is not like I could tell if he was going to get emotional on me, but I feel like it was the closest I was going to see to a display of emotion.
He has done a lot of advocacy work for watermen. And he talked about fighting for his community as part of that work and bringing watermen together to really advocate against some regulations on the industry that they felt were unfair in the past. You could just feel and hear the pride in his voice.
I only briefly mentioned this young waterman who he is helping to mentor, but I saw them interact with one another for a bit while we were together, and you could just tell that it is a very tight-knit community up in Leipsic, and that they really care about one another.
You know, that has really stuck with me. That experience back in December.
Thank you for taking us with you and the watermen out on the Leipsic River.
Of course. Anytime. Let me know if there are any other bodies of water you need me to go hop into for Spotlight Delaware. I’m happy to do it.