Swimming with the crabs in the Venice of the Chesapeake
A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back
Sam and Alex Fortescue
Wed 15 Jun 2011 23:49
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37:49.73N
75:59.39W
Everywhere seems to have a 'Venice', and I think
we've found Virginia's. It's an island called Tangier, where blue crab fishing
is the mainstay of life. The island's high point, at 20 feet, is a bridge, and
low wooden houses make up the main town, nestled among the marshes.
The island's main artery is a 6 ft deep waterway
dredged through the mudflats. Dozens of little sheds on stilts stand knee deep
in the shallows on either side of the creeks and channels that snake away into
the bay like small canals. In these wooden sheds the crab fishermen sort their
catches, mend their pots and idle the day away. Each building is a mini factory,
with a dock for the shallow draught crab boats and a long tank churned with
seawater to keep the crabs alive. These viviers have netting all around them,
like raspberry cages, to keep marauding gulls at bay.
If this really were Venice, we'd be anchored up in
the middle of St Mark's Square. The metaphor is more apt than we'd care for,
since Summer Song is intermittently aground, her keel slicing through the soupy
mud on the bottom. It doesn't matter, as she'd sink several feet in and pop out
again on the rising tide without damage. The water is a thick greeny brown
colour, like moss, and the harbour could be swarming with nurse sharks without
our realising.
There are three main surnames on the island, and
inhabitants are said to be descendants of the original Elizabethan settlers.
Certainly, islanders talk in a curious accent which sounds a bit like a
Westcountry yokel catapulted unexpectedly into The South. The men call to one
another across the water in voices that at once hoot, sing and drawl. They seem
very friendly, although we may reappraise this view in the morning when the crab
fleet motors off at 4am.
We're not much farther north than we were
yesterday, but the passage to Tangier took much of the day because there was a
vigorous wind on the nose. Tacking back and forth we probably covered twice the
10-mile rhumb line distance. It was good sailing, though, with ace helmswoman
Biffle at the tiller, squeezing every possible degree out of the wind. We
arrived here just in time for a lunch of baked crab and crabcakes
ashore.
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