Tangier

Oh, it was early yesterday morning when we got up at 5:30 to begin our trip.  We slowly pulled away from our marina in Fishing Bay, leaving Deltaville behind.

The wind was nice, about 10 knots, but from the north, a bad sign for a northward sail. So, we made the best of it and set sail northwesterly to the island of Tangier.  En route, we passed a Menhaden boat heading south.

It’s been 2 years since we’ve been here and we like it.  A lot of it has never changed, like the old crab sheds.

Some of the sheds that were destroyed by a hurricane a few years ago have been rebuilt. Still the same style and charm, but certainly in better shape.

Here is a shot of the crab shack area from the south of the island.  Little has been updated on Tangier – look at all of those telephone poles!

Warning--- local Tangier gossip/politics --- skip if you're not interested!  Luke caught up on the local gossip. The owner of the only marina in Tangier, where we always stay, is a life long waterman, almost 80 years old, still proudly owns a big fast deadrise workboat. He is one of the four major family names on the island, knows everything and everyone, and loves to talk to Luke.  He considers Luke a fellow “old guy”. In the 70’s he was a union representative for the AFL-CIO who had organized the watermen and the crab pickers to help control prices. Apparently the union never did any good and the next level up of the union structure made off with the dues. He says that with crab prices and harvests down, 70 of the watermen left the crabbing business over the last few years and now have jobs running tug boats, etc. There are only 30 active watermen left on Tangier.  Recent hardships inflicted by the VA Game and Inland Fiseries Comission include a ban on herring fishing, no dredging for blue crabs. VA is also considering transferring the oversight of the Menhaden Fishery from one agency to another, so that it can be shut down. This is because Menhaden are food fish for game fish like Rock Fish (Stripers), filter a lot of water, and help clean up the bay, etc. Over the last few years, Tangier has had a major facelift for tourism. Apparently a well known Psychologist became interested in the island, bought properties, built a house, opened a Tangier Museum, funded the placement of historical markers all through the town, put in nice trash receptacles, etc. The posters are quite interesting as they explain the history of the various noteworthy houses and structures, complete with historic photos. Well, this psychiatrist was apparently accused of illegally selling drugs to his clients, and because of that, (not sure how it’s related), sold off most of his holdings on Tangier and pulled out.  Now - back to Bobbie ----

Tangier has a lot of birds, especially the wading birds.  This Yellow Crown Night Heron is common, but we really like it.

A first for us, we saw a Glossy Ibis working in the mud flats.  He was about as dark as this picture, just the darkest of brown colors, no contrasts at all.  Very graceful.

How about THIS for bird houses!?!

The streets of Tangier are narrow, suitable for the many go-carts here.  In fact, we’ve seen only 3 vehicles, including the police car.

Graveyards are scattered all around the island.  Many are very old.  All of the graves have heavy stones on top of them to keep the bodies from floating away in flooding of major storms.

Water, water everywhere.  Small inlets fill the island and houses are built everywhere around them.

 We have left Tangier now and are motoring our way to Solomons, MD.  No internet or cell phone towers in Tangier, so I had to wait till we got to mid-Chesapeake to post.  We should be in Solomons by early afternoon.