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From: Wayne & Lynn Flatt (no email)
Date: Fri Jun 01 2007 - 16:20:15 EDT
Skinwalker Log, June 1, 2007, Friday, 1320 hrs
At the confluence of the Hudson and the Mohawk River commonly know as the
beginning of the Erie Canal, Waterford, NY
He didnt walk his age, Marvin didnt. His gait was deceptively balanced as
he moved, not fast nor slow, but with a silent hidden strength, steady down
the wharf. An unassuming presence, made so by the quiet grace of a life at
sea, the confidence bred on the backbone of a bay boat, tempered with fifty
years of respect for the moods of weather on the Chesapeake water.
Marvin hailed the boat, giving precise directions, twice, to bring our trawler
along the edge of the wharf, his marina and namesake. He snatched a line
poorly tossed out of the air with quick, flexible, but massive simian like
handshard wired to forearms like Popeye. He secured both ends of our fifty
foot boat with an economy of movement little effort and no apparent speed as
to suggest there was two of him.
There is only one of Marvin Park. He is seventy six now and some of the other
watermen ferrying bait back across the channel, the gut, to their boats bait
Marvin with teasing, now that he is off the water. They call him leveled now
that hes been retired from the bay for a year and developed a slight pot
belly. They call him leveled cause the bubble of his body, his chest, has
settled to the middle, like the bubble in a masons level settles in the
middle. He is not all that pot-bellied, so the words dont hurt much.
Mr. Park has always been a friend to all who wished it so in the marshland
called Tangiers Island, as his family has for almost 200 years. Mr. Park was
arguably the best crabber and dragger around, to the point that the younger
fellows begged him to quit fishing as he reached into his sixties, then
sullenly suggested it was time for him to move over and let the younger men of
the island have their chance. You watch his eyes when he tells that story, he
goes off somewhere. Mr. Park stopped when he was ready and still able to work
his 500 pot license; he wanted to go out on top. It wasnt soon enough for
some. But even now they still greet him with respect.
He doesnt get up at 2 or 3 in the morning now, to crank up the Detroit Diesel
in his 45 bay boat to work his pots until 3 in the afternoon, and then come
home to repair or replace his gear and bait up for the next day. He fished
most every day, unless it was not safe to work in a wind troubled bay. Now he
lazes around until six am and works and talks in equal parts, maintaining his
marina, helping watermen, orienting visitors to his transient dock, or
answering the endless needs of his wooden crab boat until the other six
oclock comes round.
Mr. Park, like most of the watermen of Tangiers, was born and raised on the
Island. His gentle voice carries the patois, what some linguists call
Elizabethan English, with Celtic overtones, peculiar to only this island. To
me the voice speaks of Newfoundland and reminds me of the book, The Shipping
News.
The Crocket family, along with the Park, Dise, Pruit, & Thomas families,
pretty much established the community of Tangier those many generations ago
and continue to set the tone today with an almost protective gentile blue
collar attitude. They are protective of their ways, their lifestyle, their
very existence, but courteous to the rest of the world, outsiders all to be
sure. But Mr. Park and the others are willing to share their knowledge, their
hard existence with whoever may have a question. He in return asks what is it
that tourists see in his island, his family of friends. He thinks one day he
may go to Crisfield and take the ferry back to the island and stand behind the
tourists to determine why people come to the Island for the day or weekend to
stay at one of the few bed & breakfast Inns. He doesnt understand the
interest.
Mr. Park and his colleagues have a lot of knowledge about the beautiful
swimmers, the Chesapeake Blue Crab. The quiet Tangier watermen provide tons
of crab to the mainland, and the soft shell blue crab is a world market for
them, even while many of the fishermen are turning to driving tows at busy
ports on the mainland for the better pay and benefits that crabbing does not
give.
Therefore it is no surprise that Hilda Crocketts Chesapeake House makes the
best crab cakes in the Chesapeake and the clam fritters are awfully good.
Served in a fiftys style setting that is not motif, but left over from the
age; you wont care once the food starts arriving, in mixed-matched bowls,
platters and baskets, very soon after you sit down. Oh now, dont get
excited, it isnt the wrong order from another table she is trying to serve
you. Its yours. There is no menu, you get what Mama cooks this day and I
can promise you wont be much disappointed and you will be belly busting full
or run aground as the islanders say, with this wonderful home cooked meal
served family style.
You will need a walk after this meal. Why not enjoy exploring the colorful
neighborhoods. By the time you reached the restaurant you have figured out
that the roads are Island size. The smaller roads no more then trails while
the main roads are wide enough for two small carts. Golf carts these days and
maybe a scooter or two, but mostly they are for walking and connecting the
ridges. The ridges are sand spits. Called ridges with droll humor, I
suspect, as the ridges are usually dry, although not always. There was the
September Gust a few decades ago. A couple of recent hurricanes had caused
some serious flooding and damage, but the islanders seem to take it in stride,
maybe putting better foundations into the salt marsh of an island with stoic
acceptance. There are about 250 households along the three main ridges
connected by a handful of small bridges leading to neighborhoods with names
like Sheeps Head, Black Dye, Main Ridge & Meat Soup. Dont be surprised to
see boardwalks on a few of the homes at the end of a ridge where the tides
claim the yard periodically. It is, after all, salt marsh, this island, and
only suffers the sharing of itself with a handful of families that have handed
down the land through the centuries
Tangiers Island will continue to shift and change even as its people hold a
steady course through life. Together the island and its people have formed a
steady-state; its people holding on tenaciously to the ever shifting sands of
this barrier island that while starkly beautiful and full of natures
creatures remains nothing more than the afterbirth of the Susquehanna River in
a previous rage. The river silently sleeping at the head of Chesapeake Bay
for centuriesquiet now after forming the barrier islands, but always
restless.
Tangiers offers a peek into our colonial roots, into hardship and perseverance
and stands as a reminder of what American stock came from. You wont read it
off of signs, but in the eyes of the people. You wont hear it in nature
lectures, but by strolling the bridges over the marsh, you wont glean it from
reading documents, but from registering the confidence, the adept skill and
quiet strength of the waterman working his boat.
Discovering places for oneself, like Tangiers, is the magical essence of
cruising.
Wayne & Lynn Flatt
Currently replenishing ships stores at Waterford, NY
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