Our trip on the Chesapeake Bay heading south is much quicker than our northern excursion due to the need to get back to Florida before Thanksgiving. But there are still many places to explore here so we wanted to visit those that were high on our list. One of those places was Tangier Island. We left our anchorage in the busy boating community of Solomon’s Island bound for the unique and quaint island village of Tangier on Tuesday October 21. Traveling down the wide open bay was exquisite on this sunny autumnal day with just a touch of fall in the air. The bay felt almost empty – we encountered only one large barge and very few pleasure craft.
We arrived at Tangier Island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay around 2 p.m. after a five hour cruise.
We were greeting at Parks Marina by the venerable old Mr. Parks, a legend on the island. He is 84 years old and knows the waters by his marina like the back of his hand. He guided us into one of his fixed docks and instructed us on how to tie up “just so.” Once we were settled, he promised to give us a free tour of the island on his golf “buggy” later than afternoon.
Tangiers Island was populated by the Pocomoke Indians for centuries but John Smith was credited with discovering it in the early 1600’s. It was settled by people with the same English surnames as those who still live there (Crockett, Pruitt, Thomas, Marshall, Charnock, Parks, etc.) The island is known for the distinct accent of its residents. They sound more English than American, perhaps owing to the isolated nature of the island culture. They are known locally as “Hoi Toiders” (high tiders) although the accent is starting to diminish now that communication channels have become more world wide.
After washing down the boat, we set off on foot to explore the island ourselves.
Tangier Island is quite a special place. It’s very small (only 1.2 square miles) with a population of 727. There are practically no cars on the island. Residents get around on foot or by bicycle or buggy. We walked the streets near the marina which were very narrow and laid out with neatly painted and decorated homes. Everyone we met was very friendly. Only a few stores and one of the four restaurants were still open as the season was clearly ending. The local historical museum was open and we spent a little time in there learning more about the island’s history.
Tangier Island has a simple charming feel to it. Houses are nestled close to each other. The largest house on the island appeared to be the local church refectory. One interesting note – the homes were originally surrounded by white picket fences. As they started to deteriorate, some families replaced them with more modern chain link fences. After that, everyone put up chain link fences. But now, many years later, those rather unattractive fences are rusting and being replace by – guess what – white picket fences!
The primary industries are crabbing and tourism. Visitors from the mainland come over on ferries from nearby Crisfield. Those ferry excursions decline with the advent of autumn. We did see one small group of what appeared to be Mennonites who were exploring the town. It seemed like a fitting place for them to enjoy. There is one schoolhouse on the island that teaches children from kindergarten through high school. The town is big enough to have its own post office. We visited one of the gift shops where Jonny bought a tee shirt. The proprietress informed us that the postmistress was her sister and her brother was the police chief. That seems to be the way it is on Tangier Island. Everyone is related to everyone else.
We passed an extraordinary number of graveyards. In earlier years, families buried their dead in back yards. When that became impractical, small cemeteries appeared in several locations around the island. When Mr. Parks gave us our buggy tour, he pointed out a home where there was a fresh and good sized gravestone right outside the back door. Apparently the woman who lived there wanted her husband nearby.
Mr. Park also drove us by the recently built health center where his daughter works as a doctor and a very nice recreation center used largely by the children on the island. The entire island was well kept and appeared to be a very comfortable and friendly place. Everyone we passed greeted us and had special words of endearment for Mr. Parks, who is obviously a well-loved figure here.
When it came time for dinner and given the importance of crabbing to this island (especially soft shell crab) we, of course, had to sample the local cuisine. That evening we had an early dinner of soft shell crab and crab cakes at Lorraine’s, the only restaurant that seemed to be open on the island. It was a basic restaurant with simple preparations but the food was good and plenty enough for leftovers. Oh, did we mention that this is a dry island so we had to limit our liquor intake to that which we had onboard!
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