Tangier Island

Tuesday October 2, 2012
37 49.806 N
75 59.634 W

Now this is a curious place.

We enjoyed a good night's rest up the Corrotoman. The water was so still I do not think the boat moved all night, and the anchor just worked as a weight. We were underway by 9AM, timed so that we arrived at Tangiers at high tide, about 2PM. Once again the Starboard engine battery acted up, so it looks like we have a new starting battery in our near future.

The trip was uneventful, except for a bit of rain. Also, because we had the weather on our stern quarter the boat "squirreled" around a bit - Deidre calls it "the washing machine" effect, and she really does not like it much. She says she feels better when she puts her head down, with the inevitable result of falling asleep. (She is not sucking her thumb, it just looks that way.)

There is only one marina at Tangiers, run by old Mr Parks. He is so old he called me "sonny" and is pretty deaf. The marina fee was only $35 a night, so we stayed two nights, so we could explore all day Wednesday.

Tide Hiker among the wok boats

.Tangiers has an interesting history. It was discovered by Capt. John Smith (of Pocahontas) and settled by Cornish immigrants in the mid 1600's. The descendants of these settlers still live there - all 600 of them. They have retained a distinctive country English accent (just like the villagers on Doc Martin). The islands total only a few square miles and are not far above sea level. Sometimes they are entirely covered by water during a "super tide" or bad storm.  In some ways its like a scruffy Venice. The islands were used as a staging area for the British attack on Baltimore in the war of 1812.

Granma in the front yard.

It sure is a strange place (especially since we had no cell phone coverage, no internet access and only occasional emails would go thru). Apart from that, the first thing that strikes you is that people bury their dead in their own front yards! The graves have slabs of concrete over them so the coffins do not float away at high tide. The streets are only 10' wide - enough for a golf cart. We only saw a coupe of cars. Four or five surnames account for about 50% of the population.

As you would expect the people live of the Bay, mainly crabbing and oysters.

Moocho crab pots

We rented a golf card for a couple of hours on Wednesday and tootled around. It was fun, but all a bit strange. There was a restaurant (for the tourists I suspect) and we had dinner there Tuesday night thinking we would get some fresh sea food - all very disappointing. All very interesting, but I do not think we will revisit.