Tag Archives: Tangier Island
Low-Lying Tangier Island to Get $2.3 Million to Safeguard Fuel Oil Supply for Watermen
The town of Tangier Island, Va. has been awarded a $2.5 million grant to ensure the town’s watermen can keep getting the fuel they need to run their boats, and that fuel supply will be kept safe from an environmental disaster. The $2.5 million from the Virginia Department of Environment Quality (DEQ) will provide funding to create safe storage of fuel and continued supply of fuel and fuel oil to the island. “The owner of the fuel plant was going to close it down,” said Mayor of Tangier, James “Ooker” Eskridge. “If the fuel plant closed down, that would have been catastrophic to our community. We would not have accessible fuel to run our boats and fuel oil to heat our homes.” more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 12:20
Waterman Allen Ray Crockett of Tangier Island has passed away
Mr. Allen Ray Crockett, beloved husband of Jeanette Bowden Crockett, passed away Monday, June 28, 2021. Allen was the son of the late Merrill Ray Crockett and the late Ruth Hall Parks Crockett. He was born Dec. 26, 1936, on Tangier Island, where he remained a pillar of the community throughout his 84 years. Allen’s lifelong career as a waterman began when he was just a boy standing on a crate as he worked alongside his father. Over the years he would travel to Crisfield, Md., to sell his Dad’s crabs, where the buyer always greeted him by saying, “Look out! Here comes Merrill’s boy.” Throughout his career, he owned three boats, The Wellington K., The Jeannette C., and finally, The Claudine Sue, which is now proudly owned and operated as The Samantha Paige, by his grandson, Thomas Reed Eskridge. >click to read< 17:26
The Incredible True Story of the Henrietta C.
That Monday opened with winds coming steady out of the east-northeast at 20 to 25, or kyowking, as they say on Virginia’s Tangier Island. It’s one of many old and strange words used by the people there: kyowking, or blowing hard. A day unfit for pleasure craft and weekend sailors. But April 24, 2017, was also a workday, and for 72 of the island’s watermen, that meant venturing out into the Chesapeake Bay to harvest its famed blue crabs.,, So it was that at five o’clock that blustery morning, Edward Vaughn Charnock and his son, Jason, slacked the lines on Ed’s workboat, the Henrietta C., and chugged west from the harbor in the predawn dark. >click to read<
Commercial crabber calls out Al Gore on fake science, explains sea level hasn’t changed at all since 1970
In promotion of his latest film, “An Inconvenient Sequel,” former vice president and global warming activist Al Gore is still desperately trying to make the case that planet earth is heating up, and that only carbon taxes can fix it. But as per usual, he failed miserably during a recent CNN town hall with Anderson Cooper, during which a commercial crabber and local mayor explained that sea levels around his tiny island have remained the same for over half a century. James Eskridge oversees the day-to-day activities on Tangier Island, in Virginia, and he’s been fishing crab there for decades. He’s quite familiar with the tides, the currents, and various other elements in and around the coastal terrain. And other than an ongoing problem related to erosion, in which the shorelines of Tangier Island are progressively disappearing due to constant waves and storms, he says that everything is exactly the same as it’s always been, at least as far as ocean levels are concerned. click here to read the story 09:25
Feds interview Tangier watermen, look into oyster sales records in Crisfield
Officers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service visited several watermen on Tangier Island and seafood businesses in Crisfield last week as part of an investigation they are conducting related to oysters. Federal officials would not confirm or deny the existence of an investigation, saying that’s their policy. But Wyn Hornbuckle, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice, did confirm “federal law enforcement activity” in Crisfield and Tangier last Wednesday. Tangier Mayor James “Ooker” Eskridge said the officials came in two boats and a helicopter; at first, he said, he thought President Donald Trump had arrived. click here to read the story 12:05
A crabbing boat sinks, a father is lost, a son rescued
In the final minutes of Ed Charnock’s life, he and his son clung to each other to conserve body heat in the frigid Chesapeake Bay. Jason Charnock handed his dad the only lifejacket he could grab from their fast-submerging crabbing boat. But the choppy water swept it away. “The boat sank, and Dad kept on floating away staring at me,” Jason Charnock told the Coast Guard in a statement he provided to The Associated Press. “I was looking for a helicopter to come,” he said. “I kept looking, and then looked back to see where my dad was, he wasn’t there and must have went under.” For this dwindling island community in the Chesapeake Bay, Ed Charnock’s drowning in late April struck a rare blow. click here to read the story 08:52
Tangier Island Is Sinking. Its Population Is Shrinking. And These Guys Want to Make It the Oyster Capital of the East Coast
The water is 54 degrees, cold enough that Craig Suro lets out a yelp when he dives in. Stinging sea nettles the size of Ping-Pong balls dot the surface around him. To make matters worse, Suro needs to go to the bathroom. “Can you piss in a wetsuit?” he asks. We’re floating a few hundred yards off Tangier Island, a speck of land in the Chesapeake Bay. Beneath us is some of the bay’s finest oyster-growing territory. Its waters are salty but not too salty, a moderate 17 parts per thousand. Enough algae is borne on the currents for millions of oysters to gorge themselves happily. Suro and his partners have bet half a million dollars on being able to turn this patch of bay into an oyster-farming empire. Read the rest here 10:28
Ken Cuccinelli’s post-politics endeavor: oyster farming
After losing an election, some politicians become lobbyists. Others immediately begin running for another office. Cuccinelli helped start an oyster farm on 
, in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. Praised on Fox News, scoffed at by “The Daily Show,” the outspoken conservative now seems focused on creating a new source of sustainable jobs for people on Tangier. And on how the oysters taste. Read the rest 21:50
