Housed in a recreated crab shack, Waterman’s Wharf offers a chance to try your hand at seafood harvesting as practiced by a Chesapeake Bay waterman. Watch crabs shed in the tanks, or tong for oysters, check an eel or crab pot from the wharf to see if you’ve caught anything. Also on campus, adjacent to Hooper Strait lighthouse, are watermen’s traditional workboats: the Hooper Island draketail Martha, a “Pot Pie” skiff, and Volunteer, a replica Smith Island crab scape.
Derelict crab shack, Tangier Island, Photography by Robert de Gast. 0975.0243.27
Crab shack, Tangier Island, Photography by Robert de Gast. 0975.0364.06