On the Bay

Roger Morris knew autumn crabbing would end early in 2017.  Last year the legal crabbing season lasted until the end of November. This year it would close down three days before Thanksgiving. So this short month would be his last shot at a good year.

It happens every year for every crab boat: the haul out, the scraping and sanding, the painting and cleaning. For all that work, a crab boat has to go “on the hard” for a couple weeks. Especially if the boat is wood, and the captain is Roger Morris.

Before a waterman can plunk his crab pots along the bottom of Chesapeake Bay, he’s got to paint them. A lot of watermen use red anti-fouling paint on their pots, but Roger Morris down in Church Creek, Maryland thinks yellow pots catch more crabs down around the southern end of Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

The man who taught me the most about photography never told me anything about cameras or lenses or film types. His name was Robert de Gast, and years ago he showed me how to see the Chesapeake Bay through a camera lens.

Eric Buehl knows all the breakfast specials at D & R’s Restaurant in Greensboro. As much an indoor town hall as a diner, the restaurant has hosted many a morning meeting between Buehl and Rich Covert, president of the Greensboro Volunteer Fire Company on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.