Env. Biology
Book Outline Beautiful Swimmers
Chapter 11

Ÿ In late April of 1974, off the main eastern shore highway in a town called Wenona where this chapter takes place.
Ÿ The author talks about how Horace Webster’s general store also serves as Wenona’s post office and center of island intelligence.
Ÿ Crewmen of the boats would often come and go as they pleased, which meant employment records were not something that the captains ever kept, so the IRS came around saying all the watermen had to pay back taxes for there crews.
Ÿ It had been the best year ever for oysters, however many of the tongers and dredgers hadn’t gone far enough up the bay for the winter, as they usually did for the last ten years.
Ÿ Early spring the time all watermen dreamed of a great season to come.
Ÿ Captain grant the watermen the author went out with said,“ don’t mind going out in this weather, catching some crabs.”(pg.264)
Ÿ Part way through the season he brought his boat home, like a number of the other watermen who found better conditions in Tangier Sound.
Ÿ The price for oysters had remained around five dollars a bushel.
Ÿ Captain Grant was talking about how he wanted a better and easier life for his boys, “bricklaying that’s a good start, easy enough to learn, the pay is good and you don’t need a whole lot of equipment.” Sometimes he thought about it himself, to tell the truth. “ But here I am out on the water again, if we just caught one or two, be alright.”(pg.266)
Ÿ As far as anybody could tell, the early season was not going very well. Early year more and more crabbers were working late into autumn, and Grant figured that had to mean the old crabs would be scarce the following springs.
Ÿ Bait was sky high at $5 three quarter of a bushel, and the diesel fuel had climbed to over forty cents a gallon.
Ÿ Chesapeake watermen are excellent mechanics, but they have to push their boats hard and there isn’t always time or money to keep every idem of gear up to perfect form.
Ÿ The author wrote that he doubted many watermen understood the full threat of their quiet and insidious workings.

Chapter 12

Ÿ This chapter takes place in Crisfield a small town on the Bay that is built on millions of tons of oyster shells. A town built from and for the blue crab, to get them to the market quickly
Ÿ Some once said that in Crisfield people feed off the oysters and live in their shells, their the crab capital of the universe, the most soft shell crab anyways.
Ÿ There is a saying in Crisfield that reads, “we pass the fastest buck.”(pg.275)
Ÿ Many people in Crisfield during the nineteen century, when it was possible to walk across Crisfield harbor on the decks of the oyster fleets.
Ÿ Well-regulated public housing has replaced many of the deplorable tumbledown houses of the waterfront section, where most of the black labor force for the packing plants used to live.
Ÿ There have been no regular runs on the Crisfield spur for twenty years now.
Ÿ Fights between others in this town are very rare except when a man is known for stealing crab pots or for snipping the lines of buoys watermen put down when they find a good oyster patch, which incase that person is in for much worse than a fight, since these are unspeakable crimes in Crisfield. Some was quoted for saying, “ Men can’t do that and expect to live very long.”(pg.280)
Ÿ It is the code of Crisfield, sheriffs and other law enforcement can be expected not to intervene
Ÿ There is a high-spirited insouciance, not to the grim fatalism of so many other fishing communities, in the way Crisfielders accept the risk of living off the water.
Ÿ The spirit of Crisfield is inextinguishable, whether by fire, flood, empty crab pots or a miserable lick of oysters.
Ÿ One professor believes that the Crisfield region is one of the richest communities of folk stories and oral tradition in the United States.
Ÿ During Memorial Day weekend the population triples in Crisfield every year for the annual National Hard Crab Derby and Fair. Which is the biggest event in Crisfield every year.