Keith Rupp, left, and Andy Hambleton with their Thursday catch of oysters aboard Andy’s boat Tammy. DENNIS FORNEY PHOTOS
Two or three years ago, PT Hambleton told me there’s only two things a waterman has to worry about: January and February. This week proves his point.
While California is fighting flames, the East Coast lies quietly beneath a blanket of snow now compacting into sheets of ice.
North and west winds combined with sub-freezing temperatures blow out the tides and leave thick scales of ice motionless on remaining mud flats.
At Hambleton’s crabbing and oystering operation at the head of Grace Creek, a couple of boats near shore with crabbing rigs still in place heel over on their deadrise bottoms. When the winds ease and the tides return, they will right themselves.
Other workboats, rigged for oystering with dredges and tongs, sit in what water’s left, their owners awaiting more hospitable weather.
Strong west winds blow the tides out of Grace Creek.
“It’s brutal out there,” says Andy Hambleton. He’s at the stern helm of Tammy – named for his mom. Keith Rupp stands by the culling table alongside several bushels of oysters, just finishing tying up to the wharf to offload their morning’s catch and collect their pay. They were the only watermen who left the Grace Creek docks on Thursday.
“See all those anchors there on the stern?” says Andy. “They were all overboard and I still couldn’t hold bottom against that wind. There’s oysters there but it was tough staying on them.”
He’s wearing an Elmer Fudd-style red and black-checkered hat with thick, fleece-lined flaps tied tightly around his ears.
“If I’d had my pick-up truck here on the back of the boat I’d of tied her off and thrown it overboard too. But that still probably wouldn’t have held.”
They worked fairly shoal water in the lee of Mulberry Point where Grace and Broad creeks join. “That didn’t help much so eventually we had to move back inside the creek,” said Andy.
Keith flashes a wide smile. He’s happy to be back at the dock. “See these new teeth? This is what pays for them. What makes us go.”
His two front teeth shine as white as the snow piled up on the gunnels of the workboats that never left the dock that day.
“These teeth and being broke ass,” he says.
“Broke ass is right.” Andy agrees. “These oysters are going to pay the bank. You can’t let mother nature keep you in. There’s plenty of other stuff that will do that.”
Another waterman, Roger, finishes trading hunting and oystering stories with Phil and Shannon and Todd in the Hambleton office before heading out on the dock to check on his rig. He motored his rig down from Kent Narrows a couple weeks back to tong in Broad Creek.
“It’s been a decent oystering season so far. The price is up a little. That helps.”
He looks at the deadrise tied up next to his. Sees water streaming, but not strongly, out of the bilge port just above the waterline. “Better check on that,” he says. “Hate to see that pump burn up cuz it’s froze open and doesn’t stop. You have to keep an eye on your boats. Especially in this weather.”
The freezing weather, with more to come, has brought a dramatic change.
In the two weeks before Christmas one waterman counted 53 boats tonging in the waters of Broad Creek reserved for that harvesting method. Far fewer boats are out now. Weeks like this, some days none.
Todd Hambleton offloads his brother’s catch of Broad Creek oysters.
The good news is the bushel price paid to the watermen is up a couple bucks over the $35 they’ve been getting since the start of the season in October. Unusual that the price will be up after the holidays. The holidays are when demand is high, when the price holds. After Christmas and New Year’s demand usually drops along with the number of market days when buyers green light harvesting.
But with fewer boats harvesting, supply is shrinking. That sends the price higher. So there’s the good news for those who do go out, along with the fact that the quality of this year’s oysters is particularly strong: fat and with good color. Colder water makes for good oysters like that and they reportedly grow faster in these conditions.
The bad news? As PT says, just two things: January and February.
Dennis Forney has been a publisher, journalist and columnist on the Delmarva Peninsula since 1972. He writes from his home on Grace Creek in Bozman.
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