Women on the Water: Chesapeake Bay

Imani Black doesn’t look like a traditional Chesapeake Bay waterman. She’s in her early 30s, a woman and African American. Yet, she embodies a waterman — a time- honored title for someone who makes their living oystering, crabbing, net fishing, eeling and more on this seafood- filled estuary. Born and raised on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Black’s family has a long history of watermen from Rock Hall, Cambridge and Crisfield, dating back over 200 years.

“I grew up on the water,” says Black. “Fishing after church on Sundays at the Chestertown wharf. Cleaning crabs outside at a table covered in newspaper for family holiday meals. Participating in community cleanups with 4-H. I wanted to be a marine biologist since I was in grade school.” Black, who founded the nonprofit Minorities in Aquaculture in 2020, now works professionally as a shellfish aquaculture biologist for Maryland and Virginia oyster companies. She aims to help restore the much-sought- after mollusks on which the Chesapeake Bay and waterman culture have earned their fame. Black isn’t the first, nor the only, woman to work in this customarily male career.

“Historically, women supported their watermen husbands and fathers on shore. They raised families and helped to shed soft crabs, shuck oysters, mend gear and sell product,” says Rachel Dean, secretary of the Calvert County Watermen’s Association and co-owner of Patuxent River Seafood on Broomes Island, MD, where she oysters, crabs and fishes.

Together with her husband, she also runs Solomons Island Heritage Tours, where visitors can learn about commercial fishing and see Dean’s firsthand role in the business.

Wives also often took shoreside jobs in related trades like crab picking. Women continue to win many of the region’s crab-picking competitions. Last year, Kathleen Pine championed the Maryland Seafood Festival’s Crab Picking Contest, and Ruth Schoolfield succeeded at the Crisfield’s Hard Crab Derby, held in September, with 2.26 pounds of meat handpicked in 15 minutes. It was Schoolfield’s thirteenth win.

“Watermen often traveled by boat far from home, and it was not unusual for them to be gone for entire seasons, especially the oyster season,” says Dean. “More recently, women have taken on the role of crew members. They work alongside their husbands on the water using various harvest techniques. It is not unusual to see women running their own rigs and crews.”

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LADIES OF ALL AGES CONQUER THE CHESAPEAKE

Rachel Dean and Samantha Barnett, treasurer for the Calvert County Watermen’s Association and full-time clam, oyster and crab fishers, run the Calvert Watermen’s Boat Docking Competition, a fundraiser for watermen in need, each September. Eleven-year-old Peyton Reiss, of Tilghman Island, has proven herself to be one of the young stars of this contest and others, handling a workboat with the skill and speed of adult watermen.

“Peyton was eight years old and made her first appearance at the Waterman’s Appreciation Day in St. Michaels,” says Jackie Reiss, Peyton’s mom. “In the fall and winter, she enjoys patent tonging and dredging for oysters with her dad, Ronnie, on the May Worm. She’s happily on the boat all summer fishing and scrapping pilings for crabs. Ronnie teaches her something new every time they’re on the water, from navigation to knot tying. Last summer, Peyton put her own skiff in the water. She enjoys the freedom and the responsibility of having something of her own.”

Women have been long associated with skipjacks, classic Chesapeake Bay sloop-rigged, sail-powered fishing boats used for oyster dredging. Cyndy Carrington Miller started researching skipjacks in 2009. Her website, Last Skipjacks Project, is a treasure trove of history. First on Miller’s list is the 1915-built Ada Mae, named for the owner’s kid sister, who often came aboard to keep him company. It wasn’t until March 1982 when Leigh Hunteman became the first woman to skipper a skipjack, taking over the helm of the 1949-built Lorraine Rose, a dredging vessel owned then by the Bridge Restaurant on Tilghman Island.

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CHESAPEAKE WOMEN CULTIVATE CREATIVITY

Also in 1982, Lila Line published her book Waterwomen, highlighting four women who worked professionally on the water in the 1970s. The book was the first to chronicle and celebrate women’s roles in traditional Chesapeake Bay fisheries. Line’s photography and recorded oral interviews are part of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum’s (CBMM) collection located in St. Michaels, MD.

“While the women in Line’s book are long retired, and some are no longer living, there are women who are certainly following in their footsteps. One of them is featured in CBMM’s exhibition ‘Her Helm,’ which explores women captains on the Chesapeake,” says Pete Lesher, CBMM’s chief historian and ambassador at large.

Kristin Rutkowski is the professional portrait photographer who created the Her Helm project and has since published her work as a book. Rutkowski, who lives in Cape Charles, VA, sought out 50-plus female captains at the helm of maritime vessels working on the bay. “My goals were to break the stereotype of watermen as only men, normalize it and celebrate it,” says Rutkowski. “It’s essential for young women today to have role models in the industry to look up to.”

Black is one of the women featured in Her Helm. “The waterman way of life is dying out,” she says. “Small coastal communities need a workforce. In the future, there is an opportunity to educate everyone in our future generations about aquaculture and fishing and inspire them to work in the maritime industry of the Chesapeake Bay.”