Deltaville, Va. – Tangier Island, Va., - May 22, 2008

We left this morning at 6:30 because we had planned to go to the Solomons which would have been an all day trip. Shortly after we left we decided to adjust our course and make a stop at Tangier Island. We arrived at 10:30.

Tangier Island is accessible only by boat or small airplane. There is only 1 small town on the island and there are very few residents. The islands main income source is fishing and crabbing and is what generations of families have done. Recently tourism has become important to the economy. Tour boats make daily visits here and there are a few bed and breakfasts, about 4 restaurants and a few stores.

We walked around the inhabited part of the island. It is quite an interesting place. We found that even though the signs in the restaurants say open at 11 a.m., most of the restaurants only open when a tour boat comes in. Also, the museum and most of the small stores are not open unless there is a tour boat.

We did find one small outdoor café that was open. The Waterfront Café is sort of a drive-in type place, order in, eat outside. Most of the people eating lunch there were locals. It was located at the tour boat docks and would be open until 4. We talked with the woman running it. She said there was a small tour boat that would be coming in around 1:30 and leaving at 4:00. The stores would be open then. We had hoped to eat dinner somewhere on the island so we went back and checked around 3:30. None of the larger restaurants had opened so we ate at the Waterfront Café. We had supper at 3:45 p.m. (Even when there are large tour boats here, the restaurants close at 5:00.)

In talking with a local resident we found that there are fewer than 600 people living here year around. A lot of the men have left. The fishing restrictions are making it difficult for them. You can tell who has lived here a long time. They have a unique dialect.

Almost all the transportation is by golf cart, bicycle and scooter/motorcycle. There was a police car and we saw a car that said “Taxi” on it. We also saw a golf cart that said “Taxi” on it. Most of the streets are only wide enough for golf carts. There were some trucks down by the docks.

All of the homes were fenced. There were a lot of homes with graves and headstones in their yards. A sign we saw said that was common years ago. It made it easier for the family to gather, it detered grave robbers and dogs were less likely to dig them up.

We had no internet access or phone signal while in Tangier Island. However, this is a very unique place and we were very glad to have stopped.