THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 24, 1994 TAG: 9407240033
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: AROUND THE BAY IN 50 DAYS
Earl Swift is exploring the geography, history and people of the
Chesapeake Bay on a 50-day kayak trip that began July 1.
SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 95 lines
The greatest difference between the Bay's coast on the lower Eastern Shore and that along middle Maryland, within a couple hours' drive of Washington and Baltimore, may lie in how much it costs to own a piece of it.
Three days' paddling has taken me from Wingate, Md., a crabbing outpost with one general store and a waterman's harbor ringed by salt marsh, to Oxford, Md., where streets are decorated with parked Jaguars and Mercedes, the basins are filled with motor yachts and sailboats, and the shore is lined with riprap protecting postcard-perfect weekend getaways.
Gentleman boaters in shorts and deck shoes stroll the narrow lanes past homes that a few years ago were occupied by boat-builders and watermen and are now held by rich Washington lawyers. Bicycle tourists roll along blacktop that follows 17th century buggy paths but now links homes costing astronomical sums.
Age and quietude lend Oxford an idyllic air. The nation's oldest private ferry crosses the Tred Avon River from the foot of Morris Street, as it has since 1683. Visitors to the famed Robert Morris Inn dine between walls that witnessed talk of revolution and rights. Boat-builders construct and repair sailing vessels in the town's riverfront yards, as generations before them have.
``People do things here they never do at home,'' Zena Lerman said. She and her husband, Arnie, divide their time between Oxford and the Washington suburbs. ``You see people holding hands. They say hello to strangers. They're relaxed.''
But the town's model-railroad perfection has not been constant. When Johnson Fortenbaugh Sr. moved here in 1946, ``it was a working town, watermen exclusively.''
At the century's turn, Oxford's finest homes were strung along Morris Street, facing the traffic, said Fortenbaugh, a Realtor. ``To them, watermen worked. And the owners of these homes would rather see the buggies pass than the boats.''
That changed in the 1950s when the Chesapeake Bay Bridge connected the Maryland mainland to the Eastern Shore. Big-city visitors and money began to trickle in. Real estate leaped in value: Fortenbaugh's grandmother paid $920 for the waterfront house in which he lives. Today, the lot alone would cost $350,000.
``That house just sold for $600,000,'' he said, pointing out a big waterfront place as we toured the historic district in his Volkswagen. ``It needed work.
``Nonresident ownership is about 30 percent. It's hard to find a native. I'd say that of 751 people living here, maybe 10 are native, and that's no exaggeration. There's only one waterman still living in town - only one man still trying to make his living catching crabs.''
I'd seen signs of this metamorphosis earlier. On Deal Island, watermen tie up within sight of a new condominium complex. On the Nanticoke River, sprawling second homes have colonized the old working town of Waterview. But north of Wingate, on the Honga River, the Bay's transformation from workplace to playground accelerated.
In Wingate, I parked my kayak on the wharf's gravel shoulder and spent the night on an army cot in an old government surplus steel barge that was set on blocks near the water. Its owner, a wiry, deeply tanned crabber named William ``Snooks'' Windsor, even dropped off an old TV to watch while I stayed there. When storms rolled in the next morning I stayed ashore. The local crabbing fleet, undaunted by evil-looking clouds and frequent lightning, took to the water. ``It was right nasty,'' one waterman told me later, ``but there weren't no wind to it so we were OK.''
When I left the next day, I paddled past Snooks and other crabbers working their lines, followed the river to the Upper Hooper Island Bridge, then cut left into the Bay. Climbing the coast of Taylor's Island I saw that more and more of the shoreline was shielded by riprap, and behind it houses began to appear - not watermen's houses, or farms, but ranch-style homes with sedans in their driveways.
After crossing the Little Choptank River on a fiery-hot afternoon, I pulled up against a bulkhead guarding the shore around a massive estate and asked a man cleaning the swimming pool if he'd mind my pitching my tent for the night in a grove of trees near the house. He hollered back that he was the property's caretaker but that I could beach the boat and wait for the owner.
When I stepped ashore I realized the estate was an island crossed by a lighted, paved runway. A while later a plane landed and the owner's son stepped out.
He fiddled around inside the house for a bit, said he supposed it would be all right for me to stay, then climbed back in the plane and took off.
The following day I paddled into the Choptank River in an aggressive chop caused by wind blowing against the tide. As I crossed the river toward Oxford, mine was the only boat on the water. MEMO: Swift's next report will appear Wednesday. His 50-day journey around the
Chesapeake Bay began July 1. by CNB