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Lisa Carol Rose is a fifth generation waterman, one of a handful of women who ply the waters of the Chesapeake Bay and its surrounding rivers and creeks.
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Photo used courtesy Lisa Carol Rose.
Sporting her pink cammo cap, Lisa Carol Rose gives the thumbs up from the culling table where she works with her brother, the captain of the "Lady Lindsay," and father.
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Photo used courtesy Lisa Carol Rose.
The watermen’s workday starts early in the morning aboard the "Lady Lindsay," shown above working the waters for oysters.
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Photo used courtesy Lisa Carol Rose.
The tongs and cull table pictured in this photograph have been used by three generations of watermen in Lisa’s family.
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Photo used courtesy Lisa Carol Rose.
Once the oysters are harvested, culled and sorted by size, they are sold at the dock, recently bringing between $30 and $45 per bushel.
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Photo used courtesy Lisa Carol Rose.
Hoisting the bushels of oysters is no easy trick as each weighs about 80 pounds and contains from 150 to 250 oysters.
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The huge bronze bell from the Windmill Point Lighthouse “could be heard whenever fog shrouded the entrance waters of the Rappahannock River” (Rappahannock Record, May 22, 1975). The bell, cast in 1875 by J. Regester and Sons of Baltimore, Maryland, was in service from 1875 to 1965 when the screw-pile lighthouse was dismantled and replaced by a skeleton tower. It now sits on land at the Windmill Point Marina.
Most mornings in the fall, just before the sun peeks above the horizon, Lisa Carol Rose, wearing her signature pink camouflage baseball hat, leaves the Reedville dock aboard the Lady Lindsay, a graceful, 47-foot deadrise, along with her brother and father, in search of wild oysters. “Good morning, Monroe,” she says respectfully at the first sight of the sun, so named by the watermen.
As they race other boats to their first location, Rose chronicles the other fishermen, their vessels and the spectacular early morning light in photography and video that she posts on her public Facebook page, “A Waterman, thru Her Eyes Photography by The Salty Daughter.”
Rose’s pictures describe in vivid detail the lives of watermen, the hardships they endure, and the simple joy that comes from working on the water. For many, it is the only life they have known. Her photographs give her Facebook followers a birds-eye view of contrasts: the beauty of the early morning light and the race to eke out a living.
Rose is a fifth generation waterman, one of a handful of women who ply the waters of the Chesapeake Bay and its surrounding rivers and creeks. From October through February, she, along with her brother, Shawn, and her dad, Lacy, harvest wild or native oysters, moving from the Rappahannock River to the Great Wicomico, the York River, and Tangier Sound. From May to July, they mind crab pots along the bay shore of the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers.
During oyster season, they go to the native oyster beds as they are opened for harvest, directed by the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. Sometimes 30 deadrise boats are circling close together, as they drop their dredges at sunrise to begin harvesting their legal catch of eight bushels per person on board per day. Each oyster must be inspected to be sure it meets the minimum size for sale. Anything under three inches must be thrown back because it is still reproducing. And all boats must return to the dock no later than 2 p.m.
Hoisting the bushels of oysters is no easy trick as each weighs about 80 pounds and contains 150 to 250 oysters. “I struggle, but I do it,” Rose said. “Just because I am a woman doesn’t mean I can’t carry my weight.”
Prices vary widely at the dock, depending on whether the oysters will be shucked or roasted, but lately, watermen have been selling bushels for between $30 and $45 each.
Overall, Virginia is the leading East Coast seafood producer and the third largest in the nation. Virginia’s oyster harvest increased by 31 percent during the 2014 season, with more than 658,000 bushels, with a dockside value of more than $33.8 million, the most in nearly a generation.
This past winter, from December through February, the Roses moved from dredging to patent tonging their oysters an area known as Deep Rock, an area near Deltaville and Mathews on the bay shore, where they pulled up what she called “huge strikes.” That area has not been opened to harvest by local watermen in memory. The colder waters made the oysters even tastier.
“It was the biggest strike I’ve ever seen,” Rose said, “largely because it has not been open in my memory.”
Unlike dredging for oysters, patent tonging involves a more fluid motion: tongs go straight into the water, the watermen pull the tongs up, and dump the oysters on a table to be culled. Then, they push the tongs straight back into the water. Up and down, up and down, up and down, the tongs go while the boat drifts in the water. Culling is just the same as with dredging. Anything under three inches must be thrown back.
Oysters take on the flavor of their homes—their breeding grounds. Many say the Chesapeake Bay and one of its tributaries, the Rappahannock River, provide the perfect home for growing the best oysters in the world. The combination of salinity, firm bottom, moderate winters and cool summer temperatures provide perfect conditions for a briny, sweet and butter cream flavor, perfect for eating raw or lightly roasted.
Both watermen and consumers have their favorites. The Rappahannock River oyster is in biggest demand now. Its taste is salty while the Wicomico oyster is less so.
Until Rose tasted the Deep Rock oyster for the first time in her life, her favorite was the Blackberry Hang found near the Potomac and the bay shore off Cockrell’s Creek and the Great Wicomico. “It’s a little buttery, not sweet and not salty,” Rose said. “But there aren’t many up there.” Now, however, the Deep Rock oyster has replaced the Blackberry Hang as her favorite. “I can eat 5 to 10 a day while we’re oystering,” she said.
Oysters have an important place in Virginia’s history beginning with Native Americans, the first American watermen, who introduced the Jamestown settlers to oysters for mere survival. Later, in many Virginia Civil War battles, soldiers on both sides relied on canned oyster stew and fresh oysters roasted over campfires. After the Civil War and the Great Depression, the oysters of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries again provided important sustenance to residents when there was little other food.
Recently, the wild or native oyster has made a resurgence in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries after at least 30 years in decline. Still, less than two percent of native oyster reefs remain from the great oyster heydays. Many believe introduction of an invasive species from Asia three decades ago, combined with over-harvesting, killed the native oysters throughout the Bay and its tributaries and wreaked economic havoc for local watermen. Some had to turn to carpentry and other jobs to make a meager living. And many lived off the fish they caught and the vegetables they raised in their gardens.
But today, there’s no question that the local oyster reefs have made a comeback. Last season, Rose, her father, and her brother pulled up to Butler’s Hole near Windmill Point, a reef her dad had not oystered in 30 years. When her dad dropped the strikes of oysters onto the cull table, “they were as big as basketballs—a sure sign the oyster was back.”
Rose said the “overwhelming” oyster strikes that Virginia watermen saw every day this past season has watermen “still talking. We’re not sure why or how it happened,” she said. “And science has not given us an answer, but hopefully the 2016-17 season will shed more light. When you catch a sook in March that has 12 oyster spat on its shell, the watermen are convinced the native oyster is back.”
In fact, not only are the native oysters back, but now Virginia is developing a booming oyster aquaculture industry, a Virginia Oyster Country for the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula, and a Virginia Oyster Trail.
In November, Gov. Terry McAuliffe visited the The Tides Inn in Irvington for an oyster-shucking ceremony to announce the Virginia Oyster Trail.
“The Virginia Oyster Trail is a great new way to leverage all of the benefits Virginia oysters bring to local communities and our efforts to build a new Virginia economy,” Gov. McAuliffe said. “Virginia oysters help foster tourism, community development, agriculture, environmental stewardship, entrepreneurial growth, and cultural integration of Virginia’s distinctive coastal way of life. Virginia produces the best oysters in the world, and as the oyster industry continues to grow, we want it to be known that Virginia is the Oyster Capital of the East Coast.”
Rose and her family were there to invite the Governor to taste their native or wild oysters with cocktail sauce. All the other oyster-growers at The Tides were serving farm-raised oysters with a mignonette sauce, a mixture of champagne vinegar, shallots, and fresh cracked pepper. And, according to Rose, the Governor noticed a difference in the taste between the two and preferred the native oysters with cocktail sauce.
Rose is a spokesman for the watermen on several levels, meeting with the Marine Resources Commission and organizing WAVE, the Waterman of Virginia Engaged. This new adventure is organized to promote the local seafood industry, and Rose is spearheading this effort.
“The watermen need to speak with one voice,” Rose said. “Unfortunately, the watermen have been labeled as pirates, and nothing could be further from the truth. Rep. (Rob) Wittman encouraged us to join together, and we have, so our expertise will be heard loud and clear.”
For example, she said, watermen are paid about 14 cents per oyster, yet they are sold for about $1 per oyster. “That must change,” Rose said. She would eventually like to open markets so that seafood locally could be sold from boats as it was in the past, she said.
Rose’s career as a waterman is relatively new.
She grew up in White Stone, graduated from Lancaster High School in 1994, and earned an associate’s degree in drafting and design from Southern Virginia College. For 12 years, she was a stay-at-home mom to her two children, Lacy McLane Brocklebank, now 18, and Olivia McLane Brocklebank, 13.
Three year ago, when her sister-in-law, who had been oystering became pregnant, Rose decided to get her license to help her brother in the family business, Old Salt Fisheries.
“I’m incredibly proud of my brother and his knowledge of the Chesapeake Bay,” says Rose. “I wouldn’t be on this boat if it weren’t for Shawn.”
Sometimes she questions why, at age 40, she embarked on a career as a waterman. “Why on earth, at my age, do I love this so much?” she asked. “It’s a hard life.”
But then she grows philosophical. “I’m bonding with my daddy and my brother and they’re teaching me not just about the water, but about life and values. Patience, respect, confidence, drive, the mechanics of Mother Nature, and to be aware of my surroundings. It’s definitely brought me closer to my family, and my appreciation for the Chesapeake Bay has deepened.”
Rose has earned the respect of even the crustiest, life-long watermen. And she’s thrilled when the Lady Lindsay gathers its daily quota of oysters and returns to the dock before more seasoned watermen do. She’s quick to rub in it: “You just got beaten by a girl!” The only girl around, she added.
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