Oysters in the Chesapeake

More about my Fall Break. The one day we rode out from Deal Island in Maryland on a boat with oyster watermen and another boat that was doing an oyster census. We watched as a giant claw thing scraped the bottom of the ocean floor to collect the shellfish. With evey dip, they only collect a few acceptable oysters. They have to be at least 3 inches, not have and spat (basically baby oysters) on them, and of course, be healthy and alive in order to keep them. Tons of the oysters are plagued by diseases, and the men who have been doing this job for generations simply can not survive on this livliehood anymore. The number of watermen and oysters decrease every year.

And then, on a less depressing note, we ate raw oysters. Yeah. Actually, it wasn't so bad. Without chewing, it just tasted like a lump of salt water going down. Tasty.

Good bye little oysters.