Getting Crabby

Y’all, we got crabby. I mean full-on, fish guts out, pinchers up, blue-complexioned crabby. And it was awesome!

We were privileged to spend just over 24-hours with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Our adventure began, conveniently after lunch, by ripping Menhaden fish in half, guts and all, for crab bait. We were down and dirty right off the boat. Just how I find life lessons best served. We set crab pots out in the Bay and crossed our fingers. What we caught overnight, we could eat the next day. Seriously, the best homework ever.

After crabbing, we toured some more of the Bay, learned a lot more about blue crabs, the health of the Bay, and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s efforts across the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed. We scraped the ocean floor for wild oysters to learn about their habitat and habits. We promptly returned them to their sanctuary so that they may continue to filter the waters in the Bay and continue their God-given purpose, to help clean up our polluted waters.

We found puffer fish, pig fish, spider crabs, flatfish, needlefish, lots of blue crabs, large and small, and a lot of other things I’ve always been terrified of touching my feet in the ocean. Some talented Fellows caught fish with rods (that wasn’t me) while we watched the sun rise from the boat in the midst of the Bay. We watched the sun set from Port Isobel as we rushed outside to frame worthy orange hughes. We did in fact catch enough crabs to keep us stuffing our Old Bay-dusted faces nearly all the way back to mainland for our departure home.

It was an experience I’ll never forget and forever be grateful for. Among all of the lessons branded in my mind from our experience, the most valuable things I found on Port Isobel Island were humility, humbleness, reason and hope. I learned valuable leadership lessons while getting crabby at Port Isobel. Perhaps, it was the most influential experience of my VALOR tenure thus far.

I cannot thank the Chesapeake Bay Foundation enough for their hospitality, encouragement, leadership and vision for the agriculture industry. They are truly change makers, unsatisfied with mediocre success, and have a vision for our future as farmers, seamen, citizens and brothers and sisters.

Sometimes getting crabby can be a really great thing!