A true story of rogue Chesapeake Bay oysters the size of dinner plates

This is one of my favorite stories from my time at the Daily Press about some rogue oysters who somehow escaped from a Chesapeake Bay marine experiment and lived to tell about it. For a while at least. I hope you enjoy it.

On assignment in 2012 with an oyster. But not one of THE oysters.

Oyster Survival Story Raises Questions

May 21, 2004|By MATT SABO Daily Press

A startling find of mammoth experimental bivalves left for dead yields a surprising conclusion: They're still alive, and they taste pretty good.

They were beasts of their species, orphans from a marine experiment gone awry that were lurking in the mucky bottom of a Rappahannock River tributary in Lancaster County.

Two girls out kayaking stumbled upon them last month. The girls lived to tell about it.

The behemoths did not.

They were two non-native oysters the size of dinner plates. A true full-meal deal.

Long since forgotten, the oysters weren't supposed to be there. They were among several hundred young bivalves put in the shallow tidal pond as part of a much larger 2001 experiment involving 60,000 oysters scattered around the Chesapeake Bay, said Jim Wesson of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission.

Vigorous, hardy and disease-resistant -- and perhaps somewhat quick and elusive -- the c. ariakensis bivalves are known as Suminoe, or "Asian," oysters. The two oysters, along with at least three others found later, managed to elude recapture when the experiment ended in 2003, even though Wesson said they all were enclosed in a mesh cage.

Wesson believes the oysters got stepped on and shoved down in the muck. Because one of the components of the experiment was gauging mortality, it was assumed the oysters suffered an untimely demise.

Wrong.

"As far as we knew they were gone," Wesson said. "If they disappeared, you would assume a crab or something would eat them."

Now Wesson knows otherwise.

"They live very well," he said. "Even the ones we got up were doing very well. We were testing how they would hold themselves up in the mud. If they can't compete with the sediment around them, they wouldn't live very well in the bay."

The oysters were taken to Stan Allen, director of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. There they met their death and were found to be sterile, just as they were when the experiment began.

Allen found them intriguing, but he doesn't advocate orphaning experimental oysters.

"It's not a good idea to keep them out there without some custodial care," he said.

The find has raised eyebrows -- and questions -- particularly now that the Chesapeake Bay is hosting experimental trials involving about 800,000 Asian oysters. The trials are sponsored by the Virginia Seafood Council.

"We're pretty concerned about it," said Mike Fritz, living resources coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency's Chesapeake Bay Program office.

The Asian oysters in the current trials are penned in secure bags, racks and floats -- not put out loose on the bottom, he said.

"We're doing everything we can to keep them under control, to effectively keep the genie in the bottle and not let these oysters get established as a population in the bay," Fritz said.

What sets the Asian oysters apart from native bivalves is that they seem to flourish in the same waters that, after a century of overharvesting and diseases, have been so deadly to native oysters.

It's unusual for native oysters to live through three summer seasons, Allen said.

Not so for the Asian oysters, obviously. Despite concerns that the Asian oysters could reverse their sterility, the Rappahannock group proved unfruitful.

"It's very helpful to know that the sterility holds and to know that they grow very well in the environment we have," Wesson said.

The EPA's Fritz said the Asian oysters in the current trial are being studied to see if they are susceptible to diseases, if they may be hosts to diseases or parasites that could afflict native shellfish and if they are suitable to live alongside other species living on the bottom of the bay.

While questions abound regarding the Asian oysters, one big question has been cleared up.

They taste good.

"They're not bad," Allen said. "I mean, not raw. Cooked, they're quite good."

The foodie truth, or why winter and Pinterest go together

A power chowder: Just add bacon

I have come to the conclusion that winter can be useful. I'm not a great fan of winter by any stretch of the imagination. If I were to rate the four seasons from favorite to permanently exile it to Siberia, it would go like this:
1) Summer
2) Fall (Truly, Virginia falls are absolutely splendid and a very, very close second to summer in my book. It's almost a photo finish. The only real issue I have with fall in Virginia is that every day you are that much closer to winter.)
3) Spring
97) Winter

So you can see that winter isn't exactly my favorite. I hate being cold and winter here just off Chesapeake Bay -- where the air is so thick with humidity on some days that you can actually catch it, put it in a Ziploc bag and watch it turn to water -- is a bone-chilling cold. It's a damp, miserable affair in which there are days where if I spend too much time outside I just can't get warm for the rest of the day.

One of the few redeeming qualities of a Tidewater Virginia winter is Pinterest. Seriously. I'm on Pinterest and I get the occasional Pin on my board or whatever you call it that just doesn't seem right to me.

For example, from actual things on my board I saw this morning it might go something like: "Top 10 Tips to Reduce Swelling During Pregnancy" (I don't even know where to begin with that. What sort of Pinterest algorithm came to the conclusion that I might be having problems with swelling when I'm pregnant? I've never, ever had swelling during pregnancy!) or "Amazing 2 Ingredient Makeup Remover -- You'll never go back to expensive department store versions again!" (I'm going to nip this in the bud right now before you draw conclusions about the things popping up on my Pinterest board: When it comes to makeup, I'm okay with using expensive department store versions of makeup remover because I believe that's something you definitely don't want to mess around with.)

What I find Pinterest useful for, when I don't need pregnancy or makeup tips, is finding recipes. Yeah Pinterest has lots of other cool features, like DIY stuff, parenting stuff (The one that cracks me up lately is all these Pins about "How I Survived Going From 2 Kids to 3" and "How to Decide If You Can Handle Going From Two Kids to 3" ... so naturally I'm thinking of writing a useful blog and throwing it up on Pinterest with the title, "How to Decide If You Can Handle Going From 13 Kids to 14" ... I bet it will get a ton of Pins.) and links to somewhat interesting and useful blogs.

But far and away the #1 Pinterest feature in my book is recipes. Especially on bone-chilling frigid winter days where the only redeeming quality of it is that it's a great excuse to make soup. I think that is the one thing I am thankful for when it comes to winter: It's the season of soup-making.

Recently I came across this soup recipe on Pinterest that I tried and let me just say -- and it's not bragging if it's true -- that the day I made it is the day I made the best soup in Gloucester County. I also want to say that Claire helped me out ... well technically she did all the heavy soup-making lifting and I was more like the sous chef to her head chef. Claire can flat-out cook. She's a force to be reckoned with in the kitchen. So the other day for this soup, I did the chopping and dicing and prep work and Claire expertly assembled, added, poured, stirred and lovingly coaxed greatness out of that pot.

The soup is called "Smokey ham, potato and corn chowder" and it was a huge hit in the Sabo house. I mean, it's got bacon, ham, cream cheese, potatoes ... there's a lot of things going right just in that grouping. So go ahead, hop on Pinterest and weed through the pregnancy, makeup and parenting pins and find it. You won't be disappointed.

Celebrating Our Family's 12th Anniversary In Virginia

Sao family, circa late summer 2004. 

On this date 12 years ago, Feb. 8, 2004, we arrived on the eastern outskirts of Nashville, Tenn., a family of 11 journeying across the U.S. via Interstate 40. Several days before we had bid our goodbyes to the West Coast and pointed our packed 12-passenger van east, leaving behind my beloved Oregon -- where I gladly spent my first 35 years -- to stake our claim in Gloucester, Va. We had first traveled south to Disneyland and after a long, glorious day in the happiest place on earth we were hitting the road.

I have a few distinct memories of our trip across the country. Beginning with Los Angeles traffic. We made it as far as Barstow, Calif., that first night. Not quite Williams, Ariz., my planned destination thanks to a -- surprise! -- clogged freeway heading out of LA. The next day, Feb. 6, 2004, dawned clear and cold. Evie would celebrate her 7th birthday in three states that day. On Feb. 7, 2004, MerriGrace would throw up in three states.

From Barstow we made it to Albuquerque, N.M. I remember swimming in an indoor/outdoor pool at our motel and Brenton becoming a human scab after an unfortunate incident on a fitness room treadmill. Next stop, Henryetta, Okla., where we stayed in a motel that I do believe had the worst "breakfast" I've ever had in my life. I also remember nearly freezing to death unpacking the van that night as an Arctic wind howled down off the Great Plains.

As we headed to Nashville 12 years ago today, we stopped for gas in a little outpost off the freeway in Arkansas. Somehow I avoided becoming a human ice cube filling up the van and ducked inside the convenience store for supplies and food stuffs. While waiting in line, a man struck up a conversation with me. I had no idea what he was saying and apologized before asking him what he said. We went back and forth about two or three times before I figured out that in backwoods country Arkansas, the word "wind" has three syllables. Maybe four. He was talking about the cold wind.

We would make it eventually, well technically the next day, to Gloucester, Va., where we hunkered down in two rooms at the Comfort Inn, right next door to the Winn-Dixie. RIP Gloucester Winn-Dixie, a death caused by the opening of the nearby Wal-Mart Supercenter. There were still people living in the Comfort Inn who were waiting for their houses to get patched up from getting bushwhacked by Hurricane Isabel, five months after she had barreled through the county. And every morning at the continental breakfast we were greeted by grandmotherly Miss Bernice.

The kids remember playing in the snow in the woods out back of the motel. I remember hearing tree frogs hollering from the woods one day and thinking we were under attack. We got turned down three or four times for rentals, always with the same story: Either the well or septic system, or both, would in no way, shape, or form handle the volumes a family of 11 would surely consume and produce. Never mind that even with a bunch more kids since then we would never have a water or septic system problem in all the years of living here.

We spent a fortnight plus one in the Comfort Inn before we found temporary housing until our house in Oregon sold. We were able to close on a place of our own in the woods a stone's throw from Burkes Mill Pond. We've moved around plenty since we've been here. From Mill Pond Road to a new home on Ark Road, where out back of the house and a football field away, down by a mountainous gum tree, a stream trickled right out of the side of a hill.

Then it was on to a big house in a new subdivision off of Belroi Road ,where one night a micro-burst -- that's weatherman talk for a mini-twister -- dropped a neighbor's tree in our yard. It narrowly missed our house but it pitched a limb from the tree right through our bedroom window, prompting an unexpected tumult that was like a shotgun blast for an alarm clock. This was at midnight and I've never seen Julie move so fast. To this day I'm positive I heard the sound of a train right before that limb tore through our window. Mind you, there's no trains in Gloucester.

From there we moved down the county to a Marshall Lane rancher in a peaceful neighborhood at the Point. It's where my kids walk a few blocks to the beach and fish minnows and little blue crabs out of a salty York River inlet not far from where the big rivah eases gently into Cheseapeake Bay.

We've had a grand time here in Gloucester. It's the only place where I've been asked more than once if I'm a Yankee. That makes me laugh. I usually answer that Oregon didn't become a state until 1859 and thanks to its relative newness, a general lack of a supply of able-bodied men and its great distance from the action in Virginia and elsewhere on the bloody Southern battlefields, the War of Northern Aggression wasn't really our scrap. Truth be told, however, I guess I am a Yankee seeing as how I count Ethan Allen of Vermont's Green Mountain Boys fame as an ancestor. But let's just keep that between us.

I usually greet people with a lively, "Howdy," something I trace back to my roots east of Oregon's splendid Cascade Mountains range. I guess people aren't used to my Oregon howdy because sometimes I have people respond, "Ah'm fah-ahn thanks, how're y'all doin'?" I've been asked about my accent, even though I've never known an Oregonian, not even those out east in John Day, Burns, or heck, metropolitan Fossil, to have one. I've been introduced to okra and collard greens, the glories of Chesapeake Bay, country ham biscuits and the best rivah sunsets in all of Virginia. Or anywhere for that matter.

I admit it. There's things I miss about Oregon. That meadow between the groves of towering ponderosa pines just east of Sisters alongside Highway 20 where the snow capped Three Sisters mountains seem to take up the whole sky. I can't ever help but stare at the awesome sight. Or the amazingly vibrant colors of the Painted Hills outside of Mitchell, where God got crazy with the paintbrush. Or the nights staring up in awe at the High Desert skies without a tree or a city light for a hundred miles to hide a single star that, as the prophet Isaiah tells us, like the millions of other stars in the Milky Way was hung in place and named by God.

My home  -- our home -- is here in Gloucester now. You know the place. Where one day in February the kids are playing soccer in the yard in shorts and t-shirts and two days later they're making Olaf out of the snow. Where the Coleman Bridge spans the York River at its narrowest point, a full three-quarters of a mile wide and where dolphins frolic in the summer. It's the same place Pocahontas called home and where she intervened, as the story goes, to ensure John Smith wasn't the first Englishman to get his head lopped off in the New World.

It's also where, in 1642, an Englishman named Augustine Warner settled by a branch of the Severn River and whose most famous descendant, a great- great-grandson, was a man by the name of George Washington. Yes, that George Washington. And, of course, a Confederate general and Southern icon named Bobby Lee traced his lineage back to ol' Augie Warner.

It's an amazing place, populated by a great many people with whom we've made enduring memories. I expect many more memories to come, even if it doesn't involve another Sabo baby. I can't imagine living anywhere else. Twelve years on now and Gloucester is the place we Sabos call home.

Augie Warner's old place, now a B&B known as The Inn at Warner Hall

When Everything Is Right In The World

Striking a pose

It was Tuesday night and it was five of my boys and me. Again. The ladies of the Sabo house were off to women's Bible study, two kids were at soccer practice, one was at work and so it was the lads' night out. We made a quick stop at the True Value hardware store to pick up some supplies for my new found DIY woodworking projects and then headed for the beach at Gloucester Point. These lovely fall evenings (note the lads are in shorts & t-shirts and it's late October) are too alluring, too perfect not to enjoy with one of the last romps at the beach.

When we arrived down at the pier that juts out into the York River (you don't need a license to fish from the pier, which means fishing is better in Gloucester) the boys started hamming it up and I snapped some photos. Then we noticed lots of people with cameras around. A kindly gentleman ambling out the pier informed us that an Antares rocket was supposed to take off from the Eastern Shore and we should be able to watch it blast into orbit from the pier. It was 6:15 p.m. Lift off into the October sky was scheduled for 6:22 p.m.

Heading out for a better view of the rocket launch

News that we would watch a real-life rocket launch caused quite a stir among the Sabo boys. This was more than we bargained for. Are you kidding? This was really good news. Like, really good. You go to the beach trying to kill some time and you're going to watch a rocket streak into the night? For reals? Dude. From Gloucester Point to the launch site on the Eastern Shore of Virginia at Wallops Island, as the rocket crow flies, is about 70 miles -- it's double that by car -- so supposedly we would have a real good view from a safe distance.

I was armed with two cameras -- my iPhone5C and my Canon T5i -- and was really stoked to try the time-lapse feature on my iPhone. I figured that would be killer for a rocket launch. As we waited at the end of the pier, we encountered one variable that threatened to derail my photography efforts. Seth seemed intent on seeing if the water was still warm and kept leaning through the rails, even as Gabe wore him like a straitjacket. In the interest of safety I reluctantly herded my gaggle of Sabos back onto the beach. We still had an unobstructed view out over Chesapeake Bay where the rocket was allegedly going to streak into the nearly cloudless indigo twilight, but better yet, if Seth was intent on taking a dip at least we could fish him out before he got in way over his head.

It was 6:21. Seth was getting wet and was covered in sand, the four other boys were having races up and down the beach and some people behind us were getting the play-by-play of the rocket launch over some sort of hand-held device. It wasn't a Walkman, I know that. I was focused on the eastern horizon with my two cameras -- in between preventing Seth from becoming a mini-Jacques Cousteau. The people behind us, a mom and dad and two kids, started the countdown. The four Sabo boys slowed down then stopped to watch, their labored breaths mixing with the sound of the river washing ashore in tiny waves. Seth eyed the water.

Houston, we are ready for the rocket launch

The voices behind us got louder as the countdown got closer to one: "...three, Two, ONE! LIFTOFF!" We scanned the horizon, squinting intensely. My cameras were focused. I was prepared to blow up social media with our rocket photopallooza. We watched. We watched harder. Seth headed for the water before Gabe rassled him ashore despite his sharp protestations. And then we watched some more ... and then the cry from the dad behind us: "It exploded!" The boys looked at me. I shrugged. The boys went back to racing. Seth headed for the water.

I'm not going to lie. I was pretty bummed. I've never seen a rocket launch live, even from 70 miles away. The evening had taken an unexpected turn. It veered hard from your run-of-the-mill, ho-hum evening at the beach with five boys -- three, count them three, couples we encountered looked on in amazement at the collection of Sabos and remarked how full my hands were ... if only they knew -- into tantalizing excitement territory. I guess I shouldn't really be disappointed because just minutes earlier I had no idea I could have seen a rocket launch. But when the unexpected becomes even a glimmer of reality, only to literally crash to earth, there's still a sense of loss.

I've thought about this all day, actually. When the unexpected roars into your life, only to vanish seemingly as quickly. I won't go into details, but I feel a sense of personal loss on a completely different level. There was something unexpected that happened in our lives, only to be taken away. There's hurt, there's pain. It's not fun. I'm sad. I guess that's the best way to put it. Just sad. It's nights like these that I like to wander in to where our youngest is sleeping, in this case Seth. So peaceful. So beautiful. So perfect. Such a gift from God. I like to hear him breathe. I'll stand there and watch, listening to him breathe and for a little while everything is right in the world.