Ronnie Greene has been working the waters of the York River and Chesapeake Bay for 45 years. Twenty-two years ago, he was joined by his older son Ryan, followed 14 years ago by his younger son Trevor.
On Monday morning, the three men worked seamlessly together as they offloaded 36 bushels from their Chesapeake Bay deadrise “Midnight D’Light” and spoke about the crab business, which has been good so far this year and “should be picking up soon.” They left the dock at Nixon’s Seafood in Perrin at 3 a.m. to fish their crab pots and were back at 11 a.m. After that was a trip to The Crab Company at Adner with their catch.
It was just another uneventful day in the life of a waterman—unlike the morning of Tuesday, July 29, when they must have looked like heroes to two young men who had been stranded all night on a jet ski in the middle of the York River.
Ronnie said the three of them were putting their crab pots out for the first time after a two-month hiatus from crabbing while they waited f...