Accabonac Harbor

By

Edward Miller

Accabonac Harbor is located in the hamlet of Springs, New York, on the tip of Long Island. Accabonac Harbor is also known as Bonac Creek. The name Accabonac comes from the Accabonac Indians who used to live on and along Bonac Creek. Driving up to Dubby's Landing, which led to Bonac Creek, gives a view of the harbor that opened my eyes to its natural beauty. There were lush green meadows to the right of the landing as far as my eye could see. The smell of the warm breeze laced heavy with salt air would fill my lungs. Seagulls would play in the sky, diving into the water to catch the smallest of baitfish, squawking when they emerged, having missed their prey. There were white fluffy clouds rolling across the sky that was so blue. The waters averaged 3' deep in the shallows to 20' deep in the channels. The water was a deep aqua color and fairly clear to the bottom. The harbor is 30 square miles, and throughout the years supported my family with food, income and recreation. Off to the northeast sits Woodtick Island, just to the north of that set a little island called Sage Isle where we would collect bushels of oysters a day when the tide was good and low. I might have even be lucky enough to bag up some fresh winkles for dinner while I was at it. The way it was then and now are so different.

I can still hear my grandfather shouting across the creek to other baymen carrying on a conversation while digging for clams that would sell at market for the city folk to enjoy. In the 1970's, it was the way of life in Springs, where I grew up. Anyone who was anyone, was a bayman, a term for commercial fisherman who made their living from the water. I was, my father was and so on up the line, everyone I knew was a bayman of some sort. I grew up knowing that I was going to be a bayman and there was no sense in wasting my time at school work, it wasn't needed for my field of expertise. They didn't teach how to build a boat or lift a escallop dredge. I learned these things from the elder baymen.

"Bye Jesus Bub," My father would say, "had a damn nyce tyde t'dye, even got mye scallop dredges in the pond". That meant he had a successful day on the boat. If he had a bad day he would say "ayup, them damn scallops were in the mud t'dye waitin for piss clams to come 'bout", and that pretty much meant he couldn't find them. A piss clam is a soft-shelled clam, when stepping in the mud near its lay, it would squirt water out through the mud as a warning not to mess with him because he's waiting for something to eat. We would spend all day working on the water, and all night drinking beer, and mending our nets and gear for the next day's catch.

Bonac Creek treated us very well through the '70's and early '80's, when the town decided that it was time for developers to start building upscale homes along the shores of the creek back in the mid to late '70's. Something started happening to the bottom of the creek, but no-one knew what, at that time. After 10 years of sewer and fertilizer runoff, I started pulling up dead shellfish in my nets along with everyone else. It didn't take long to figure out that overpopulation of the lands surrounding the creek was to blame. We knew that our way of life was coming to an end sooner rather than later. What we really didn't know was that the bacteria was also beginning to kill the sea grass, and kelp on the bottom that kept the water clean. Bonac Creek was becoming a dead sea.

In the mid '80's all of the bayman were forced to find other employment, while we fought with the governing bodies to limit building along the shores, and to increase water flow through the creek and back into the bay to increase tide circulation. To no avail, Bonac Creek was wasting away. The green meadows and the aqua colored waters were now brown. The seagulls and osprey stopped diving for food, and the osprey stopped building nests around the creek that led to their near extinction in the early '90's. When the tide was low, the mud smelled like a sewer rather than a salt marsh. While all the measures were put into play to bring Bonac Creek back to the way it was in the '70's, it just wasn't fast enough. People who depended on the creek to make a living knew it was over and that it would never be the same.

My last visit back to Bonac Creek in 1999, I noticed the smell of salt air had returned. Osprey and seagulls were once again finding their meals from the shallows in Bonac Creek. I tried scratching for a few clams while I was there, and actually got a few. Although it will undoubtedly be a long time to come, Bonac Creek will come back to the way it once was, of that I am confident. What will never come back, is the breed of bayman it once produced. All of the men and women who depended on that magnificent resource have either passed on or moved away. On my next visit I expect to find big wispy clouds in the sky, green meadows, and aqua blue waters the way they once were. In my minds' eye, I see the boats of yesteryear as they were unloaded from their trailers into the water to do their days work, I see the old baymen looking on, and commenting on the way they ended their relationship to Bonac Creek, wishing they were here to once again make the living they were so proud and fond of.

Now driving up to Dubby's Landing, I see green meadows, gulls, terns, and osprey flying high overhead in the wispy clouds. As I look out across the water, I see homes of all sizes, shapes and colors lining the shores of Bonac Creek, I stare in amazement at how nature can make things right again when it was so devastated, and the ruin of all those baymen, and I think, 'why were we not smart enough to protect this valuble resource in years gone by'.