Boating, Fishing, and Travel Information for Tangier Island, VA

Gasoline, diesel fuel, and some marine supplies are available at Tangier; a marine railway here can handle craft up to 50 feet for hull and engine repairs.
Navigation:
Click the “Map View” button above to see a chart of this harbor.
A line of marshy islands and flats, with Tangier Island at the south end, separates Tangier Sound from Chesapeake Bay to the westward; the principal thorofares between the islands are Kedges and Hooper Straits.
Tangier Island is low, sparsely wooded in the middle, and bare on the north and south ends. Tangier is the village midway along the eastern side of the island; a church spire and two television towers are prominent. Oystering, crabbing, and fishing are the principal industries. The island has telephone and motorboat communication with Crisfield.
Tangier Sound Light (37°47’17″N., 75°58’24″W.), 45 feet above the water, is shown from a white square tower with a black and white diamond-shaped daymark on piles, in depths of 5 feet. The light is 53.3 miles above the Virginia Capes.
Tangier Sound, its main entrance 1 mile northeastward of Tangier Sound Light, affords a broad and deep channel extending the 28-mile length of the sound. Extensive flats border the sound, but the critical points are marked by lights and buoys.
The town of Tangier can be reached from either Chesapeake Bay or Tangier Sound through well-marked dredged channels. A Federal project provides for a 7-foot depth from the Chesapeake Bay to an anchorage basin with 7 feet in the basin, and 8 feet from the anchorage basin to Tangier Sound.
(Note that the numbering system of marking the aids to navigation in the channel from Chesapeake Bay to Tangier Sound and from Tangier Sound to Chesapeake Bay is not continuous but changes in about 37°49’54″N., 75°59’49″W.)
An overhead power cable with a clearance of 50 feet crosses the channel at Tangier.