From its wheelhouse, Tangier first appears as a low smudge on the horizon, a sky-blue water tower and Swain's steeple hovering above. It takes a map to see that the looming ground is not one island, but a closely bunched, soupy archipelago a mile wide and four long, shaped like a seahorse. A man-made channel separates the head from the body, and as the mailboat glides toward this cut, the seahorse's head, uninhabited swamp, stretches off to starboard. Away to port, three thin, parallel ribs of sandy loam rise imperceptibly from the surrounding marsh. The business district is a cluster of fuel tanks, two small groceries, a hardware store and a handful of summer-only gift shops and restaurants.
Roads are no broader than sidewalks, built for beach cruisers, motorbikes and golf carts.
The graves of former islanders rise in some yards, along with a few cedars and tall poplars, the odd persimmon and fig. Off the ridges, the wind that sweeps the wetlands on many a spring day carries the gassy stink of sun-drying mud. But no exhaust, no soot, and no sirens or screeching brakes, either. Among its guts of slow, shimmery water and peaty black muck, Tangier seems almost lost in time. The Bay complicates the simplest tasks, turns minor emergencies major.