Working the Night Tide
A story blog by Diani Taylor, Taylor Shellfish Company
October 27, 2020
Edited by Daniela Schulman, WEC
I’m enjoying these beautiful cold fall mornings on Hammersley Inlet, where I live here in Shelton. I never thought I’d miss going out on night tides, but clear nights with the moon as bright as it has been the last few days dare me to brave the cold. Some of my most cherished childhood memories are of my mom telling me bedtime stories about working the night tide.
My mom was a clam digger on our farms for over a decade before I was born, and one of the fastest we have ever had. She still holds the title “the legend of Oakland Bay” at Taylor Shellfish and our oldest clam crew members still tell tall tales about working with her: how many buckets she could dig in an hour, how she would stop to help others fill their buckets at the end of a tide after digging twice as much as they had. She is a tiny and fierce 5’2” redheaded spitfire. She dug clams throughout her entire pregnancy with me until the day I was born – a cold day in November.
A photo of Diani’s mom (center) digging clams in the 1980s on our Bayshore farm in Oakland Bay (possible location Chapman’s Cove)
One of my favorite stories she would tell was about a cold night working in Oakland Bay. We still dug clams by lantern (not headlamp) at the time. The tide was going out and my mom was “chasing” the water—facing upland and working her way down the beach and staying close to the water’s edge as it went out. After a while, she started to get the eerie feeling that she was being watched. She looked around, but didn’t see anyone besides the small crew she was with. The feeling became so unsettling she was compelled to stop work and decided to take a more thorough survey of the dark world around her. There was no one and nothing up the beach or on the shore, but she was sure she was being watched. Finally, she looked toward the water and saw dozens of shining eyes – it was a group of small squid. They must have been attracted to the water’s edge by the light of her lantern and had been staring at her for some time. A former marine biology student and avid diver, my mom was always fascinated by the intellect of octopus and squid and added this experience to her list of magical connections with them.
My mom has a lot of stories about working on the night tides—seeing whales, getting surprised by otters, getting caught in thunderstorms, rescuing octopi, connecting with her crewmates. Her stories made me so excited to start working on the farm growing up, and I’m still drawn to the tides at night in fall when the moon is out. I’m in the office mostly, now, but love to take willing participants for night tide tours! Right now, I’m a little more tied to home at night with my 5-month old and 2-year old. I’m looking forward to getting them out one night on an October tide to walk the farm, search for creatures in the dark, and tell them stories of their grandma who dug clams with squid.
Diani’s sister works with Taylor Shellfish’s Canadian farms and decorated their Vancouver oyster bar for Halloween with oyster ghosts! Hope this little guy gives you a smile today.
About Diani Taylor: Diani is a 5th generation shellfish farmer who grew up in her family business, Taylor Shellfish Farms, in Washington State. Her great great grandfather started farming shellfish in south Puget Sound in the 1890s on the same beaches her family farms today. Now Diani serves as general counsel for Taylor Shellfish. She is passionate about using the law to work on water quality, food production, and conservation challenges facing the environment we rely on.