Scotts Landing -- David Chamberlain and Luke Breza might seem an unlikely pair to be coaxing a crop of oysters from Maryland coastal waters that haven't harbored the bivalves in years.
But their small aquaculture operation in southern Worcester County near Snow Hill is being watched closely by state environmental officials and has been noticed by consumers, restaurants and raw bars who are willing to pay premium prices for the telltale salty taste of Chincoteague oysters - a delicacy one restaurant owner said reaches "almost cult status this time of year" on the Eastern Shore.
"What we're doing really is farming in the strictest sense," said Breza, 50, an investment analyst who joined Chamberlain, a retired high school shop teacher, to form the Great Eastern Shellfish Co.
"Our oysters are grown in a controlled setting, not caught," Breza said. "The closest business model for us would be a farmer, not a waterman."
The company is small enough that it counts its product individually, rather than by the bushel. This year, Breza and Chamberlain expect to produce about 30,000 oysters and hope for 200,000 or more next year.
In the 1980s, the parasitic diseases Dermo and MSX combined with overharvesting to nearly wipe out the state's oyster stock - in the Chesapeake and in the coastal bays south of Ocean City. Where millions of bushels of oysters were once harvested, Maryland's take last year was 72,000 bushels, up slightly from an all-time low of 26,000 in 2004.
"Now we have maybe 500 watermen out there trying to catch wild oysters, none of them in the coastal bays," said Chris Judy, who heads the shellfish division at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. "Maybe these two guys and a handful of others who are interested in aquaculture are the trailblazers."
There's no real secret to what makes a Chincoteague oyster, which biologically is the same as other oysters from this region.
The Chincoteague comes from the bay of that name near the Maryland-Virginia border, where the waters mix freely with ocean tides, constantly bathing the shellfish and providing the sought-after salty flavor.
Water clarity remains good enough in Chincoteague Bay that Breza and Chamberlain can easily see their feet when working in chest-deep water, but no wild oysters have been caught there in years.
Unlike watermen, who harvest the bivalves from oyster bars that grow on the bottom, Breza and Chamberlain are nurturing oysters in about 90 rafts made of plastic pipe.
