The view from the insdie of Tangier Mayor's James "Ooker" Eskridge's crab shanty offers a view of the incoming watermen's boats coming in with their crab pots. Set on pilings hundreds of yards from shore, the little shacks, where watermen monitor crabs as they shed their hard shells to become soft-shells, are like Tangier itself: islands apart. Perched 12 miles from the Eastern Shore of Virginia, Tangier (about three miles long and 1 1/2 miles wide) is accessible only by boat or by plane; most visitors take the ferry. Boats outnumber cars, and almost everyone makes a living from the water.