but more intriguing parts of the Newport News waterfront is the city’s Small Boat Harbor. It can be glimpsed for about a nanosecond while driving over the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge-Tunnel, just off to the east. What you can see, mostly, is the top of fishing trawler rigs, so you’d be right in guessing it’s a commercial fishing harbor. And not just for small boats. Pretty big stuff, really. Crabbers, clammers, scallop boats, pilot boats, Coast Guard boats and all the rest. And, all along Newport News Creek, which creates the harbor, are seafood packing plants.
We’ve got to drive to get there; it’s at the other end of this sprawling town, but luckily we have the car. Harbormaster Doreen Kopacz, who grew up in the Willoughby section of Norfolk, greets me. We take a drive up one side of the creek and down the other. “This is one of thefew spots left that lets commercial