When Great-Grandma married a waterman, the Chesapeake Bay was brimming with oysters as big as a man's hand. By the time Mama married a waterman, the oyster catch was getting smaller and smaller, and everyone wondered if oystering was coming to an end. Seen through the eyes of a child, Waterman's Child is the unforgettable saga of a Chesapeake family that, through the changing times of four generations, never abandoned life on the water, and never lost sight of what was most important: one another.