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TANGIER ISLAND - Growing up on a vanishing wisp of land in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay has its advantages.

"Get up in the morning, go out, rove the seashores or go out in a boat," said retired schoolteacher Bruce Gordy, 66, recalling his childhood on Tangier Island. "Look for Indian arrowheads. Play ball all day. Go swimming. Just a natural playground."

Everyone knows everyone; the island's nothing more than a big neighborhood, only 3 miles long and a mile wide, and most people seem to have one of about three last names. Crime has never been a problem on an island whose residents are connected by their conservative values -- no alcohol is sold and the tallest building is a Methodist church -- and one of the fastest word-of-mouth grapevines on Earth. Kids grow up with a sense of independence, yet safe under the watchful eyes of an entire community.

"Perfect freedom," Gordy marveled.

For Tangier kids today, that freedom is still clear. Their futures, however, are murky.

The island, down to fewer than 600 people, is losing ground to erosion and jobs to a combination of factors: reduced crab populations, cheap foreign crabmeat and government restrictions. In recent years, some watermen have hung up their crab pots and more are contemplating leaving Tangier altogether to find the sort of steady work the bay has provided for generations. At stake is not only the island's economy, but its distinct culture.

"If the watermen go under, Tangier will go under," said Dennis Crockett, retired principal of the island's public school and owner of Hilda Crockett's Chesapeake House restaurant and bed-and-breakfast. "I think we're at a point now it could go either way, depending on what happens in the next 10 or 20 years."

To help, Tangier is placing a new emphasis on tourism. Next week, the island plans to open its first visitors center, a converted gift shop that will be a museum of island history and feature Tangier's only public toilets.

Watermen are offering rides to tourists willing to pay to see how they do their work. No one figures to get rich from two-hour tours on crab boats, but they might help the watermen stay in business, said Dan Kauffman, Extension specialist with Virginia Tech's Seafood Agriculture Research and Extension Center in Hampton.

"We're not turning these guys into tourist guides," said Kauffman, who has worked with island leaders to develop a business plan, as well as a Web site (www.gotangierisland.com) to promote the island and its new experiential tourism. "In that hour or two a day [with tourists], they're not going to make enough money to make a living, but they might make enough to cover their fuel bill for the day."

Tangier long has been a destination for day-trippers who arrive on ferries from the mainland, eat a plate of crab cakes and then head home before the sun sets. Those who stay have three bed-and-breakfasts to choose from. Visitors are attracted by the island's charms: the narrow lanes traveled by bicycles and golf carts, and the distinctive dialect that is said to resemble Elizabethan English. On Tangier, high tide is "hoi toid."

A lovely, uncrowded beach curls around the edge of the island, but Tangier is no rollicking resort. It is quiet and, as one of the few "come-heres" on the island, Delaware psychiatrist Neil Kaye, says without hint of condescension, "kind of old-fashioned." One of the few public places open after dark is Spanky's, an ice cream shop that plays music from the 1950s.

One of the island's early visitors was Captain John Smith, who arrived in 1608 during his exploration of the bay. In the War of 1812, the British used Tangier as a base of operations for their ill-fated attack on Baltimore that served as the backdrop for Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner." Rich in history as it is, Tangier is not Jamestown or Williamsburg with costumed characters.

"It's a working community," said Linwood Bowis, second-generation captain of the Chesapeake Breeze, a passenger ferry that makes a daily run to Tangier from Reedville, "and it's real."

Young islanders with college aspirations always had to leave, at least temporarily, but increasingly those who would have followed their fathers into the crabbing business are looking elsewhere for jobs. Tugboat work, which requires long stretches away from the island but offers consistent pay and benefits, has become a popular option.

Of the eight seniors in this year's graduating class at Tangier Combined School, seven are leaving the island for school or jobs and one is staying to learn the family grocery business.

Clyde Pruitt Jr. is at least a third-generation waterman whose 21-year-old son, Brian, has been helping on the boat since he was 5 and has been working full-time since graduating from high school. The son loves the work, but his father hates his prospects. Crab prices don't keep up with expenses, government regulations restrict when and where watermen can catch crabs in vast sections of the bay, and a state moratorium on issuing new crabbing licenses slams the door on the next generation.

"I guess I'm afraid," said Clyde Pruitt. "It's bad to say to your children, 'You'd be better off to get away from here,' but the way it looks now, that's exactly how I feel."

Pruitt has a Coast Guard captain's license required to bring tourists on his boat. He hasn't led any tours yet, but Dennis Crockett has. Crockett shows tourists around the crab houses that dot the harbor, carries them into deeper water where he pulls crab pots, and points out ospreys, eagles and other wildlife. He charges $30 per person.

"They love it," he said.

Tangier is a tight-knit community and can seem daunting to newcomers, but Neil and Susan Kaye found the island most welcoming. The Kayes, part-time residents who fly their helicopter on weekends to Tangier from their primary home in Wilmington, Del., said they fell in love with the island on their first visit.

"They're really wonderful people," said Neil Kaye of his Tangier neighbors. "They take a little while to get to know you and to let you in, but when they do . . . they really make you part of the family."

Since arriving a few years ago, the Kayes have spearheaded the drive for the visitors center, financed with government grants and private donations, and other tourist-friendly initiatives, such as a historic walking tour and a water trail through the marshy island. Canoes and kayaks are available at no charge. Susan Kaye, a pathologist, also set up the island's first public library in a shed across from their home.

The Kayes don't want Tangier to change; they just want others to appreciate the island the way they do and understand it is "the real thing," as Neil Kaye said.

"You come and you see the actual life, the hardship, the transition," he said. "It's right here. Some tourists want everything to be Disneyesque: clean, pretty and quaint.

"It's incredibly beautiful here. You just have to open your eyes to see it."