>> at one time, more than 1,000 working skipjacks sailed chesapeake bay. >> reporter: cbs has been documenting life here since 1965. oysters and crabs were thriving and the population was about 850. but when we returned in 1990, there were barely half as many. >> its people, 450 of them, live on the water. >> reporter: by 1999, it was down to 350, crabs and oysters were suffering due to pollution, and the island itself was washing away. >> there were five houses right in the line there. >> reporter: jennings evans was the island's unofficial historian. 14 years later, at 82, he still is. evans says the population now is less than 200. with your own eyes, you can actually see this island slowly disappearing. >> yeah, and i don't like to think of it. i can see the graveyard where i'm going to be laid one of these days-- pretty soon, i guess-- and seeing the water coming over.