Meet Your Neighbor
Chris Van der Wolk
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent

Date of birth March 14, 1955

Likes most about Nantucket The sense of community.

Likes least about Nantucket The cost of living.

Favorite TV show "Law and Order" It was fitting to talk with Chris Van der Wolk at the Maddequet Admiralty Club since most of his life he has been involved with marine activities, such as now in his role as Madaket Assistant Harbor Master.

Born in Springfield, Mass., Van der Wolk's family moved to Nantucket when he was just six months old. He lived here until the end of fourth grade, then returned to Springfield with his mother. Though he graduated from high school in Springfield, he spent his summers and holidays on the island and after high school lived on Tuckernuck and worked as a carpenter for several years, then spent four years in South Carolina earning his pay in the seafood business and as an auto mechanic.

At the end of 1979, Van der Wolk joined the Coast Guard and for the next 10 years he was stationed on various boats such as the Storis, a 230-foot ice breaker that patroled the fisheries in the Bering Sea between Alaska and Russia. His next assignment was on the Evergreen based in New London, Conn., an oceanographic vessel that conducted scientific surveys in the Bahamas and Caribbean until it was converted to a patrol boat and used to monitor fisheries on Georges Bank as well as illegal marine drug activity.

He spent the following four years at the Boston Coast Guard Rescue Coordination Center where all the First District's rescue, pollution control and law enforcement activities between the Canadian border and Tom's River, N.J. were supervised. Van der Wolk's final stint was on the Campbell, a cutter out of New Bedford that also conducted drug and fishery patrols.

Home for Van der Wolk was still Nantucket, however, and he moved back after his service days and lived on the island in his family's former house on Tuckernuck, once again making his living as a carpenter. He met his wife, Amy, who runs the St. Paul's Church nursery school, at a 1991 fishing tournament and the couple wed in 1996. He began his harbor master's position in 2003 and last year decided to move into a townhouse in Madaket since he spends so much time on Nantucket's western end.

In his spare time, Van der Wolk enjoys sailing, fishing, duck hunting, clamming and is an avid reader of books mostly on a variety of historical periods. He has a 14- foot sailboat and a 17-foot outboard and has also been secretary for the Admiralty Club for 14 years. He said he likes to travel, but got most of that urge out of the way during his Coast Guard years.

"I like it here," he said leaning back in his chair in front of the club's big fireplace.

"I'm pretty comfortable here." I