The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum honored Vineyard Haven resident and documentary filmmaker Sandy Cannon-Brown, along with her partners, Tom Horton and Dave Harp, with its prestigious Bay Heritage Award at a ceremony on April 17 for significant contributions to environmental conservation and regional culture.

They join a distinguished list of six former Bay Heritage Award honorees, including broadcast journalist and Edgartown summer resident Walter Cronkite, and authors James Michener and William Warner. The first of their eight films, which premiered in 2015, was Beautiful Swimmers Revisited, based on Warner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay.

Their film, A Passion for Oysters, was screened and discussed in Vineyard Haven at an event in 2024 hosted by Tisbury Waterways, Inc. at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center.

More recently, Ms. Cannon-Brown described the environmental effects of the invasive green crab in the waters of Martha’s Vineyard. Her film, One Bad Crab, premiered at the Film Center on March 9, 2025. The documentary, made independently by Cannon-Brown, is her first film to focus on Martha’s Vineyard. The film was based on an article by Nelson Sigelman’s in the Martha’s Vineyard magazine. Mr. Sigelman narrates the film.

Ms. Cannon-Brown, who lives on the Vineyard, is an award-winning environmental filmmaker whose work has often featured the Bay and taken her across the United States and beyond.

The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum is a nonprofit educational organization that preserves and explores the history, environment, and culture of the entire Chesapeake Bay region.