Without a decent port—the local population destroyed the island's ports long ago to protect themselves from pirate raids—Icaria depended for its very limited intercourse with the outside world upon small craft that were drawn up on the beaches. Icarian boatwrights had a good reputation for building boats from the island's fir forests. Then they sold boats and lumber for coin and grain at Chios. The inshore waters of the island, as told by Georgirenes, provided the best cockle shellfish in the archipelago.