Blue Harbor / Harbor Blues (#11)

The Captain is sad. He used to live here back in the mid-80’s, the age of big hair. 
“I don’t know what’s happened” he lamented at the Dockside Bar the other day. “Everyone was so friendly then. If you needed something and somebody had it, they’d just give it to you (wives & girlfriends usually were excluded). We’d meet up every night on somebody’s boat and share what we had. There was a real sense of community.” 
He’s right, at least about our fellow mariners. The etiquette has always been when you pass another boat or dinghy, you exchange waves. (Probably a throwback from the pirate & maraudering days so they could see you weren’t packing.) But here they stare back at you like you mooned them (without the dropped jaw I got when I tried that). John, the night bartender, was sitting with us. 
“It’s true” he said sipping his morning coffee & Tang (it’s what the astronauts drink although probably not at 2:00 in the afternoon. But who am I to comment on someone’s sleeping habits just because I’d been up for 9 hours). “Folks will moor next to you. Uunless you see them getting in their dinghy you don’t see them at all. Hell, I don‘t even know my neighbor‘s name.” He didn’t sound bitter. Just disappointed.
“Like in the suburbs” I added trying to appear like one of the guys.
“Yeah, I guess” he answered. (I found out later he hadn’t lived on land for over 30 years.) “They threw most of the old timers out of the harbor then started building dock slips and selling them for 300 grand” he added. “Although not too many lately.” He took another sip of coffee as the corners of his chapped lips turned upwards.
Well, the local scenery looks as pretty as it did when I visited here 25 years ago and the harbor may even be cleaner. (The old timers had a nasty habit of leaving their holding tanks open, if they had them at all.) But I see their point if not their plight.
I’m rereading Hemingway’s “To Have & Have Not” where the main character complains about all the fisherman being tossed out of Key West “so they can turn it into another goddamn tourist town”. That was 75 years ago and he sure got that one right. Here in Marathon the old hammered shacks tethered to 2 navy war surplus pontoons are just about gone. The few that remain have been pushed to the far end of the harbor up in the mangroves. But enough of that. There’s no complaining in paradise. Plus I just heard a splash off of the stern and I’m reaching for my spinning rod. It dawns on me that I haven’t purchased my fishing license yet. Maybe this time I won’t.