My Sag Harbor

When I began reading Benji's account of life at Sag Harbor, and then heard Mr. Mitchell's personal experience growing up on the Jersey Shore, I found a lot of similarities and interesting contrasts with the beach I like to call my own.  My beach is Marco Island, Florida.  It used to be this really small fishing village about an hour south of Fort Myers but now it has become a grossly overcrowded tourist spot.  Ever since my dad was born my grandparents have been going down there during December.  A guy who my grandpa met through his advertising work in the 60s had a place down in Marco and would invite them down to stay with them.  Verlin, the guy who my grandpa knew moved into real estate, and soon the properties that Verlin would rent throughout the year became the houses my grandparents would stay in during their time there.  Years later I came into the picture, but sadly the all day fishing trips with good old Dennis and the morning bait fish expeditions off Verlin's dock were over.  Verlin had died, and my grandparents were too old to be out on the water all day.

As I began to get older, my uncle and I became a lot closer because he still wanted to fish all day and no one else besides him and I did, so we have had many adventures over the years.  There was the time we were fishing off the narrow sea wall at the farthest tip of the island and I jumped down onto the rocks to try and grab the black drum (that's a species of fish) that had gotten off my line in the rocks but couldn't get back into the water.  We only realized as we were walking back--sans fish--that I was bleeding all over the place from a gash in my thigh.  There was the time the stingray was going through the water right next to us as we were walking to Hideaway Beach near low tide.  When it was time to fillet the fish, I would dutifully stand next to him and throw all the pieces of the carcass to the swarm of pelicans around our dock, and then a few years ago he taught me how to fillet, and allowed me to butcher my first few dozen fillets until I could finally get a full one without any bones.

That point where I dove in after the fish has now been blocked off by the condo association above it.  Hideaway Beach has become even more difficult to get to as the mega-mansions built along its edge have continued to encroach, breaking mariner law and trying to privatize land below the high tide line (which we dutifully ignore and walk through anyway).  The boat that we've fished from my entire life, the Little Brat is starting to show its age, and the dock is slowly come apart.  The invading tourists have taken their toll too, normal public beaches are practically not fishable now, and the good fishing spots are being over fished to the point of nonexistence.  Manatees and dolphins, previously normal sights out on the water, have become scarcer in response to the increased boat traffic and decreased food.

Even though I'm not a townie, I only go down for a week or ten days every year, I still feel like a true member of Marco Island kind of like Benji.  I know the best restaurant in town (Snook Inn) that literally has charter captains come to the dock the restaurant owns and throw in fresh fish.  The chefs even go so far as to cook anything an unknown customer brings in.  Sue's Garden is the go to place to get carry out on Christmas Eve and Christmas day when everything else is closed.  Walker's Coon Key Marina has the best live shrimp in the area though Calussa has the cheaper bait and gas.  If you have the time Cape Romano is always a guaranteed success in the fishing department, Coon Key is a bit of a gamble but the trout and whiting available make it worth the risk.  

For me the "going out" issues that Benji presents is the questions my uncle and I always ask each other at Thanksgiving-What's the weather look like for December, and more importantly what's the water temperature like?  Have any hurricanes blown through and hit Marco?  Are there any red tide warning or beach re-nourishment projects?  When we get there the first day is always spent sorting out the rods, checking which parts we need to replace, and what fishing spots are gone and which news ones have popped up.

My experience year to year in Marco defines me.  I know when I've gotten stronger because pulling in the anchor is easier, or when I've gotten taller after noticing that I can see more over the console at the helm than I could the year before.  Coming of age for me in that part of my life was when my uncle got me my own fillet knife, the same type my grandpa bought him forty years ago.  In Marco I'm more in tune with nature, and I'm more confidant in my physical skills, whether it be navigating through the maze of identical mangroves, or sensing a storm when the water gets cloudier and the current starts running.  Marco is where I feel most alive, and my countdown towards when we will go there usually starts in July, also about the time I start checking hurricane forecasts and praying that they will miss Marco and instead push the fish from out in the gulf more towards the west coast of Florida.  Marco runs within my family, and no flock of tourists or greedy homeowner can ever take away my Sag Harbor, because Marco will always be my home.