The Bay

As the work wraps up down by the municipal pier, I’d like to congratulate everyone involved on a job well done. They’ve strengthened the facility and secured it’s future for the next generation. The marina on Fly Creek is another waterfront facility that we can all be proud of.

My concerns are more focused on the activities around the pier and park, or rather the lack of activities. Above the door at Greer’s, and also just inside of Walmart, is a photo banner that features a picture of the pier.

If you look closely at that banner, you see nothing but a few capsized and half sunk boats.

The marina on the pier has looked that way for years, but now it’s just plain empty. As a boy I used to throw a cast net from one of the two crabbing piers while listening to the sound of all the sailboats’ halyards slapping against their masts. That sound needs to come back.

I understand that control of the marina is tied to the restaurant lease, and that there are issues with the basin silting up, but there has got to be some way to bring more life back to our “town square”.

Closer to my neighborhood, at Magnolia Beach, things are similarly dead. True, it is a wonderful place to walk and grab a photograph of a sunset; here’s one of mine…

…but there ought to be more going on. Why isn’t there a dingy tied up to that piling on the right? What’s wrong with inviting people to leave a few kayaks and canoes overturned on the beach overnight? Risk and liability issues could surely be worked out, and if it got too crowded we could regulate it in some way.

I’d like to revisit the No Dogs on the beach rule as well. Plenty of people simply ignore it. Why not set aside part of the beach as dog friendly?

Those last two pictures look to me like something out of a zombie movie. Whenever my family goes to Bay Saint Louis, or Apalachicola, or drives down Bayou Lafourche, we see so much more hustle and bustle on and near the water. We gotta catch up.

The Center for Traditional Louisiana Boat Building in that link is the work of my cousin Vickie Eserman, so please check them out if you’re over that way, and don’t be shy about helping with a donation.