Sitting on the beach of the bay, watching the view roll away

Sitting on the beach in winter.

Marcus Hondro

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Let me start here: I’m not a big regulation guy, at least not until you see what happens when you don’t have them. Would be nice not to need regulations, not to need elected officials to help enforce them and to deal with problems.

Now this was gonna be a column on how I can’t get MP John Weston to respond to questions about Sandy Beach and Deep Bay and the boats down there.

Some have sunk and were abandoned and some have live-aboards potentially not being as sanitary as they might, though many seem very responsible.

It’s the federal government who has jurisdiction; it’s not the muni (they don’t want to spend money they should not have to spend). At any rate, I’ll leave it to a news story to seek answers from Mr. Weston, our conduit to Ottawa, and instead write my column sitting here at Sandy Beach.

Which is where I am right now.

It’s Wednesday morning, cold, and the tide’s rolling out.  I’m more often here in summer with a plethora of fun islanders like the Welsh lads, Brodericks, the bombastic Blomberg boys, Mait-Man Davis, Romeo ‘the Moose’ Minoose, the Lightbody-Lanes and others.

The view has changed, 18 boats out there; for awhile there were even more. I expect there’s less now as some have sunk and are underwater and others are among those hauled away by a citizens group last April.  As I write, I’m looking at one that sank only recently, 20 yards from shore, nose up.

Don’t know if it’s leaking oil, could be; been there about two months.  Likely dangerous for kids to swim here until that one, and another farther out I know of, are hauled away. But by whom?

It strikes me that maybe the owners of the abandoned boats are being generous, that they put them there for us to use.  They should have let us know though.  It also strikes me that they might not know where their boats are.  Like the landing barge that’s been here over a year.  Maybe it’s just been misplaced.

“Hey, Frank, have you seen my landing barge?”

“Which one?”

“The big one with the front-end loader on it.”

“The one that badly needs a paint job?”

“That’s the one.”

“Gosh, no, not for a while.  It must be taking up space somewhere though.”

“You got that right.”

The view from here is still nice but it is marred. I look over to the right to the mouth of the bay and there’s a boat with a ramp or something, it’s sticking up in the air.  Why would that be? A ramp on the end of a boat, sticking way up, with a bird sitting on it.  Wish I had my glasses.

One time we met this couple, he was a Howard I think, and she was an Irish person, and they had this kid.  They paid for moorage in Snug Cove. We hung out with them a couple of days down here and then never saw them again.  But they were nice and loved this beach.  There were no boats then.

Some folks live on their boats and are sanitary and clean up after themselves. Some.  Some dump their boat and go away.  A storm comes up, it breaks away and smashes, here or on Pebbly Beach, debris and boat parts everywhere. Owners nowhere.

Let me end here: I’m not a big regulation guy, at least not until you see what happens when you don’t have them. Be nice not to need regulations, not to need elected officials to help enforce them and to deal with problems. But we do.

So where are they?