OCEAN CITY MARYLAND 1961
THE RAMBLER
GEORGE KENNEDY
Ocean City, Maryland has
always been surprising to itself, like the old timer waterman who let
his wife take in summer boarders was surprised to find pretty soon
that she was running a fair sized hotel, and he wasn't the only one,
there were considerable numbers up and down and behind the boardwalk
The 1933 'storm' woke
Ocean City up to the realization that it had the makings for a port.
The storm had washed a channel through the beach into Sinepuxent Bay
and left the southward beach into what is now Assateague Island.
Uncle Sam obligingly built a stone rib rap which made the channel
permanent, so Ocean City became a fishing port.
The Townsend brothers, sons
of the late John Gillis Townsend, the Delaware politician, saw the
opportunity to being marlin fishing off Ocean city, instead of
having to go all the way to Florida and the Yucatan off Cuba, had
their captain of their fishing boat come up a show the Ocean City
boat captains how to troll with skip bait with squid. The Ocean
City boat captains had often seen the marlins dorsal fins break water
over Jack spot, a reef about 25 mile out and were surprised anyone
would want to fish for them since there was no market for them.
Ocean City became a sport
fisherman's port now known as “The White Marlin Capital of the
World”. And that surprised the people of Ocean City.
Now Ocean City is surprised
that despite the short season, investors have been willing to put up
millions of dollars for modern hotels and motels, restaurants, along
the coastal beach. Salisbury , 30 miles west has the airport, 45
minutes to Washington or Baltimore or Philadelphia.
The beach is one of the
finest on the Atlantic, true it's not Virginia Beach nor Atlantic
City, but it does it's own thing. The heavy tanned life guards and
the nymphs who congregate around the lifeguard stands, show there is
plenty of sunshine. The high tide surf fishermen cast with never
ending patience.
The marlin fishing grounds
are three hours out. Menhaden trawlers haul in nets full of bunkers
which go processing plants in Lewes to provide oil for almost
everything. At the piers you see the marlin fleet come in, when the
boat is flying a flag it means a marlin has been boated or tagged and
released.
Abstract of Washington
Evening Star, George Kennedy's Rambler, August 11, 1961.
July 2017 Harrison H.
No comments:
Post a Comment