fishos shacks

After wintering on Fire Island in 1882, with great physical hardship, self  provisioning with local game  & participating con various sea rescues, the hardened author writes:

"Love of the sea & boats was no less strong, but respect for the strength of the sea in its dark moods drove out any lingering trace of "yachtish" or amateurish notions about boats ... " from The Commodore's Story by Ralph Middleton Munroe. 

I'm guessing that one of my great regrets is never having familiarised myself with fisherman's shacks & boatsheds huddled together along the various shores during my earlier years. They've mostly disappeared now, government authorities, whether conservation of development have seem to that. Mostly the inhabitants were a hangover from the Depression or postwar era. Technically they were squatters I suppose, & with them the remotest foreshores became more sterile & alien, whether overlaiden with millionaires rows or national parks with onerous regulations & prohibitions. 

But their existence, as far as I could tell, were crusty & simple &/ heavily seasoned with salt. The inhabitants were hairy brown fellows who fussed about with ropes & nets, or old planked boats. The huts were low slung, rusted iron sheeting waved in the seabreezes. At times whisps of smoke drifted from a flue of wonky pipe lashed with fencing wire. They were men with brown leathery skin who shopped occasionally for basic provisions; flour, tea, sugar & tobacco. Living off the sniff of an oily rag, mullet, bream & flathead. 

But, they've gone now & their culture with it. My generation, is softer, glossier & erratic, confused mostly. And we're shit at catching fish, most of my old mates wouldn't know how to gut & scale a fish. Mostly we couldn't be bothered & have surrender those little coastal bays to rich pricks who act like they own the beach. Its laughable to imagine what would happen if you lit a driftwood fire on the beach. 

Esmerelda Cove, Broughton Island.