Boating; Old Boatyard Ghosts

I was slowly cruising the Oak Street/Compass Rose Boatyard canal recently when a ghost appeared. It might have been the heat shimmering up from the piles of empty sand but I thought I saw buildings and boats. The old Compass Rose was there before my eyes.

The three stack storage barn blocked out the emptiness beyond. The travel lift held a 36 footer in it's slings and a yard worker was pressure washing the boat. I could hear the office paging the yard manager over the loud speaker. "Bob Cook, please come to the office!" It was all back the way it was before Hurricane Wilma.

I rubbed my eyes and realized I'd traveled through a worm hole and back. It was all gone and I was back to the stark reality of 'how it is' in 2013. I let my Biddison 22' drift into one of the empty 'new' docks and shut off the engine so I might hear the forklift engine roar once more. There wasn't any roar or bell from the back-up warning.

It wasn't Hurricane Wilma that destroyed the boatyard, it was ambition, stupidity and avarice. It was just at the end of the boom of all booms that the owner of Compass Rose Boatyard and Marina sold out for cash to a group of condo developers. A brilliant move on his part because he'd done his 20 years building the place up even though it was supposed to be a quick 5 year turn around on investment.

The new owners had no clue. They were following the trend of knocking boatyards/marina's down and building up giant boat clubs with big buy ins. The idea was very enticing for these developers. It didn't bother them that they were late to the game and never really thought it through. They were determined to build a 300 boat 'pigeon hole' building, restaurant, swimming pool, tennis courts and a few other over-reaching amenities in order to make millions selling the 'club'!

"Don't take out the lift dock," I begged them, "Build concrete floating docks instead of wooden if you want to get $100,00 for them." They didn't listen and one partner died on the operating table during open heart surgery. The other sold out quickly to other investors. The project was way behind schedule when the boom  collapsed. None of them knew it would've never worked.

There were 11 travel lifts in Lee County in 2000. Far fewer today. The 'boat clubs' that were built and sold for big bucks are renting cheap today. Believe me, in the days Compass Rose was one of a kind.

Boatguy Ed (boatguiEd@aol.com)is the manufacturer of the worlds BEST anti-fouling bottom paint,www.supershipbottom.com. TWEET me @boatguyed and a corresponding web site is http://www.boatingbyboatguyed.com/ ........ NEVER, EVER TRY TO BUY HIM A DRINK!

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