West Neck Marina News

I made a trip out there today for multiple reasons. Primarily, Skip and I were meeting our friend, Charlie, to give him some samples of different fishing lines. Why?--you ask. Simple: Charlie is getting ready to do a serious study of fishing-line visibility underwater. He's already dabbled in this area, but now he's preparing to take it to a new level. Skip and I hardly can wait to find out the results.

I arrived on the scene early and went straight to my boat shed to check my onboard battery charger. To my dismay, I learned there was no power in my shed. When I walked down to the store, I saw that the overhead light was on there, so I knew it was time for me to call David (the owner) and find out if he knew he had a problem. As it turned out, he didn't have a clue.

About the same time he arrived, handyman Andy also showed up with his "juice" tester. In no time, they had traced the problem to a couple of big fuses, for which David had gone looking for replacements before I left to come home. Before letting him get in his vehicle, though, I had an opportunity to discuss a number of issues with him and picked up some info I feel may be of interest to a number of folks. That info is the main reason for this blog post.

To start with, I asked a couple of questions. I first asked if it might be possible to get a light installed in the ramp area to help those folks who launch boats at 0-dark-30, and David said yes. I next asked if he minded my putting a collection container in the marina store for donations to the American Cancer Society in Dewey Mullins' name, and David said OK to that idea, too. At that point, he asked me a couple questions about this year's tourneys, and then he started sharing some info, which I found interesting.

For openers, he said his brother (Steve, I've heard, is his name) has agreed to lease the marina from him. He went on to explain that his brother has been in the construction and catering businesses for a number of years. And once he takes over, he plans to fix some things up there at the marina and begin offering something more substantial than the packaged snacks usually available. David said there isn't enough space to turn the store into a restaurant but hinted that the operation somewhat might resemble a mini-take-out affair. The brother, I'm also told, plans to run some tourneys for kids there at the marina. And, continuing the tradition that started with Bill Brown, and continued through all of Dewey's years of leadership, a cookout will cap the end of the annual Dewey Mullins Memorial Bass Tourney Series.

After explaining all that, David started to walk away, en route to going for the new fuses, but then stopped suddenly and added some additional insight. He told me to count on a donation from him and Teresa (his wife) in the amount of $325 for each of the first two tournaments this year. He told me to use it as additional prize money for those tournaments, which perhaps will serve as added incentive for even bigger participation this year than we had in 2012.

I don't mind telling you that I walked away as one happy camper from that conversation.

Before I headed my van out the marina's exit and in the direction of home, however, I just had to make a trip to the ramp area and lay my eyes on "Dewey's trick" brick that Charlie first told me about the other day. Here's a photo of it, just as Charlie left it the other day after helping the two fellas who dropped their trailer off the end of the ramp. I gotta be honest with you--I'm just a bit surprised that some young 'un hasn't found this brick and used it for something other than the intended use before now. In any event, I wanted to see the "real deal" and thought maybe my blog readers would enjoy seeing it, as well.