Page 4
So we just up and built a diving helmet.” As
In my last column I wrote about Vic Fuginas,
who, as a kid, worked for my father’s and
uncle’s Bright Eye Fish Co. On the morning
of the 7th of May, 2009, at or around ten of the
clock, Vic cast off. Two things about Vic stand
out in my boyhood memory. Vic liked to do
cannonball jumps off Sam Bower’s high dock.
All the boys swam at Sam’s. Marion Davis,
who also played TAPS at the July Fourth Ser-
vice, swam there too. The other thing was that
Vic loved SPEED. The kind involving motion.
He was a daredevil behind the wheel. I recall
either Vic or Andy Chisolm taking the corner
of Cedarhurst Ave. and Bayside Drive on two
wheels. Vic and Buddy Eberhardt raced stock-
cars at the Freeport Track. Or maybe it was
Demolition Derby. He spoke no ill of any man.
If Vic was your friend, it was for life. We wish
him a good voyage.
The highlight of those bygone days was the
diving helmet, engineered and constructed by
Mike and Vinnie Merola and Frank, “Blackie”,
MacDonald during the summer of ’38 and ’39.
Built from an old galvanized hot water tank,
swiped from the plumbing shop, no doubt, it
was state of the art, simple, yet, well built. It had
padded cutouts for around the shoulders, a glass
porthole, a compass and a red rubber ball to be
released as a signal to haul the diver up. Air was
supplied by a bicycle tire pump with a rubber
hose attached to the helmet. The pump man was
a position of honor. All of us little kids vied for
the privilege of manning the pump. We all made
numerous submariner dives. It was very excit-
ing, walking around on the bay bottom.
Along with grand adventure, came fame
if not fortune. Mike and Frank were the sub-
ject of a feature article in the Nassau Daily
Review Star. Bold headlines proclaimed
Boys Explore Floor of Bay in
Homemade Diving Helmet
Frank is quoted in the article as saying:
“We got talking with an old diver, and he
told us some interesting stories about divers.
The Community Outlook July - August 2009
stated in the Review-Star…“Frank spotted a
galvanized iron boiler in his father’s plumb-
ing shop and with the help of a hack saw and
a few tools, built the helmet.” Our friend, Roy
of the McGuckin clan, received recognition
as boat handler.
One of the summer kids in town was Ed
Wardle. Ed was always working at Burton’s,
his grandfather’s row boat station. Ed lived
winters in Brooklyn and helped out summers
from a very young age. Bill and Mary Burton
moved their row boat station from Gerritsen
Creek, Brooklyn to Point Lookout in or around
1930. There were no bulkheads or docks then,
in fact, Bill had to dig through a couple of
hundred feet of sand dunes to get access to the
property. He built a small house with no heat
or insulation, so of course they had to go south
in winter. The McIntyre’s place now sits on
the site. There were no rental skiffs or motors
then, only oar power. Boats rented for about a
buck and a half a day. Bill would tow a raft of
boats out to the choice spots in morning and go
back for them in the afternoon. In spring there
were plenty of flounder. Scow Creek and the
mud flats in Middle Bay were good spots. The
winter flounder season started on Washing-
ton’s Birthday and the fluke season sometime
in June. Winter flounder, also called black back
flounder and summer flounder, also called
fluke, bury themselves with sand and only the
eyes show. They are ambush predators.
Winter flounder is so named from its ten-
dency of moving into the bays in winter and
off shore in summer when water tempera-
ture warms up. Like all flat fish, the winter
flounder has both eyes on the same side of the
head. A newly hatched flat fish larva has one
eye on each side but within a few months one
eye migrates to the other side. Both eyes on
one side of its head enable the flat fish to rest
on the bay or ocean bottom while directing
both eyes upward in search of prey. Flounder
are caught on worms, supplied by worm dig-
gers on the Maine coast. Worms are harvested
during a brief three hour period when the tide,
which has a range of thirty feet up there, is
suitably low. The worm diggers take a spe-
cially built hoe and dig as fast as they can.
There have been proposals for installing
aquanators, the underwater equivalent of wind
turbines, to take advantage of the reliable flow
of vast quantities of swiftly moving water.
continued on page 8
Page 8
Bayside continued from page 4
Fluke are caught on live killies, supplied
by men like the famous “Killie Willie” from
Freeport. In fall, fluke migrate offshore to
the continental shelf where spawning takes
place. Larvae are transported inshore by
prevailing currents and development takes
place in bays and estuaries. Females attain
weight up to twenty-six pounds. Fluke have
a large mouth, are aggressive and will chase
their prey to the surface.
Fishermen are not the only predators of
flounders. High on the list are habitat degra-
dation caused by dredging and filling, runoff
from fertilizer, pesticides and other types of
pollution. Natural predators include striped
bass. Bass can suck a flounder or other victim
into its mouth from over a foot away. Their
jaws can crush a lobster or clam in a second.
Striped bass, also called rockfish, are anad-
romous fish that migrate between salt and
fresh water where spawning takes place. In
2007 President Bush designated striped bass
a protected game fish, prohibiting the sale of
striped bass caught in Federal waters outside
of the state three mile limit. Striped bass can
attain a weight of over seventy five pounds.
There were no cormorants around when
I was a kid, now there is one of these inva-
sive birds on almost every pole. They are an
aquatic diving and under-water swimming
bird. Their feathers are not water-resistant
so they have to spend long hours in the sun
with their wings spread to dry out. Fish-eat-
ing cormorants have staged a dramatic recov-
ery since the 1950s, when they were nearly
wiped out by pesticides and shooting. These
long-necked diving birds have been protected
for years under the Federal Migratory Bird
Treaty. Cormorants are the cause of much
controversy because of the amount of fish
they eat, their own weight per week. Also,
their droppings are acidic and cause mas-
sive environmental damage, even erosion.
The Community Outlook
The recovering eagle
population is feeding
on cormorant eggs
and chicks. Cormo-
rants have been found
at depths of almost
one hundred fifty feet.
They have a wing
span of four feet and
can swallow a large
fish, head first.
Another huge
predator is that cute
little harbor seal.
There are thousands
on Long Island and
they each eat over
thirty pounds of fish
every day, mostly juvenile flounders. Of
course man does his share too.
The most famous flounder spot on the
East Coast was Quincy, Massachusetts, once
known as the FLOUNDER CAPITAL OF
THE WORLD. I knew a guy who went to Hur-
ley’s Boat Rental on Quincy Bay every year.
People came from all up and down the coast
for the plentitude of flounders. He said that
they, and others, would catch a boatload and
get them filleted at the dock for ten cents a fish
to be taken home by the cooler full. Finally, he
went back one year, and most of the flounders
were gone “Draggers snuck in at night and got
them”, he said. Blame the commercial guy.
When Bill and Mary retired, daughter Edna
and husband, Ed Sr., operated the station as
Ed’s. Many people remember Edna. In the
glory days of the row boat business, there was
competition for trade. Edna would stand out
on the sidewalk and try to hawk fishermen
away from other boat liveries. In her later life
she was known for waving strangers in off the
street. Later, my friend, young Ed, took over.
He was a tin knocker during the winter and
July - August 2009
ran the station in summer. His wife, Marylyn,
worked at the station from five thirty A.M. till
five-thirty P.M. Her father always told her to
go to business school so as not to work on her
feet. Who wouldn’t leave a prestigious execu-
tive secretary’s job at 100 Park Ave for a fish-
ing station? Some time during the late 60’s Ed
bought out another station down the street,
Dom’s Fishing Station. By then, there were no
more rowboats; everybody used skiffs and out-
board motors. When a customer returned with
a mess of small flounder Ed would ask “Kind
of small, aren’t they?” The standard answer -
“They’re small but fat.”
Eventually health problems forced Ed to
give up the station. In a lucky happenstance,
Ted and Sue Wondsel became the new own-
ers and with the stroke of a brush, Ed’s skiffs
became Ted’s.
Ed and Marylyn’s grandson, Keith, is one
of the crew at Ted’s. Younger brother, Kevin,
will come on board once his working papers
come through. TRADITION DIES HARD.
On January 23rd, 2007 Ed Wardle cast off.
R.I.P.
— Bob Doxsee