Photos from the Vault

Is that where Wavelengths is located today?

By Pat on Jul 25, 2008

This is behind the bakery that’s still on the embarcadero. At the time it was a fish and chips joint. It’s an actual boatyard where working fishmen could work on their boats. Back then, people actually respected fishermen and realized that they were the lifeblood of Morro Bay.

Unfortunately, in recent years, the city has decided that tourism is more important than providing food for people. Morro Bay is sorely lacking a decent boatyard for the hardworking commercial fishermen and has allowed the infrastructure to deteriorate. It’s no wonder that the city is in the financial situation that it is in.

Those were wonderful days when hardworking fishermen were respected enough to provide facilities for them. When the catch came in, people would go to the pier and watch it be brought in.

By Stan House on Jul 28, 2008

Bakery? (I’ve been on too many combat tours, MB has changed way too much too fast) I believe it is across the street from the old Bob’s fish & chips (always my favorite), behind the former Fishbowl take-out.

The large sloop on the left, is nearly sitting on today’s giant chess board.

From the cars, it is definitely very early ’60’s

By david medzyk on Jul 29, 2008

Wait, how are you sure that’s even Morro Bay?

By Josh on Jul 30, 2008

David,

You’re correct. The Fish
Bowl restaurant has been a bakery for many years.

By Stan House on Jul 30, 2008

Thanks Stan.
BTW, it’s hard to blame MB for the decline of local ship building and the fishing fleet, when foolish enviro-nit wits pass legislation that essentially ended commercial fishing on the central coast.

No local fleet, no local fishing, no local fresh fish & chips. Almost all the fish eaten in MB today, is Canadian, Mexican, or Japanese.

Sad, really.

By david medzyk on Jul 30, 2008

If it helps, that appears to be a 63 or 64 Pontiac at the far left of the picture. Pictures like this allow you to “go home again” in a sense. I miss the time and the town.

By Joe Dunlap on Aug 21, 2008

The top photograph here would have been about 1964 (1965?)…a few months after the beginning of a cooperative effort by five different folks to build five 50+ft schooners, with a boat bldr, Dave Baxter, from southern CA (I can’t recall the name of the city he was from)… that picture is of the “Little” (Original?) Fish Bowl…there was a vaacant lot to the north of the Fish bowl and there was one (two?) schooner being built there…
I’ll pass this along to Popeye Thornber, one of the boat vldrs and see if he will honor you with nitty-gritty details…/s/zpc

By zorus colglazier on May 4, 2009

…from Popeye, ~5-1-2009:
Hi, Zorus and Judy…Thanks for the April 23rd copy of the Bay News. Some interesting stuff in there, and I even recognized some of the folks in the photos.

In the other news about the schooner photos, I think you pretty well covered it with your answer, Zorus. In that Dave’s boat is planked to the shears, and Jack’s boat is nearly planked, I’d guess the timing would put it summer of ‘65. We laid the first keel (Dave’s) in June of ‘64, and it was only a couple weeks after that when Jack’s keel was laid. There were two more keels laid just to the north of Jack’s, but those people abandoned their projects due to health and other reasons. The “bones” sat there for maybe a couple of years after Dave’s and Jack’s were launched in summer of ‘66. Another of the schooners was built across the embarcadero by Guy Uptegrove who owned “Bob’s Seafood”. Ron Mock was apprenticing under Dave, and after the boats were launched, Ron received his shipwright papers from Dave, who had been a shipwright for many years. Dave was from Newport, Ca, as far as I recall. I went down south with him on one of the trips to purchase planking lumber, and we visited the old Larson’s boat haul-out and repair yard there in Newport where Dave first went to work, learning how to build and repair boats.

The “original” Fish Bowl was in the same place as the kitchen of the “Sun and Bun”….just a little walk up shack that sold fish and chips. No inside seating. I remember it from my first trip to Morro Bay during the summer of 1946. I don’t know when the Fish Bowl was expanded into a full restaurant, but it was before I arrived back there in ‘64. The haul-out yard next to Bob’s Seafood burned down and there was not enough interest or money to rebuild. That property was purchased by a local who then developed it into its present building configuration.

One other thing of interest during that summer of 1964: A series of surges set many boats adrift, even sank a harbor patrol boat and at least one other small sailing yacht. Had it been high tide instead of low tide during those seven-foot surges, there would have been much damage to the waterfront properties. As it was, there was only a small trickle of sea water that breached the seawall. Oh, yes…those surges were set up by the Alaska quake and the resulting sunami.

That’s all I remember about ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ll write more sooner. Hugs all the way around. Please enjoy.

Popeye

By zorus colglazier on May 9, 2009

Growing up in Morro Bay during the sixties was a very special time for a teenager like me. I have a great number of very fond memories of the events that took place in our town. Besides hanging out at the pool hall and unloading fish boats, I was on the volunteer fire Dept. I was twenty the summer of 64 when the storm surges hit the harbor. The fire dept. members were called upon to evacuate the establishments along the embarcadero for safety reasons. I remember standing on the short dock behind Brebes place and watched as the water came into the harbor like a large wave and it would rise to the top of the landing then it would reverse and rush back out of the harbor as quickly as it came in and it repeated this process 3-4 times devastating the Oyster beds in the back bay and dislodging planking and timbers all along the way.Victor Downs

By Victor Downs on May 10, 2009