Old Fisherman’s Wharf

Goes back to 1845 the old, original wharf,

Monterey into the 20th Century a thriving whaling port;

in the 1930s was the greatest sardine fishery in the world,

famous Cannery Row just up the curve of Bay.

Times have changed.

Now the tourists come,

streaming in from all over the globe,

they come every day, year in & year out, they stream in

like a funnel of all the far & wide parts of the family of humanity;

they stream in from aisles & aisles of parking lot; and today,

I am part of the stream

continuous onto the wharf.

It’s more like a street scene, really, compact, but without cars,

with its bustling crosscurrents of people, snippets of languages drifting;

there’s The Wharf’s General Store, its aisles packed with goods;

to both sides, there’re seafood restaurants, gift & clothing shops,

street market fish sales;

there’re thick chunks of salmon cooking on an outside grill,

saltwater taffy candy shops;

the big thing though is chowder in big bread bowls or little cups;

there’s also Sicilian pizza, espresso, cappuccino, ice cream;

a man I see

is holding up flowers;

there’re sport fishing charters & almost hourly Bay cruises;

under a little, tent-post canopy, a couple guys play guitar & flute,

their CDs on a table, so music drifts out among the languages,

the bark! bark! of sea lion from all directions, the keen & squawk

of gull wheeling overhead;

nearby, an artist is set up to do quick portraits.

I walk over & see an upstairs art gallery & of course the marquee,

the NEW Wharf Theatre, “the best built little theatre in America,”

I read.

At the white wood railing

looking out the harbor of gently rolling deep ultramarine

Bay water, upon its surface, subtle, nervous-like ripples dance;

there’re broad-bow fishing boats—on the nearest one,

a man is washing the broad-bow deck—

all berthed amidst rows of sailing yachts & big cabin cruisers.

At the end of another wharf, angled in across the way,

a long, gray, commercial fishing warehouse dominates.

On this fog-free, first weekend of September, late summer,

mild blue afternoon, you see the pleasant green cypress hills

that surround Monterey,

the drier Santa Lucias peeking out beyond south Seaside;

but upon the observation platform above Rappa’s

End of the Wharf restaurant,

you take in the full view—

A harbor, small, thriving, diverse, classic, marine life rich,

full of smells,

protected inside the narrow jetty in the protected inside

of the Bay.

Tourists love it; it’s a baited hook.

Monterey still offers plenty of its catch of the day—

But—

It’s more like

another catch.

Monterey

September 2001