100% Humboldt
Humboldt County CA USA is the home of some of the most iconoclastic, genuine, and interesting folks in the world.
We are getting curious about the movers, shakers, and difference makers in Humboldt County CA-Home of the giant redwoods, 6 Rivers, and the vast Pacific Ocean.
We will discover what makes people live/evolve in the beautiful, diverse, isolated, and ever-changing Northcoast of California 100%!
Listen in and learn what it is to be 100% Humboldt
Learn More at https://100humboldt.com/
100% Humboldt
#101. From Cabinet Maker to Bay Keeper: Leroy Zerlang on Saving the Madaket and Humboldt’s Maritime Soul
A 115-year-old ferry shouldn’t be the heartbeat of a modern waterfront—but the Madaket is exactly that. We sit down with fifth-generation Humboldter and tug captain Leroy Zerlang to chart how a tiny passenger boat outlived an entire ferry fleet, helped launch maritime careers, and still carries school kids at the same price set decades ago. From cabinet shop to wheelhouse, Leroy’s path is a tour of Humboldt Bay’s grit, humor, and stubborn devotion to its working water.
We dive into the Madaket’s rebuild after the Coast Guard said “fix it or retire,” the hands-on shipwright work that stretched from six months to two years, and why the boat’s continuous certification since 1910 makes it a rarity on the West Coast. Then we widen the lens: harbor cruises that reach the old Arcata Long Wharf, oysters and wildlife in Arcata Bay, the quiet power of the Skywalk and Carson Mansion on visitors, and a simple truth—tourists love this place. So why no bayfront hotels, few waterfront restaurants, and not enough space where the view can pay the bills? Leroy lays out a clear plan: invest in hospitality where it belongs—on the water—and build a destination Maritime Museum in historic Samoa.
The working side matters just as much. Fishing’s been battered by closures and uncertainty, and boats are leaving. The fix is practical: ice, cold storage, repair space, reliable docks, and respect for the people who keep the waterfront alive. Along the way, we relive shipwrecks you can still see at minus tide, and the improbable rescue of the Golden Rule, a peace boat restored after years in Leroy’s yard that sailed to Hawaii and back. It all points to a shared vision Bonnie Gool championed: make the bay our front door, not our back door.
If you care about Humboldt’s future, this conversation brings the map and the compass. Subscribe, share with a bay-loving friend, and leave a review with the one change you’d make first for our waterfront.
About 100% Humboldt with Scott Hammond
Humboldt County CA USA is the home of some of the most iconoclastic, genuine, and interesting folks in the world.
We are getting curious about the movers, shakers, and difference makers in Humboldt County CA-Home of the giant redwoods, 6 Rivers, and the vast Pacific Ocean.
We will discover what makes people live/evolve in the beautiful, diverse, isolated, and ever-changing North Coast of California 100%!
Listen in and learn what it is to be 100% Humboldt!
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Ladies and gentlemen, uh friends and neighbors, and all of you out to see, uh, this is Scott Hammond of the 100% Humboldt Podcast with my newest best friend, Leroy Zerling. Hey Leroy. Good afternoon. Nice to be here. Great to have you. You're the man, the myth of legend, in some ways, I guess, around here. Sometimes they say that. They say that not sure what that might mean, but that's that's good. Uh I was reading your fifth generation, Humboldt.
SPEAKER_00:Fifth generation of my great-great-great-grandfathers, the third one buried in the Ocean View Cemetery. So we've been here for a long, long time. We've never made enough money to rent that U-Haul van to get out of here.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Number three at Ocean View. That's going back away.
SPEAKER_00:What kind of name is Zerlang? Zerlang is Prussian. Prussian. Okay. Prussian. Uh my dad's side is Prussian and my mom was 100% French. How about that?
SPEAKER_01:So tell how about the arc of your uh your youth? Were you did you go to Eureka High and the whole nine?
SPEAKER_00:I went through all Eureka City schools from Lincoln Elementary to Jacobs Junior High and graduated from uh Eureka Senior High. Playing with my props over here.
SPEAKER_01:You've got to win this Dick Taylor before we're gone. I got all I got all my stuff, and it's fallen apart over here. So Eureka High, and then uh what'd you do after high school?
SPEAKER_00:After high school, I went to College of the Redwoods a little bit. Sure. And then I joined in with my father, Bill, who was a cabinet maker.
SPEAKER_04:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:And I worked in the cabinet industry with him for many, many years. And then uh we got more and more involved in the waterfront. And I moved on to the Matequet, ran the Maticate for many, many years, and still do. That's my baby. I want to talk about that a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And uh then into Tugs. Then we ran Tugs.
SPEAKER_04:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:And then in 2008, my wife and I and my son uh purchased the old boatyard on the peninsula where the Madicate was built. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Is that in the Fintown? That's in Fintown, a little unknown community of Fintown.
SPEAKER_01:Let me show you where Fintown is on my map over here, folks. It's right there in Humboldt Bay. It's on the I guess you'd say the It's on the west side of the Trevor Burrus. It's on the west side. Yeah, on the peninsula. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's between Samoa and Fintown. For for Finns? Yeah. Trevor Burrus, Jr. They're the Yosangs. Yes, yeah. Trevor Burrus, that's all because of the old Ben Dixon shipyard. The famous Finns were boatbuilders, shipbuilders.
SPEAKER_01:And Ben Dixon was right down the road from where we were at. Trevor Burrus, Jr. So much history on this bay, we'll we'll get to it every bit of it. Incredible. Very incredible. Aaron Ross Powell Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So you worked for the old man and you were a cabinet maker. Aaron Powell Cabinet Maker. Dad was a cabinet maker, and then I was uh with him for many, many years. Trevor Burrus Where were you guys down in uh over by Leon's over that way? We were by Leon's for years, yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, shout out to Dale and Leon. Aaron Powell Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh we still have our shop, but uh Willie, my nephew, uses it quite a bit. But we don't do much of that anymore. Trevor Burrus, Jr. So you branched out and became uh more of a maritime raised in Fintown, my dad's cabin, my mom and dad's cabin, uh, where the Zerlang family have been there since 1872. Trevor Burrus Is that right? The Zerlangs are now the oldest original family living on the peninsula.
SPEAKER_04:Aaron Ross Powell Okay.
SPEAKER_00:It's kind of unique. Trevor Burrus That's cool. And uh so Fintown, uh dad loved it over there. We had a little cabin, which we still have, uh, my brother and my sister and I, and we have Thanksgiving and Christmas and weddings and funerals and everything over there, and I live right down the road. In the old days to get there, you had to drive around the bay. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Up to Arcata and on the old Arcata Road before the Burns Freeway was built. So that was a good hour. It was, yeah, 45 minutes for an hour, and my dad would go over on Fridays, he wouldn't work Fridays, and go to the cabin. I mean, when I was a kid, uh started out there, you still pumped water with the pump and everything. It was all wood stove. And my buddy Kenny and I, after school on Friday, we would take the Matticate over to Samoa, then ride our bikes down to Fintown. This is pre-bridge. This is all pre-bridge. Sure. And um and that's when I started getting affiliated with the Maticate. They would use the Maticate on Friday at 3.30 because it was the easiest one to get the bikes on.
SPEAKER_01:Makes sense.
SPEAKER_00:And my dad's good dear friend and my mentor was Carl Christensen that ran the maticate. Sure. And as just a kid, I started running around on the maticate. And then when the bridge put the maticate out of service, then uh my dad was hired as a cabinet maker to refurbish it for Bob Imperial that once lived on the island where my son lives now. And um, then I started hanging out on the maticate, and I've been with it ever since. How about that? Yeah, Bob's kind of legend, right?
SPEAKER_01:Bob's a legend. Yeah. No, is his daughter Renee? Renee, yes. I haven't seen her in a minute.
SPEAKER_00:I've seen her, I thought I talked about her the other day when I was driving by her old office.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But yeah, no, Bob was sweet lady, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, she is. Pretty nice.
SPEAKER_00:Bob was a character. He was old school, there. Cigar smoking character. Yeah. They've been Evo Fanuki. We just lost Evo. Yeah. Yeah. They were great uh great old town people. They were the ones that really helped start Old Town. Different generation back then. Yeah. It was a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_01:Boy, oh boy. Yeah, you're a wealthy history. Boy, I don't know where to start you. So the Matticott would shuttle people back and forth to Woodley Island or to Samoa or Fintown or wherever.
SPEAKER_00:Trevor Burrus The ferry system here on Humboldt Bay is more than most people realize. I mean, when you think when you say ferry boats, you think of San Francisco and the big car ferries going back and forth. There were seven boats that operated here. It started in 1872. The first ran from Eureka to the old Arcida, Long Wharf, the original Long Wharf. Sure. And then seven boats ran from F Street to Samoa to the plywood plant to Fairhaven and then Del Norte Street and back to Eureka. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01:So they're ferrying workers, too.
SPEAKER_00:Seven boats they carried up to 2,500 people a day across the waters. Trevor Burrus, Jr. About that. Was that the Madiket part of that? And Madicate was the oldest and the last one of the original Cousins Fleet. She was built by Cousins and then Cog Show bought them out in 1934. Trevor Burrus, Jr. And you all retrofitted the whole darn thing, right? Trevor Burrus The boat in 1989. The Maritime Museum, which my dad started in 1977, bought the Maticate from Humboldt's Future, another nonprofit that was having problems. And the Maritime Museum took it over in 1983. And we ran it, I ran it, and a bunch of us ran it for until 1989 when the Coast Guard said, Leroy, she's getting pretty tired. We're going to have to do something. Trevor Burrus, Jr. What's that mean? That means that fix it or get rid of it. I mean, there was the boat was tired, Madico was tired. But she's in protected water. She's not more than a mile from land. So they were letting us slide a little bit. Sure. Not much, but times changed. Sure. And they said fix it or take her out of service. Two very, very dear friends of mine, Kathy Weber and Diane George, were with me. And we sat at their house drinking drinking some whiskey. What are you looking over there for? Well, because I see the bottle of whiskey. Oh, maybe Nick's drinking on the job. No, he's good. And we'd have started decided that we would start the Maticate restoration project. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Oh, that's cool. And it was going to take us six months and sixty-five thousand dollars. Okay. We hired a shipwright, Ed Frey, who did a tremendous job on it. And two years later, and$350,000 we put the Madicate back in the room. A little over over budget. Yeah. Kathy Webb. But we did it. Most of those boats that start out getting restored, it never gets done. Never finish it. We came to the we decided when we started that would we we would finish it. She was a nurse for many years. Okay. And then her and Diane had doggy daycare on Myrtle Avenue. Aaron Powell Sure. Okay, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For a long time. Yeah. Yeah. And she worked on the boat. Diane was on the board of the Maritime Museum. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Huh. Takes a team. Aaron Ross Powell Yeah. Very successful. Very successful restoration. Aaron Ross Powell It's a new motor. Did you retrofit the motor? This is the Madicott's got her fifth engine in her. She started out with a gasoline. She missed the day of steam. She was modern. She had a gas, she had a Buddha, she had a Cummins, she had a cat, she had a Jimmy, and she now runs on a little azuzu, a little turbocharged azuzu. Yep. That we're hoped to replace next year.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Ross Powell Does your daughter is she a cat a cap on the on the boat? I have no daughter. There's some some woman that was related to you. Daughter-in-law, or is it I thought somebody had a My wife Dailen is very, very involved in the Maticate.
SPEAKER_00:No, she wasn't a captain. She was smart enough not to be a captain. My son Cody worked on the boat. Maticate is famous for two things putting couples together. A lot of people have met their wife. I met Dailen on it. How about that? There's a list of us that go back that have met on the Maticate. And the other thing that's very that Maticate's very proud of is a lot of people made enough money running the Maticate captains and deckhands during the summer and it put them through school. Oh okay. I think we have 12 captains that started out on Maticate with me and Daileen running it, graduating from Humboldt State. And six of them, six of those are now uh masters on tugboats offshore. How about that? So it's uh it's very unique. Wow, that's really cool. And the other thing that I'll say that we're very proud of is that when we bought the Maticate, and when the Maritime Museum bought the Mediquet, in '83, we charged, they charged, Humboldt's future at the time, charged$140 for a school group. Wow. And to this day, we charge$140 for a school group. Which is a bargain. Yeah. Yeah. It's a break. Yeah. My dad, who was a great man, started the Maritime Museum, said charge the tourist and give it to the kids. And we've continued with that. We've carried hundreds. Oh, yeah, sure. That's a local thing. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yeah, we uh we carry hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of school kids. I'm carrying school kids on board now that I carried their grandparents on board years ago. So that's kind of cool. Welcome to Humboldt, yeah. Yeah. We're very we're very proud of what the community and the Maritime Museum has doing with Maticate.
SPEAKER_01:Trevor Burrus, hey, if you're just joining us, it's uh Scott Hammond, 100% Humboldt Podcast with the very new best friend, Leroy Zerling from from from you're from Humboldt, right? From Humboldt, yep. We're talking about the Madicott boat and uh how many what so this ship you can as a tourist, you get on board at the foot of uh E Street. Sea Street. Maticate Plaza. And it's affordable and it takes you around the bay. And uh what I like about it, it's the whole perspective of the city I I work in five days a week, and I'm looking around and going, geez, I've never seen it from this angle. Yeah. It's uh and it's it's such a great tour.
SPEAKER_00:We have different trips on board that we offer. Yeah, talk about that. We have um the regular harbor cruise, which is 75 minutes. It's an eight-mile trip. It covers um a little bit into Arcata Bay, the oysters, yeah, the tribal history, the island history, Samoa, Fintown, Fairhaven, the entrance up to Eureka side and Woodley Island. All the lumber history, too, right? All the lumber and fishing and the How many mills were on the bay at one time? Through history, not at any given time, but through history, there were over 400 mills once. Wow. And how many mills? When I was a kid, we'd we could easily have twelve ships in port at one time. Wow. And we had six operating mills, and today we only have the Schmidbauer Lumber. Just George. Yeah. Just George. George. Wow. Yeah, pretty incredible. Big change. Big shift, yeah. Big change, and something that you'd never see, you'd never think you'd see how it would go go away. Sunday mornings is one of our most popular trips. And that's the Arcata Bay Eco Trip. And that's a two-hour trip. Wow. And uh Arcata Bay. It goes beyond where people have ever gone before. It goes up to the old Arcata Long Wharf.
SPEAKER_04:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Deep into the heart of the oyster company, uh sturgeon are jumping. Wildlife is tremendous. I'd like to do that one. It's a very, very popular. Yep.
SPEAKER_01:Long wharf. Arcata Long Warfare. How long was that? That's a mile. Two and a quarter miles. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Because it went way out from Uniontown all the way into the Trevor Burrus. All the way from the Arcata Marsh and made a big circle and went out there. Trevor Burrus, Jr. And all that all those goods went up to Jacoby Storehouse for the miners up in Trinities?
SPEAKER_00:That's how it started, is to bring supplies into the miners. That of course it didn't take them too long to figure out that gold was growing up in the form of redwood, and then they would ship the redwood out from there.
SPEAKER_01:Trevor Burrus So they could bring logs or they could bring lumber out on the plot.
SPEAKER_00:They would bring the logs out, and it was the first operating railroad in the state of California. And it was pulled by a big white horse called Spanky Furry. Yeah. You can still see the ballast rocks where the ships would discharge the ballast overboard before taking the lumber cargo. Hundreds of harbor seals, sea lions. It's an incredible trip. Aaron Ross Powell So it's a two-hour trip. It's a two-hour trip. Trevor Burrus, Jr. How do we get a hold of the Madicott? You can go to Humble Bay Maritime Museum.com, or you can go to Madicate.com or you can call the boat at the 445-1910, the year month and year she was built. That's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, no. 1-800 Maticate. Yeah, yeah. Then the newest one they just put on last year that's is they have a Bloody Mary Cruise on Saturday morning. Oh, that sounds like pretty cool. Smallest license bar in the state of California. Heard that. Yeah. So it's well worth it. Yeah. Beautifully maintained. The Maritime Museum is very proud. 115 years old. Wow. Not many of her style of boats still left in uh in service. What's the capacity? Capacity is 41. Okay. It used to be 49, but the Americans put on too much weight, so they dropped it down to 40, 41. And during the war, she actually carried 64. Is that right? So yeah. She's the last of them. There's no more of the original cousins boats.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, love it. Let's talk about the museum for a second. Okay. It's on the bay. Is that is that in Bob's property there on first uh by Health Sport?
SPEAKER_00:No, it was. We moved to uh we moved next to the cookhouse. Oh, you're right. Okay. We're over there and we're working with Danco and the Timber Heritage Society on starting up the historic area of Samoa. Um we're working on a whole new field of work uh for this coming summer of what we're gonna do. Wow. We got crippled a little bit when the cookhouse closed, but we just got to had a meeting with Dan Johnson, and that's gonna start construction again in 2026. Wow. Um it's a great museum. Don Holfacker, he's an uh umpire around here town. He runs it for us. And it's jammed full of history. Everything from shipwrecks to the Coast Guard station to the Milwaukee to commercial fishing. That's well worth the while. Aaron Ross Powell So is it open? It's opened on Wednesdays, Thursday, Friday, and Saturdays. Aaron Powell Is Is it by the railhouse where they do the Trevor Burrus, Jr. It's right next to the same complex, okay. Yeah. And we work in conjunction with them.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Powell Yeah, great guys.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And they have the speeder train or they have the speeder train that runs there. They just replay all their tracks, and it'll be in Eureka too, in Old Town Eureka, this year also. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01:Could the speeder now go around Arcata Bay over where they made the trail? Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. They're working towards that.
SPEAKER_00:That's the long-term goal. Okay. But right now they can go from Manila to the other, the south end of Samoa.
unknown:Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01:Will it go across the that bridge there where the uh where Target is by Hollandbeck's blue ox? Someday. It's got tracks in bed.
SPEAKER_00:They're still in the negotiation fee and of course fundraising and money.
SPEAKER_01:Trevor Burrus, Jr. But you guys got a whole vision for this as being a historical We have a great vision. Destination. Wow. That's a cool legacy. So you know the cookhouse, which has its own little museum. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: It's a great little stuff in there. And then you got your museum and then the the railhouse.
SPEAKER_00:And then Timber Heritage, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It'd be a nice little package. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: That's a lot of stuff. The goal someday is, you know, the Madicate would have a dock there and and come back and forth. I mean, we're very happy and thankful and appreciate the citizens and Eureka. You know, it took us a long time to get it called Maticate Plaza. But it's Maticate Plaza. I mean, as everybody knows, the boat's known. I mean, it's known everywhere. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.: Where'd you get the Maddequate uh name?
SPEAKER_01:Where where do they find that? Is it native?
SPEAKER_00:No, nope. That's um the Madicate is uh East Coast. Okay. Nantucket Island. Okay. Um Maddocet, Sconsett, um Tucker Nut, uh Quidnet, uh Wanna Win It, Wanna Comet. Wow. Walter Cog Show that started here at the same time as Cousins, who originally had a her name originally was the Nellie C. He bought out Cousins in the Depression and renamed them after Indian tribes, tribal names from the the East Coast.
SPEAKER_04:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:I had a guy on board years ago, a little ha Harvey Young, a little short guy wearing a plaid shirt and striped pants. And he looked up at the name Maticate on the side of the house and goes, How'd you get that name? And I went through the same story as I just did right now. And he goes, My name's Harry Young, and I'm the mayor of Madicate. How about that? Yeah, that was pretty cool. I stayed in touch with him for years. That's funny.
SPEAKER_01:He just came from back east. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Back East. Yeah, a little tiny place. Trevor Burrus, Jr. That's funny. So I'm gonna I was gonna try to pull a fast one on you and tell you that I was related to Andrew Hammond, Hammond Lumber, who started the biggest A. B. Hammond. They had the lock on old growth for a long time, right? Then the government did a uh trust what do they call it when they bust up a monopoly. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Yeah. But he was cardic iris.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It went from Vance Lumber Company. It started as Vance, and then it went to A. B. Hammond, and then Hammond sold out to Georgia Pacific. Trevor Burrus, Jr. And then they broke it. And then they broke it up into Louisiana. But that was a heck of a lot of redwood back in the day. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Oh yeah. Gosh, yeah. Was that in Samoa? That was Samoa. I mean, Samoa was a company town that was owned by Vance, Hammond, GP and Louisiana Pacific. They had their own script at one time. Oh, is that right? Yeah, yeah. And that's what the cookhouse was built for.
SPEAKER_01:It was the f uh And great grandpa Hammond went up to Oregon afterwards. He went up to by Astoria, and there's a small town called Hammond Oregon. There is.
SPEAKER_00:There definitely is.
SPEAKER_01:He said he was a mixed bag. He was kind of a jerk and kind of asked you. What are they going to write about us? I don't know. Trevor Burrus Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:There's a lot of History in the Maritime Museum and at the Cook House and at Timber Heritage. I mean they have the old Hammond locomotives and pretty embarrassing. You said you have the Milwaukee ship too? Or pieces of it? We have a few pieces of the Milwaukee. So in December of nineteen sixteen, the submarine H three. Submarines were new.
SPEAKER_03:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00:Was southbound going down the coast. And she was in heavy fog. And the captain looked up and saw the smokestack from the Hammond Lumber Company and thought it was her mothership. They had motherships that ran with them. The Issaqua, I believe it was the Issaqua. And thought it was the stack of the Issaqua and followed it. Went west. And went east. Right it right into the peninsula. And put it right on the beach. Coast Guard rescued all those guys. There's many pictures of it with breech buoys. We have it at the museum where they shot a line to the submarine and then with horses pulled the men off.
SPEAKER_01:How about that?
SPEAKER_00:They put it out the bid to save it. One company from San Francisco came in at 110,000. And a local company, Justin Zables, Mercer and Frazier came in at a price of 17,000. And the Navy goes, well, 17,000, that's way too cheap, and 110,000, that's a problem. No, we're not doing it. So in San Francisco at the time was the four-year-old heavy cruiser, the USS Milwaukee. Four stacks, combined horsepower of all the tugs on the Pacific Coast combined. In January, they sent her up here. On a high tide, they stuck her stern on the beach, they ran a great big hawser out. They had the Issaqua, the the mothership and a tug on her starboard bow because of the current. And they hooked her all up. Well, they didn't have any sense on tow boating. It's a whole different world. And they tied the line directly to the stern of the Milwaukee and they started pulling. Well, as soon as you tie the stern up of a tugboat, it can't turn. That's why if you ever notice on a tugboat, the tow bit's halfway up the middle of the boat. Yeah, they're part partway through. Yeah, so it can pivot. Well, they didn't do that. One line broke on the Issaqua, the tugboat goes, I'm getting the hell out of here. They let go, and the Milwaukee just came over and put herself on the beach. Just like that. Yeah. Four boilers underneath, all of them suck it in a large amount of water to cool it, filled it up with sand. It's over. And to this day, the Milwaukee is still sitting on the beach. Good story. Minus tides, you can still see it. The submarine, Mercer and Fraser, came back in and said 17,000. We'll pull it across the beach. And they handled it like they would a log. They just build a skid underneath of it. Cap Milwaukee. You can still see the piling there. How about that? She launched and served in the First World War. Aaron Powell How about that?
SPEAKER_01:So it looked good on paper. Yeah, it was a good idea. Bad planning. How many things work look great on paper? The planning just looks like it's gonna work fine. This is gonna be fine. Yeah. And it's a food bar. Yeah, yeah. Beyond belief. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Seems like everything in the maritime world is like that.
SPEAKER_01:But yeah, well I guess there's technique to all of it. Hey, well, if if you're just joining us, Scott Hammond, 100% Humboldt Podcast with my uh new best friend Leroy Zerling, and the amazing producer of uh 101 of my podcasts. You're 101, by the way. Oh wow, cool. Seems kind of appropriate. The highway 101. I like that. Uh Nick Flores. Thanks, Nick, for all you do. You're amazing, dude. Appreciate you. Cool. Never called out Nick quite like that in the show. Hey, so hey, Nick. So hey, let's do the game show part of this. This is what I'm talking about. This is where it's fun. This is where you can earn that. And I'm not calling it a candy bar. I've called that and I get in trouble. Okay. Jody goes, not a candy bar. That's like that's the equivalent of a$500 bottle of scotch in the form of a chocolate bar. Dick Taylor's is great. Yeah, we love those guys. We also love quality body. These guys are sponsors and Kim Kemp and uh Redheaded Black Belt and uh and Dutch Brothers, too. But you don't get a Dutch brothers, you're gonna get a chocolate bar. Chocolate bar. We love chocolate. I almost said candy again.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I'm glad you appreciate these guys. So Dick Taylor has made a remarkable difference in the whole atmosphere and the ambiance of Old Town.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And we're proud to be their neighbors.
SPEAKER_01:That's great word. And they uh we just went in and saw their tree the other night. Oh yeah. Yeah, my wife, that's her go-to after a Costco run, and she's killing herself at Costco, and she gets in there and gets that whatever she drinks for 150 bucks. Yeah. I don't know what all I know is there's a lot of credit card charges for Dick Taylor, Dustin, Adam.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:We're gonna go see them play at Ferndale Friday night. Oh, wow, cool. Nice. Uncle Barry Flint does a thing down at the steeple every year. Oh, nice. Yeah, they they do a great show. Everybody said, Hey, got to see these guys. You know, and who could never get a darn ticket? And we finally figured out you you get them early, and we figured that out about five years ago. Oh, there you go. Try not to miss those guys. Hey, question number one on the quiz. And you're gonna earn this, by the way. Hey Leroy, what's your best day you've ever had? Best day I ever had on the waterfront day?
SPEAKER_00:Anyone, any one, maybe one of the best days. One of the best days I ever had, probably the day I put the maticate back in the water. How about that? What year was that? We did what they said couldn't be done. Wow. 1990. And she's still sailing. Still sailing? Mm-hmm. Pride of the West Coast.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I kind of.
SPEAKER_00:The Coast Guard, we do such a good job on maintenance. The Coast Guard now uses it for training.
SPEAKER_01:How about that? Yeah. That's cool.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. What a legend. Is there anything like it on the East Coast or West Coast?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there's quite a few. Is there that uh nothing that old and nothing that's been in continuous service. Okay. I mean, she started out in 1910 as a certified boat, and she's still a certified boat today. Wow. Her whole life. And she's never left Humble Bay, kind of like me. She's never left the bait. Stayed on the bay. Stayed on the bay.
SPEAKER_01:You're tied you're tied together in some ways. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Your other wife. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair enough. Hey, what's uh question two. What's one of your worst days you've had?
SPEAKER_00:Ooh, that's a tough one. Um the worst day that I've probably ever had is the day my mom died. Okay. What year was that? That was uh in twenty oh two. How about that? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Guys are pretty close.
SPEAKER_00:Pretty close, yeah. How long were the folks married? Uh forever. My mom my mom was, don't say that in front of her, was a war bride. My dad, Bill, was General Patton's cook. How about that? All through uh Europe. And he met her in Strasbourg, France. After the war. During the war. They got married during the war. And then, of course, he was stayed there, and then she came over on the um USS American and then to Humboldt County. Now Patton died during the war, did he not? Aaron Ross Powell, he died after the war. It was right after the war in a car wreck, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Car accident, right? Yeah. Jeep Yeah. Something, yeah. Yeah. How about that? There's loving history. Yeah. My uh my papi was a P-51 pilot. Oh, really? Okay. Oh, wow. Okay. Lived to tell about it. And uh he'd come to McKinleyville and uh he'd been sober 30 years and he'd done all he'd made his peace with God and Japan and everything, but he could just roll out the stories, baby. They saw the Hiroshima cloud in the morning oven. Nobody knew. Wow. They go, What they literally said, what the hell is that? They didn't know because top secret. Wow. His bat Batan death march when they pulled those Marines out. Because the P-51 could get pretty low on the deck. And he could, you know, could see those guys waving at him. And so, you know, living history. He'd tell the story and then he'd start it again maybe next day or next visit. We'd just go, wow. Tell it again. That's yeah, tell it again like you did. So we never corrected him. Question number three. What do you find fulfilling in your life?
SPEAKER_00:Um fulfilling in my life, besides having the wonderful wife Daileen, is the amount of work that my family and I have put into Humboldt Bay with the Matiquet and what we do with the shipping and trying to keep Humboldt Bay alive. It's very frustrating, but it's very rewarding. Um we serve on a lot of committees, we do a lot of work, uh, do a lot of meetings just to uh but it that's very, very fulfilling. Aaron Ross Powell Sure.
SPEAKER_01:I imagine they listen to you when you talk.
SPEAKER_00:We uh we either get loved or we're yelled at, one or the other. Well, there's I'm very proud of the work that we do on the peninsula. We're very heavily involved with the Samoa Fire Department. We're involved. I'm uh the chairman of the Peninsula Community Service District and keeping the peninsula, as we say, safe and clean. Good. That's very And Dan Johnson's doing a heck of a Dan Johnson is amazing. Uh me. So you're a big fan of Dan? Big fan of Dan. Hey Dan. Yeah, big fan of Dan, big fan of Danco. Um very uh drive through Samoa. I mean, just drive through Samoa and look at what he's done in there. Trevor Burrus, Jr. He restored a bunch of houses, right? How about that? So they'll go north of the overall plan is phenomenal. Just phenomenal. Wow. And he's a very big supporter of the Maritime Museum. That's great. And his f his dad and my dad were very good friends. Wow.
SPEAKER_01:Great connection.
SPEAKER_00:It's very, very, very impressive. Trevor Burrus, Jr. That's a lot of homes. Ways to go, but I mean it's it's very impressive. I love it, man. That's good. Very impressive. Combined. My goal, my bucket list is working with Dan and others is to get the new maritime museum built, a a bigger, bigger maritime museum. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: You're gonna keep keep it in the same spot or are you gonna move it? Aaron Powell We're gonna keep it in the same spot. So you've got to retrofit the building. Retrofit part of the building, and then we'll build a concrete building next to it. Aaron Powell So it's gonna be a destination deal. Trevor Burrus That's the goal. The destination is historic Samoa.
SPEAKER_01:Well the uh the Skywalk is now international destination.
SPEAKER_00:Another another beautiful thing. Aaron Powell Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Campbell Spickler is on and he tells us the stuff. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Trevor Burrus Hey Jim, what's up? Trevor Burrus, Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know, the the whole area it's it's it's a blessing and it's frustrating. I mean, there's we have problems, of course, we always have problems with lots of problems. But the amount of people that we carry on the boat, 26,000 last summer. Most people just love this area. I mean, they love everything about it. They love the c Skywalk, they love the Matticate, the Carson Mansion.
SPEAKER_01:Trevor Burrus, Jr.: You got a great point. I've never heard anybody on the boat or anywhere else go, you know, this Hubble thing's a real disappointment to me. Oh, why did we have to come here? You know, no you don't ever get that.
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Powell We're my wife and I are very, very involved in the cruise ships, uh, mainly because we're the ship agents. We take we take care of the ships when they get here. And we s we help the city of Eureka Miles and the harbor district, uh Mindy and those guys, they set all this up, Swan, they set up all this program and so forth. And I sit there most of the day uh to answer questions and stuff. And people come here on the cruise ships and they're just astonished. They love Dick Taylors. Yeah. They have every bay, every person comes back as Dick Taylor. Buying bags. Yeah, yeah. They uh but there's uh you get a few of problems with a few you know what's in old town that you see around and stuff like that. Miles does a great job cleaning and the city of Eureka and his staff, the Warfingers, everything's cleaned up real good. But they love it. They absolutely love it. The trip to the Redwoods, to the skywalk through Old Town.
SPEAKER_01:Sure.
SPEAKER_00:It's it's not negative at all. I mean, a lot of them say, hey, we're coming back, we're coming back.
SPEAKER_01:I love it. And they'll drive back some of them. Yeah, oh yeah. Sure. Hey, last question. You're not out of this quiz, you this bar does not belong to you, yeah. Last question. Hey, Leroy, who are you and what do you want? Who's Leroy Zerling and what does he want?
SPEAKER_00:Um what do I want? I want to retire, is what I want for starters. Good good luck on that. Yeah. I would like um I would like to uh I would like to see Humboldt become something. Um I'm I'm in I'm in a different type of world than most people. I'm very, very involved in the industrial part of it. My wife, my son, and I own the two harbor tugs here. We do all the ship assist work, we run the pilot boats. Uh we're very pro-shipping, we're very pro all of that. And then on the other hat, I'm in the tourist business because I'm Madican. Sure. Um so I would like to see a common ground of something on Humboldt Bay that's gonna work. We've looked for niches for 50 years I've been involved in it, since I was a kid, looking for a niche of how we're gonna save this, how we're gonna save this. We haven't found it yet. And you think you're getting somewhere and you lose.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um I mean, wind energy, that's a mixed feeling there, but wind energy probably not gonna happen. We've locked lost Nordic's uh um fish farm on the peninsula. Aaron Ross Powell That came in left, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:What are we gonna do? Aaron Ross Powell Is that no for now or is both those no for now?
SPEAKER_00:It's a very slow no. I mean, it's over for now. It might pull out. I doubt it. I doubt if it's gonna pull out. We have a lot of beautiful property that a lot of things can be done. My thought the other day, driving around. Um, I do a patrol for the fire department every morning just to make sure everybody's good and there's no fires and pick up trash and stuff like that is maybe we ought to start focusing on the two things that this bay has that's kind of working. One, it's time that we take a little bit better care of the fishermen. They've uh they've been beat up a little bit. Sure. They've been uh beat to hell by the state of California.
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Uh crab season's another bad one this year. I mean, we don't know what's going on. They don't even know if they should spend any money. Am I going in the right direction on this? Or they don't even know if they can fish. So the focus should uh my focus would change to let's take care of them, let's build them their ice house, let's build them their cold storage, let's build them a dock. Sure. Let's give them a work area, a work area where they can work. We're losing boats. Two weeks ago, my boatyard broke up five commercial fishing boats because there's no value left to them, because there's no, there's nothing they could do. Boats are leaving here is constantly getting out of California. That's one of them. The other one is what's popular here, like I just said, is tourism. I mean, the cruise ship people love it here. We have Schneider Dock, we have the Maticate, we have Dick Taylor's, we have the Blue Ox, we have the Sky, the Skywalk, we have the Redwoods, and we have beautiful beaches. Let's encourage that. Let's build I had to work in Fort Bragg the other day. And there's seven waterfront motels. Eureka doesn't have any. Not even one. Not even one. Yeah. Let's build a motel on the waterfront that you can see the bay on one side, the ocean. Let's build a restaurant on the waterfront somewhere. Why not? Let's uh let's build a uh RV park that's on the waterfront. I mean, we don't have salmon anymore. Thank you, State of California. We don't have salmon anymore, but there's still plenty of sports fishing here. Sure. Uh the Samoa Peninsula, this is hard to believe. We have BLM at the end. BLM gets 250,000 visitors a year. Wow. Incredible on that peninsula. That the Samoa Fire Department, of course, takes care of. Trevor Burrus, Jr. That's done by the Coast Guard base. Coast Guard Station, yeah. So that would be my vision. My vision would be: my whole goal is to have something for my son to do. I mean, my son is very talented. Uh we have the tugboats. He's very talented on the tugboats. And I would like to be, and just not my son, but other children too, something here that'll keep them here.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And uh Humboldt Bay Bonnie Ghoul. Bonnie Gould, did you know who Bonnie Ghoul is? Sure, absolutely. Of course. Uh Bonnie Gul, my mom was a dear, dear friend of Bonnie Ghoul. How about that? And uh She's a legend, right? She's a legend. It was a little bit of a a little bit of a fight. But m Bonnie, my mom always said down there, she had a French accent, she would say, you should have a star in the dock down here for Bonnie Gul. Because Bonnie Gul's famous quote is Humble Bay should be our front door, not our back door. Whoa. And I fought the city, and Mike Jones was on the city council, a dear friend. Sure. And I said, I want to name that the Bonnie Ghoul dock. And Mike pushed it through to the Bonnie Ghoul dock. Shout out to Mike Jones. Yeah, Mike, yeah, yeah. We used to call him Jonesy. We used to work together. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So those are those are my visions. That's my vision. Great. And who am I? Um born and raised. Spent most of my time on the peninsula in FinTown. Uh fifth generation, uh cabinet maker, supposed to be a cabinet maker by trade. Uh my dad did a lot of cabinet work in this area. Um I got involved in the Maticatism as a young boy, as I told you earlier. Uh today uh I'm the um chairman of the Humble Bay Harbor Safety Committee. I'm the past chairman of the old Eureka um the old Eureka Harbor Harbor Commission. Um Is there a new harbor commission? No, the city got rid of it. They they fired me and shut it down.
SPEAKER_01:But is there but there is a harbor commission? Humble Bay Harbor District. That's the district. That's with Chris Mickelson in these guys.
SPEAKER_00:Chris Mickelson and Aaron. You work with Chris Metcher? Chris and I are very, very dear old friends. His family's been here almost as long as mine. Yeah. We work very tightly with the Trevor Burrus.
SPEAKER_01:He was our my guest. He's a great guy. Yeah, yeah, with the harbor district.
SPEAKER_00:Um I'm chairman of the Peninsula Community Service District. Maticate's our baby, my wife and Cody and my baby. Um Maritime Museum, or very of course, it was my father's startup as it's a community. All of its kids come down. One of the questions on the Mediquet. We call them our sit-down and shut-up crews. So you don't lose, you gotta you'll lose their attention in seconds if you're not careful. So we have all these routines. And one of the questions I ask, and we have this big safety thing before they get on board, is uh who owns this boat? And they all point to me and say, You do. Right. And I go, No. No. You own it. But we got stuck taking care of it for you because the boat does belong to the community. Gotcha. Um is it in a trust or some sort of thing? It's uh 5013 C. Gotcha. Yeah. That's great. Um the fire department, uh born and raised on the bay, uh been licensed master for almost 50 years. Taught many kids to get licenses. My son's a uh master also now. Um pretty much uh a good trip for me is going to Rio Dell. Yes. Oh, now now a good trip for me is going to Lolita Jerseys. Yeah, you go to Jersey.
SPEAKER_01:Jersey scoop. Yeah. Speaking of food and sweets, congratulations. Oh, I want Nick, Nick, we have a winner. Winner winner chicken dinner, Leroy. I'm getting you a uh Dick Taylor craft chocolate fleur de celle. Uh this is a 73% Baileys and uh handcrafted in Eureka, which is in California. That is correct. Congratulations. We love Dick Taylors. Thank you. Very, very much.
SPEAKER_00:I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_01:So quick pivot to a story. Um you uh I was reading that you you picked up this uh uh project. You rescued a boat out of the bay, the gold rule. What's it what's it what's the what's that story?
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so years ago, uh ten years ago, just about. Uh there was a local doctor, I won't mention his name. He was a good doctor, he saved me. He was kind of a nutcase. And I'd go to him and he had three boats. Uh the Yankee girl that he bought from the Harbor District, it was a derelict. He bought it at an auction and had a little tug. And he had this boat called the Golden Rule. Never heard about the Golden Rule. Uh he never talked about the Golden Rule. The other two we talked about a lot because they were always sinking or they were breaking loose, or he was in trouble with the city or the harbor district. Both of them sank. We raised them both, and I got I was so mad at him that I chopped one up with Ryan Schneider, put it in a dump truck, and parked it and dumped it in his front yard. So this golden rule, he owned the property that we called Nickerson's down on the peninsula. I believe it's now known as Oyster Beach. Sure. Uh he owned that. And one day, here's uh I'm on the Matticot, and I see the Golden Rule coming up the bay, being towed by this little junkie boat. And it's anchored in front of his prop Nickerson's. And I call him up and I go, that's not gonna work. It's not gonna work. I mean, it's you you can't anchor it though. It's not gonna work. And blah blah, he's a doctor, so he knew everything. And two days later, Cody, my son, and I took one of the tugs and we went down and we pulled it off the beach. We weren't busy at the boat yard, so we took it up to the boat yard, and uh we hauled it out of the water, and honestly, what I did is I got it ready for the next time it would sink. We pulled the engine out of it, we pulled the fuel tanks out of it, took everything out of it, got all the the oil and so forth, and it sat there. And I'd call him and say, hey, I gotta put this golden rule back in the water. I mean, I gotta go back to work. I need the yard. And he'd say, Okay, okay, okay. Well, we needed it. So we couldn't take it to Woodley Island because it got kicked out of Woodley Island. So we took it down, we tied it up to a dock across the bay at the end of a pier, and we watched it and watched it, and I'd call him and I'd go, you gotta do something with this boat. And he never did. Well, one m miserable northwest March more morning, I look out and the golden rule's gone. It's gone. So I call Cody and I go, grab one of the boats, go look for it, and I'll drive around.
unknown:No.
SPEAKER_00:So we went down to the dock, and here's the golden rule on the bottom. There she was. She's on the bottom. And the dock sat on top of it. Wow. I wasn't going to leave it there, uh because I'm not that type of person. We we con we race boats all the time, and it's one of the things we do. So we porpoised it. We went over with one of the tugs, we hooked onto it. You pull on them, she comes up, then she sinks again, and we pulled her up on the beach at our place, the boat you're in Fintown. Pulled it up on the beach, and here's this beat-up poor old golden rule sitting on the beach, and badger can't s the doctor's not around. So I'm sitting there looking at it, and I do weather every morning for the tugs offshore. And between them calling me, I look up and I put in this golden rule. Well, this golden rule is famous. He always said it was famous, that it was the one of the peace it was a peace boat. Trevor Burrus, Jr. It was a protest boat. We call it a peace boat, not a protest boat.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, there's a big difference.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. A peace boat's welcoming to port. It's a protest boat. It was going to the Marshall Islands. It got seized. How about that? Um it made it back to San Diego.
SPEAKER_01:Anti-whaling or anti-drilling boat?
SPEAKER_00:Anti-nuclear. Nuclear. I can't think of the I can't think of the guy's name right off the top of my head. So it's sitting there and I go, well, geez, this thing is famous. I'm going to sell it. And it's beat, it's beat bad.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So I put it on Craigslists and Facebook that I've got this famous boat, the Golden Rule, and it's in Eureka. Come get it. Yeah, I start getting phone calls. Is that right? The Smithsonian calls me, going, what are you going to do with it? My famous quote is, I'm going to get drunk tonight and burn it. You know? Hiroshimo Museum calls me. I mean, I had all these phone calls, and I go, I said the same thing. I'm going to get drunk tonight and burn it. Yeah. And I wasn't going, I didn't know what to do with it. So one day a very, very dear friend of mine, Chuck DeWitt, lives in Fairhaven. We used to keep our horses there. He's a veterans for peace. Big member. And him and I, we we were known to get into the maker's mark when I'd go down and visit the horses and stuff at night once in a while. Sure. He was a pyro. You'd help with the fireworks and so forth that I was involved with. I still am involved with 45 years. It's the 4th of July for the 40 years. I've been putting that barge out there for 45 years. That's you. Yeah. Hear that. 45 years. Just the barge. But anyway, so Chuck comes walking into the yard, smoking his cigarette, and goes, Where the hell's the golden rule? And I go, it's right there on the beach. Come down tonight, we'll get drunk and burning. So he goes, Well, the veterans for peace want to s I'll go fast. The veterans for peace want to save it. And I go, Chuck, the veterans for peace? You mean those nuts that stand in the rain on the corner of the courthouse on Friday nights? Those guys want to save this boat? They got any money? Yeah. And he goes, Well, they want to save it. And I go, Well, here it is. I mean, you're looking at$50,000,$60,000,$70,000 to save it. And he goes, Well, the president of chapter 22 from Garberville's coming up tomorrow. Are you going to be here? And I go, Bring him up. Nice. Bring him up. So he comes up, him and his wife Sherry come up, and they're walking around it. And uh they go, Well, we want to save it. And I go, You're looking at a lot of money.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And he goes, We can raise the money. Well, I looked him up on the internet, and he did. I mean, they found the money. They raised money. They raised a lot of money. Hospitals of Vietnam. Is that right? And I go, Well, if you guys want to play, I'll play with you. Sure. I'll give you the yard for five years for a year. For a year, and you raise the money, and I'll help you, and I'll put my crew on it a little bit and save this poor old golden rule. So Schmidbauer donated a bunch of stuff. Bob Fegus came over. We built a building. Hey, Bob. We built a building around it. And uh they did. Took him five years.
SPEAKER_01:And they restored it.
SPEAKER_00:They restored it. It's down at the boat basin right now. Is that right? They restored it. About 900 people came to the launching. Is that right? Still a bunch of nutcases, God bless them, but they're a bunch of nutcases. They all got in a fight. At the launch? No. During the restoration. There was Chapter 22 and Chapter 61, and they had all these different plans. And they stopped. I put a big sign up on the side of the building that said Veterans for Peace at War. They got all back together and they launched it. Nice. Chuck passed away last year. There was a committee. I finally got off the committee. I don't really believe in the Veterans for Peace what they do, but I love the boat and I loved what it did. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Well, we all love Vets, too. Yeah. It was uh uh they took her to Hawaii against my wish. And made it. We did the weather for him to get to Hawaii. So she actually completed her goal of going to the Marshall Islands to be a good idea.
SPEAKER_01:How about that? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And then they brought her back here, then she sailed the West Coast. They took her to the East Coast. I'll go look for that. I want to figure out what's going on. Yeah, it's at the Eureka Bo basin right now.
SPEAKER_01:So uh part of the conclusion of the story. If you're just, by the way, if you're just joining us, new best friend Leroy Zer Zerling, the legendary uh man, the myth, the legend of Humboldt Bay. Um, there's a lot of cool stuff around the bay. I just want to touch on them real quick, then I want to touch on your legacy and what we're gonna say at your funeral, that kind of stuff. But we'll get there. Um just real quick, the uh the old Humboldt State uh schooner that sits sideways. The Fuma. The FUBA? That's kind of it's not going that ain't going anywhere.
SPEAKER_00:Poor Fuma. Fuma was built by Dr. James Gast.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I remember he was a professor. He was a professor.
SPEAKER_00:Little guy. Yep, yeah. Looked like Elmer Fudd and talked like Elmer Fudd. Oh, good morning. We why how are you? Smarter in hell.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Smarter in hell. It was built right below the cookhouse. Okay. It's um 16 feet wide and 70 feet long. We hauled it out of the water. Is that right? And his goal was to make it the Humboldt State Research Vessel.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And now we have the other boat. Yeah, now we have the um the new one, the North North Wind. Yeah, that's a cool boat. That's yeah, the old one, the Coral Sea. It uh never made it. Uh and he died.
SPEAKER_01:But it still sits there. Still sits there. Isn't there a famous boat down in um King Salmon? King Salmon somewhere that's uh legendary that's still maybe it's in Fields Landing somewhere. Excuse me.
SPEAKER_00:Um get you some water. You're probably talking about the Dennis Gale. Yeah, maybe is it still there? It's sunk, yeah. It's sunk. It's sunk, okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Another another very famous movie. We're doing live water here on the side. Live water, sorry. Yeah, that's good. I mean, just let's drink up. Cheers. Um so there's a lot of stuff to see around the bay that's just and then they had the uh the resort out there on the uh on Woodley Island, was it?
SPEAKER_00:The yacht club, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:The yacht club was very short-lived, was it?
SPEAKER_00:Yep. Um it uh it made it for probably twenty years. The yacht club was a very, very famous the uh They had the um Hubble Bay Yacht Club and the Sir Francis Yacht Club used to have races. Oh, is that right? Where the yachts small, sailboats small, would be shipped down by steam scooter, and they'd race around Alcatraz. Oh, how about that? And then the next year, they would all their boats would be shipped up here by steam scooter, and they'd they'd race around Gunther Island, Indian Island, Pulawat Island. The trophies are still at the Maritime Museum.
SPEAKER_01:Well, go look for those. The uh that resort had to be really nice in the summer. I bet it was fifty-four degrees and fog.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. It was uh it had an outdoor saltwater heated swimming pool. It's still there. Nice. Um the boiler's still there.
SPEAKER_01:It's part of the tour, right? The map, part of the tour, you bet. Yep. So I always have an AI section in this. So let's see what AI let's see what AI AI has to say about Leroy before we uh we close out here. Leroy Zerling stands out not only as a creative force, but also as a committed community advocate who understands the power of art and history to connect people and place. That's a nice comment. His work with the Maticate ship exemplifies his vision, making him a vital contributor to Eureka's cultural identity. I like that. I uh uh that'll work. Cool. Yeah, that's cool. I you know, thanks. It's like almost like a military deal. Thanks for your service. I mean, all the all the stuff that you do for the Bay and for the folks at Humboldt, man, to keep this thing It's fun.
SPEAKER_00:Alive I enjoy it. I enjoy it. It's frustrating. It's very frustrating. The Maritime Museum is in the spot now with the Maticette. When we started this, I mean it started in 1972. You have to remember that tourism really wasn't even wanted up here.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:I mean your Chamber of Commerce and really wasn't promoting tourism because they didn't want to see what we were really doing. That's the way I put it. Yeah. When we got the Madeti with the two the rebuild, I mean, we begged, borrowed, and stole to get it done and help from great people. I mean, Kay Johnson or the Johnsons or Schmid Bauers. Um we pulled it off. Uh so we're very, very proud of that. Old town, I mean, uh there's it's so close to being so ripe and perfect with just a little bit more leaven. There's still a little bit more to do that. A little bit more leaven. I'm very happy working with the Harvey District. I'm very happy now working with the city of Eureka. The city of Eureka and I fought for years and years. We fought to keep the Maticot in Eureka. And uh now the plaza's named after her.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Sounds like you like you're a fan of Miles. Yeah. I'm uh me and Miles, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Hey Miles, what's up? Yeah, we we like going after each other. Great guy. So what are we gonna say at your uh your funeral, your legacy, your your tombstone? What would you like folks to uh uh what do you imagine or like them would like them to say? Holy Toledo, am we that close?
SPEAKER_00:Boy, I have no idea. Okay. Um I have one wish. Somebody please take care of the maticate. Okay. That's a great way.
SPEAKER_01:That's a good tombstone. Yeah. So uh buried at sea, would you be be sprinkled?
SPEAKER_00:Um pr No, I'd I'd have to go in the bay. Okay. Um Carl Christensen that I talked about earlier pretty much said that we're mud-flat sailors, and that's what I am. I have uh I have gone offshore. I'm licensed to go offshore, I've towed offshore. But we're we're pretty much mud-flat sailors. I like that.
SPEAKER_01:You know, we go up to Trinidad and see all those guys lost at sea. And I mean, there's a whole nother harbor with a story, and we don't have time for that. But uh I like that. Mud uh mud what sailor? Aaron Ross Powell Mud Flat Sailor. I like it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Hey, thanks for coming. My pleasure. It's always a pleasure. Yeah, no, it's great, man. And I love to have you back. Hey, uh Scott Hammonds, 100% Humboldt uh podcast signing off. Uh like you invite you to like us, love us, uh make comments that are good. You can make comments that are not good. I don't care. You're fine. Um we're on all the podcast platforms. We're on uh uh uh we're on cable, we're on um uh Kim Kemp's uh uh redheaded black belt, we're on Loco. I don't know what we're not on, Leroy. We're gonna find something. But uh thanks again for being here. My pleasure. All right. Have a great day. You too. Thank you.
