other fishermen. Captain Llew still lives at
Boss’s Cove. He has often lamented the fact
that moorings are so prohibitively expensive
today young people find it virtually impossible to join the commercial fishing industry.
He often gave permission to neighbours to
swim at the cove. Shirley Pearman remembers
as a child visiting Charlotte Oats, who also
lived there, and who would give her bread,
possibly homemade in a brick oven, topped
with slabs of butter and sprinkled with sugar.
She remembers walking along the road “very
gingerly “ because of the many dogs “who
were not afraid to express their personality.”
The Spanish Point Boat Club
Debbie Lombardo remembers the Spanish
Point Boat Club’s annual social. Her parents
belonged to the club although they did not
sail. “Most people belonged to it,” she says, although, in its early years, during the 1940s and
’50s, as Shirley Pearman recalls, it was racially
segregated. Founded in 1941, the club became
famous for Snipe Class dinghy sailing, winning
the Western Hemisphere Snipe Championship,
the SPBC Championship and the Bermuda
National Championship in 1956. Every year
they would organise a picnic with activities such
as bobbing for apples, swimming races and musical chairs outside on the dance floor. But the
event Debbie most vividly recalls was crossing
the telephone pole. “The men at the club would
spend months greasing it up with layers and layers of vaseline,” she says. “Then they suspended
it over the water and made people crawl on it to
see if they could cross it. It was very dangerous!”
Boss’s Cove
John Kennedy, from a piloting family and a
pilot himself, grew up at Boss’s Cove as did
Captain Llewelyn who moved there as a
young boy. It was known as “the Bay” and it
was here Captain Hollis started fishing during the summer and the Easter and Christmas
holidays when he was four or five. He learned
from his grandmother and mother whom he
remembers fishing off the rocks with their
lines to catch bait. His grandmother would
take him out on the water in her punt. He
would also go out with various fishermen
to learn different types of fishing. Often he
would join the net fishermen on shore before
daylight and then go out with them. As an
adult he ran the Boss’s Cove Boatyard and his
Lana J, a boat he built himself mostly out of
cedar, has long been a familiar sight although
sadly it is now destined for destruction. Used
to going out to sea in all weathers, he was responsible for a number of rescues, especially
to the north and northwest of the island.
Indeed, a number of people owe their lives
to him. In recognition of his rescues, he was
made Water Safety Person of the Year, along
with Mark Selley, in 1999.
He became a full-time commercial fisher-
man, but by 2010 “retired” to provide bait for
own gymkhana,” she laughs, “with trails and
routes meandering through Spanish Point
Park to Plaice’s Point.” Her mother wasn’t
too fond of Flicker. “Flicker chased her for
carrots and she couldn’t stand it!” But her
father, Vincent Lombardo, a mechanic for
Stevedoring Service, was sympathetic: he cre-
ated a stable for Flicker out of a wooden crate
in front of their house not far from Soares’s
Grocery Store.
Debbie also had a dog, as did most
residents in Spanish Point. Called Boy, “he
was half collie and half Alsatian and he was
my protector and defender and he was hated
by the postman! Everybody had dogs in the
neighbourhood and they mostly didn’t tie
their dogs up.”
She remembers farming being an impor-
tant part of life in Spanish Point. Her family’s
neighbour Jerry Bothelo, for example, had a
large vegetable garden and kept rabbits and
chickens. Farming was in her blood since
her maternal grandfather was a farmer, but
it skipped her mother’s genes. “Everybody in
the neighbourhood had as big a plot as they
could but we were the only ones that didn’t.”
However, that didn’t stop her from digging
up a part of her parents’ yard and planting it
with potatoes.
Founded in 1941, the club became famous for Snipe Class
dinghy sailing, winning the Western Hemisphere Snipe
Championship, the SPBC Championship and the Bermuda
National Championship in 1956.
Boss’s Cove Snipes getting ready to race in front of Spanish Point Boat Club in 1969.