The mid ‘70s through the ‘80s were a unique time in King Harbor, Redondo Beach, CA.
Boating in general was at a peak and there was a long waiting list for slips. There was a huge liveaboard community both in the marinas and at the mooring field in the outer harbor. Everybody pretty much knew everyone and it was a very social lifestyle.
The liveaboard community crossed every demographic and you became friends with people you’d probably never meet if it wasn’t for the common denominator of boating. Old, young and everything in between, doctors, lawyers, engineers, construction workers, mechanics, secretaries (remember those?) all hung out together.
No one really cared about what you did; it was all about boats and life aboard. Once we shed our business attire and we were in our boat clothes we were all the same. Everyone blended in. Almost…
Bob Bitchin did not blend, nor did he make any attempt to. His sheer size made him stand out,but he was also obviously a biker. A rather scary, I think I’ll cross the street to avoid making contact looking biker, with more tattoos than I’d ever seen before. He dressed all in black and wore some very menacing looking jewelry with spikes that would take your eye out. We didn’t know what he did for a living and weren’t sure we wanted to. Needless to say, he did not look like a boater, let alone a sailor.
We got to know him when our friend, Guy Spencer, bought Bob’s boat Outlaw. Bob had just bought the first Lost Soul and was already planning to go cruising, as were many of us. He became one of the liveaboard community and hung out with the rest of us talking boats, cruising equipment, provisioning, etc. Despite appearances he was friendly, funny, smart, and he really was a sailor. He was one of us.
All of us liked to cruise over to Catalina Island and we frequently ran into Bob over there on Lost Soul. On one occasion a lot of us were anchored in Cat Harbor on the back side of the Isthmus to celebrate the New Year. On New Year’s morning my husband Mike and I were taking an early morning dinghy/coffee cruise. Bob saw us and waved us aboard. After some chit chat Bob decided we needed some music and went below to turn on the stereo. Soon, at quite a high volume, some odd but strangely familiar noises started coming from the on-deck speakers. Moans, groans and heavy breathing had heads popping out of hatches around the anchorage. Then hatches started slamming shut. Instead of turning on the music Bob had turned on a sound recording that he’d made with two people loudly making love. Half of me wanted to hide and the other half was laughing too hard to move. Blend in? Nope.
For many different reasons, by the end of the ‘80s life in King Harbor was changing a lot. There were restrictions on the number of liveaboards and lots of people moved on to a more “normal” lifestyle. Some of us have hung in there and some new people have joined our ranks. It’s still a great way to live because for those of us here, regardless of what we do (or don’t do) for a living, we’re all boaters. We all blend in.
I’ve known Bob a whole lotta years now and I have to say he has mellowed a lot. The biker black has been slowly replaced with Hawaiian shirts. Biker boots evolved into sandals. Appearance- wise, he can sort of pass as a boater these days, and the crazy shenanigans (there have been many I was witness to) are a little less “in your face.”
But blend in? No way. Thank goodness!
