Santa Barbara Harbor
Wednesday, 2pm: We sit outside on the sunny terrace of the restaurant above the Maritime Museum to enjoy lunch. We watch as a smattering of tourists and locals roam the docks below. Our plates are attacked by a hungry bird as we are still eating off the plate. It is time to move downstairs. Unbeknownst to us, the Museum is closed. We meander off to the gift shop to see if they sell anything related to the oil spill and emerge empty handed.
Saturday, 10am: We arrive at the docks, camera-ready for Fish Market day. We observe the three or four fish vendors, rather shocked that this is all there is. Quietly, we confer about which vendors we might approach with our questions. “Who is the oldest? They all look so young.” We approach an older fisherman who sells crab. The crabs squirm as he tells us that he was too young in 1969 to recall the events. He directs us back to the museum. But people who work there are retirees from outside California, and thus unfamiliar with the spill. Then, we approach the Yacht Club, ignoring the sign that reads, “members only”. At the reception desk, a young woman informs us that no one is available to talk with us. We go outside and look at birds bobbing up and down on the beach shores, thinking about how the spill must have affected them. We’ve now made a loop and no one we’ve spoken to has firsthand experience with the spill.