EDITORIAL: In ship-shape: No dereliction of duty in Destin

It’s with true praise that we congratulate the city on finishing a job so thoroughly: dotting every “i,” crossing every “t.”

That isn’t always the case. As we said on this page Wednesday, so often the problems of the past still plague us today — dredging, development, gulf drilling, traffic — even a quarter century after Destin transitioned from village to city.

But in the city’s recent clean sweep of shoddy ships, we see a rare total victory — a nail in the coffin of the zombie boats that littered the harbor.

The effort to rid the city of derelicts began in earnest November 2007 when Councilor and Capt. Kelly Windes declared that the harbor was beginning to look like “a marine junkyard” littered by sunken vessels. His comments came days after the city trashed transient Bicycle Bob’s boat, which had become a notorious Destin icon on Norriego Point for years.

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For more photos from the latest derelict boat raising, click here.

To see photos from Destin's derelict days, click here.

To watch a video of a derelict being raised, click here.

To read The Log's take on the topic, click here.

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In response, the city launched a matrix where it charted about 10 junk vessels in area waterways. What occurred then was an amazing and rare example of government cutting through the red tape and getting the job done.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission stepped up its legal efforts to declare the vessels trash and authorize their removal. Okaloosa County gave an assist and some elbow grease when needed, and even the private sector pitched in with Capt. Donnie Brown donating his services to raise the sunken charter boat Summer Wind from the bottom of the harbor last year.

Crews from Redfish Marine Construction hauled away the last of the vessels Thursday when they floated Glory, which has been slowly sinking in the shallows off Holiday Isle.

“It was just such an eyesore to everybody and became a quality of life issue,” said Code Enforcement Director David Bazylak. “Nobody wants to look at us like we are an old broken-down boatyard.”

And now no one has to. Kudos to all who helped deep six these blights on our city.