History of Marco Beach: Part Four

When Ron Hagerman arrived on Marco Beach in the 1980s, it was evolving from the sailboat-windsurfer era to the waverunner-parasail tour era. Marco Beach was shrinking in width. And sea turtle monitoring was just emerging.

“I think the old days were the wild west of water sports,” Hagerman said, referring to the 1980s. Hagerman moved down from New York and had taught himself to windsurf at the Beach Club Hotel on Naples Beach. He moved to the island to work on the beach for Mark Bahr at Marco Watersports.

“I hopped on my motorcycle and rode down to Marco from Naples and worked for Mark for 23 years,” Hagerman said, "I remember Tigertail Beach being just a little sand spit for parking. You would pull in off to the left or right, and people would get stuck in the sand. Mark was already parasailing off the north end of the Marriott Beach.”

With the introduction of Yamaha Waverunners in 1986, the complexion of Marco Beach changed dramatically, seemingly overnight. No longer did visitors have to know how to sail or windsurf to get out on the water. Waverunners offered instant gratification and a more stable platform than its predecessor, the jetski.

“It was a more stable, user-friendly product that obviously became very popular,” said Mark Bahr. "And then we started doing tours into the 10,000 Islands, which became very popular and a good way to get back in those areas.”

“I invented the waverunner tour,” Hagerman said. "I'm the guy. I'm the first one to ever do that.”

The advent of the waverunner tour actually solved a problem on Marco Beach as the mix of sailboats, windsurfers, parasail boats and waverunners was creating a palpable traffic problem.

Hagerman estimates that there were as many as 60 waverunners running up and down Marco Beach before he started his waverunner tours.

Tom Williams, who started working on the beach at the Marco Beach Hotel (now the JW Marriott) in 1978, remembers a unique responsibility his crew was tasked with.

“We had this brand new shiny blue Ford tractor,” Williams said. “In the summer, every morning we would use it to pull out our sailboats. When we were done with that our manager, Jim Martin, would have one of us go on turtle patrol. We would cruise all the way down to Cape Marco, which wasn't there then. Then we'd go all the way to Tigertail and back, looking for turtle crawls. If we found one, we would stake it out. We just put a stick in the ground with a flag on it so that the county people could come and take care of it. We were the first turtle rangers, the beach boys at the Marco Beach Hotel and Villas.”

Mary Nelson, affectionately known along Marco Beach as the Turtle Lady, started monitoring sea turtle activity in 1991 as a volunteer before being hired by the county in 1995. She was a stalwart sea turtle defender on Marco Beach for decades.

As the decade of the 1980s began to wind down, beach erosion became an increasingly serious concern. In 1990-1991, Marco Beach underwent its first renourishment. Coastal Engineering Consultants’ Management Plan Design, according to their website, included the following: • Restore gulf-front beach in two discrete segments, allowing natural processes to “fill” Central Beach • Install nearshore breakwaters to mimic former protective ebb shoal / manage wave energy at southern end of gulf-front beach to address anthropogenic impacts • Install terminal groins at end of littoral cell to prolong beach fill life • Identify sand sources within inlet ebb shoals – provide high-quality, cost-effective beach fill and enhance navigation.

Working around the clock, workers pumped 1,215,000 cubic yards of sand onto South Beach, Tigertail Beach and Hideaway Beach. Sand from Big Marco/Capri Pass Shoal and Caxambas Pass Shoal was pumped onto the beach through huge pipes that snaked along the beach. Bulldozers were then used to move the sand. Marco Beach had its second beach renourishment in 2006-2007. Annual monitoring and analysis has become the norm.

“There was the need for the restoration,” said Marv Needles, who began his career in real estate in 1969 with the Deltona Corporation, the developers of modern Marco Island. He’s been a leader in the Marco Island real estate market ever since. Needles’ favorite story about the beach renourishment involves his mother.

"My mother had a unit on the second floor at the Tradewinds,” Needles said, "and I was over there one day and the restoration had moved just south of her.” He asked her what she thought of the new beach. She told him she didn’t like it. He asked her why. “She said, 'I could look straight down and see all that water. Now, I can barely see it. It's so far away.’ The Tradewinds specifically had water right up against the seawall. Water would actually get up on the property of the Admiralty House and the Sunset House.”

Williams has similar memories.

"I remember when you could walk down by the Tradewinds and there were rocks in the water. When it would blow a northwester, the waves were breaking into the pool at the Tradewinds.”

The Reisinger Brothers, Rich and Paul, started putting down roots on Marco Beach in 1987 and 1992, respectively. They were there for the changing of the guard from a sailing beach to a waverunner-parasailing beach.

“When I first came down, I was the towel boy at the Hilton pool deck selling suntan lotion,” Rich Reisinger said. “About a year after that, I moved down to the beach. Just being on the beach in and of itself was great. But one of the things that I absolutely clicked on was the sailing aspect of it. And I wasn't there too long and the skis came in,” he said, referring to the waverunners. “I started doing waverunner excursions into the 10,000 Islands. For 20-plus years, running waverunner tours has been one of my signature items. The thing about the waverunners that I appreciate the most is that they got me into the 10,000 Islands and into exploring the south of the island. If it wasn't for the time I spent in the islands south of Marco, I don't know if I would have stayed on Marco as long as I have.”

You could say that Paul Reisinger followed his big brother Rich to Marco Beach. Paul remembers a much more subdued Marco Beach.

 "I moved here for good in 1992,” Paul Reisinger said, “the beach was just much quieter. Very few people compared to today. Everybody was just here to enjoy the peace and quiet. Everybody had sailboats, all the way down to the JW Marriott.

The waverunners were just getting popular and they were very small at the time. A big person would sit on it and they'd stop and they'd just tip right over. Every year, I've watched them become bigger and faster.”

Paul Reisinger is the owner/operator of Paul’s Beach Rentals in front of The Charter Club of Marco Beach. He sees the beach changing quickly these days.

“It's changing a lot,” he said, "and I have a unique perspective. As a small business owner, it's very exciting. But as somebody who used to really enjoy Marco Island for what it was when I first discovered it, it's just a shame to see it changing so quickly." 

Rich Reisinger sees the changes, too. Young people can’t afford to move down and share accommodations like they did when he moved here. He affectionately remembers he and his housemates on Marco calling themselves the Rolling Stones back in the 1980s and 1990s.

"You just can't get staff anymore,” said Rich Reisinger, who runs the beach concession at Club Regency. "It's been an issue for five years. With the cost of housing, you can't get those two guys who would come down from Michigan for the season sharing a condo anymore.”

Tom Williams sees a change in beach workers over the years.

"They don't have what we had because we were Marco Islanders,” Williams said. "They're not today. They don't live on the island. You don't have the spirit of Marco if you're just working on the beach but don't live here.”

There is a common thread that seems to run through those who have spent decades of their lives on Marco Beach. A thread that carries fond memories, gratitude, and hope for tomorrow.

“I think it’ll find its own way,” Williams said when asked about the future of Marco Beach. “The people that love it will love it. Marco was always exclusive, even from Day One at the Marco Beach Hotel. It was never cheap even by 1970s standards. It was fancy. During one of the hurricanes in England, our friends from England said the news reports were calling Marco the millionaires' enclave. I always tell the honeymoon couple, ‘You want to walk that beach at midnight, you do it. You’re fine. You know, don't worry about anything.' I feel like I grew up on Marco Beach. I was 21 years old, something like that, when I started there. And being the manager all those years, I watched a lot of kids grow up that turned into really cool people. All the teenagers we'd hire for picking up chairs at the end of the day and all that. I watched a lot of kids grow up to be men and ladies.”

"I just hope I'm around to see it for the next 20 years,” Paul Reisinger muses, "to see what happens. I'm very excited. Very excited for the future. The off season is getting smaller and smaller every year. Barring something catastrophic, I don't see this beach ever going away. They're always going to make this beach beautiful.”

“As long as I've been doing it,” Rich Reisinger said, "every morning I come in, I'm setting up the chairs. I still stop and look. I don't get tired of it. It's still every bit as exciting for me today, watching dolphins chasing a mullet or mackerel or whatever that is out front. It's still enjoyable for me and still, the same thrill that it was in October of 1987 when I first got down here. You know, that's what I enjoy the most."