The Little Cement Platform

I had some of the best times of my life fishing in Odessa. There were two piers (jetties) that I frequented, the I and the L shaped one. 

I probably fished the most on the I shaped pier. I must have known every little nook and cranny there.

The L (Russian Г ) shaped pier for some reason had less fish around it, but allowed for fishing even in windy conditions – the water behind it was calm even when the wind was high.

All the piers were connected by a wave breaker structure, an underwater wall that ran parallel to the shore and about half a meter below the surface. You could walk on it and fish from it. My father would not allow me to wear his waders because I could have drowned in them, so I had to spend many hours fishing from the wave breaker cold, wet, miserable and with feet cut up by mussels.

In theory you could walk on the wave breaker from the I pier, passing a few more piers and reaching a small cement platform a little bit higher than the L pier (it can barely be seen in the photograph). I never got there because there was a break in the wave breaker somewhere in the middle. I could easily swim over it, but for some reason that break always freaked me out, and I never reached that cement platform, although a lot of people did. 

A few days ago I had a dream where I was looking at the little platform from the L pier.