GULF SHORES, Ala. — Artificial reefs are essential to the “Sport-fishing capital of the World.”

The Alabama Gulf Coast has no natural reefs, so nature is being created. Global positioning systems are recording the deposits of hundreds of huge objects and thousands of smaller objects.

One man is outstanding in the creation of artificial reefs: David “Reefmaker” Walter is his name. Before Walter, there was spontaneous and occasional furtive dumping of discards from domestic and industrial waste. Walter set a new direction and style.

“Walter, we have a scourge of abandoned and inoperable automobiles in the coastal area,” said an acquaintance.

“No problem, I have a boat,” Walter replied.

The “boat” at that time (prior to 1995) was an 18-foot by 45-foot ex-wireline boat which Walter used in transporting 11,000-plus automobiles to start a new life and purpose in the Gulf. This was a form of recycling autos. The style of recycling did not “live happily ever after,” for in 1995 environmental restrictions surged in. No more autos, no more steel reefs, and a list of “no mores” propelled Walter the Reefmaker into a new venture and new applications.

The new venture required a different boat. The choice was a 30-foot by 114-foot Coast Guard buoy tender, built in 1945 by Dubuque Boat and Boiler Works of Dubuque, Iowa. The boat was divested of certain areas to provide more cargo deck space and given a new title: an “Artificial Reef Deployment Vessel.”

Not only was a large part of the aft deck cleared to make room for cargo, bu a crane was added. This was a big one with a 67-foot boom with a lift capacity of 20 tons and a reach of 87 feet above water. This took care of both weight and size.

The boat’s original name “Foxglove” was changed to “Maranatha” (Aramaic for “Our Lord has come” as well as other nuances of translation). Walter is a God-respecting as well as a nature-respecting man, and offers a prayer prior to each setting forth from the dock.

Walter’s new direction was a concrete and pyramidal structure with certain fillers. Re-bar and auto tires were the first to be interlocked into the pyramid, but again, steel and tires were not permitted.

Quick to adjust and practical in approach, Walter retained the pyramid super structure and filled in with concrete with stucco of Florida limestone rocks set in the triangles formed by the superstructure. He opted for the Florida rocks rather than the North Alabama harder limestone, because the softer limestone can be bored into by sea worms and thus provide a type of estuary.

Except for the square apertures and absence of doors, one may be reminded of an ancient Mayan village. Yet Walter created another reef which at first was designed for a wave atenuator to prevent canal bank erosion. This was concrete and soft limestone too with a rosette shape and a 12-foot center which could be loose over a pipe to load onto a pier one rosette at a time, or frozen on a pipe to sink at once. The possibilities were so promising that Walter invited The Islander to go on a demo run.

The stack as an atenuator had begun to attract sea life, so Walter devised the individual rosettes with centers for the piers mentioned above. Walter put a stack on a pier post for Frank Watson’s place on the bay and Watson said that after two weeks, he can catch fish at the dock. The stack with its nooks and crannies is a refuge for the little fish also and makes a fine nursery.