Caleb McLean, 17, walked to the end of the dock overlooking murky Bayou Grande, and toward the dark blanket of pine trees and oaks across the water at Naval Air Station Pensacola .
It was peaceful, calming on this Wednesday and Caleb had just walked down to the dock for the solitude and the view.
“It’s a beautiful place,” Caleb said at the dock of Mac’s Marina off Gulf Beach Highway. “There’s not a lot of extra noise and it’s nice, but….”
Then he was drowned out by the loudest of roars − the Blue Angels F-A 18 Hornets raced across Bayou Grande in front of him, their runways just across the water and behind that blanket of trees across from Mac’s Marina, started by his grandfather and grandmother Miles and Kathy McLean in 1983.
“You get used to it,” he said of the Naval Flight Demonstration Team, which is based at Naval Air Station Pensacola. “In a bit, they’ll be coming right over the marina.”
Caleb’s only 17, but he knows the lay of the land at Mac’s Marina off Marietta Avenue. So does his cousin, 14-year-old Marina McClean (get it? “Marina”). They’re part of a third generation of McLeans working the family business, as well as their other venture they run from the marina, TowBoat US Pensacola, a marine tow and rescue service.