Now a-pier-ing

NEWPORT BEACH -- The Newport Beach Municipal Pier was packed with

strollers, sea-gazers and kissing couples Sunday.

But while the warm sun and cool sea breeze drew dozens of day visitors,

most of the people on the pier were regulars.

Such as Bert Duering, 63, who has played his guitar at the entrance to

the pier almost every day for the past six years.

“From where I sit, I’ve seen a lot,” he said. “A lot of nice legs.”

He wore a straw hat, which shaded his clear blue eyes, a yellow-white

Polo sweater and had a matching beard. He strummed his guitar, singing a

tune he wrote at 4 a.m. on a piano at the University of Miami, after

finishing a bottle of Captain Morgan’s Rum.

The lyrics tell the story of how King Neptune lost his vast underwater

empire after being seduced by a mermaid.

“She had me wrapped around her dorsal fin,” he sung. Camera-toting

tourists meandered by Duering, dropping occasional coins in his open

guitar case.

Further along the pier, groups of men and women stood, poles in hand,

staring out at sea hoping to land a two-foot mackerel. Most were

immigrants from Vietnam and Mexico.

“My seven cousins dragged me out here today,” said Daniel Phan, a wiry

17-year-old who drove in from Riverside County. “But it’s a good scene.

Lots of people.”

A woman next to him, wearing a wide-brimmed Vietnamese hat, pulled up a

three inch carp.

“Hey, look, at least somebody caught something,” Phan said.

Matthew Khol, 9, and Sean Ear, 8, sat next to each other a few yards away

from the pier’s end. From behind, the two looked perfectly symmetrical --

like two paper dolls.

Parallel fishing poles pointing to the horizon. Matching navy blue

sweatshirts. Small, black-haired heads looking down at their green and

purple Gameboys, on which they played Pokemon.

“Just scored 40,” said Sean, breaking nearly three minutes of intensely

focused silence.

On the other side of the pier, Sergio Morales, 22 and his nephew Jesus

Rovesale, 29 stared toward the beach.

“I tell my friends this is the best place,” said Morales, a Costa Mesa

resident, in his native Spanish. “There’s something about the ambience.”

Rovesale dropped a quarter into the coin telescope, aimed it toward the

beach and agreed.

“The view here is incredible,” pulling his uncle to catch a glimpse at

what turned out to be a bikini-clad sunbather. “I really love it here.”