Marina’s Closed

I stopped by Sunset Friday evening; the road into the marina (*1) is indeed closed – along with the road into the park.  Though if you enter via 18^th Ave you can still get most of the way into the park.  Currently about 150 feet of road is blocked off.  Just beyond the jogging path I watched a pair of ducks floating by and bobbing for some sort of duck-treat about five feet off shore – right over the erstwhile gas dock ramp (*2).

            Sunset is now also closed to the general public.  A Per Mar guard is stationed at the entrance to the marina.  Boat owners can still get in to check on their boats by showing the guard ID to check against a list of owner’s names.

I didn’t bother going any further than the guard Friday; the hard driving, cold rain/sleet curtailed any desire I had for outside sight–seeing.  I suppose if there’s any silver lining to Friday’s weather it’s that it came during a flood when no one wants to be out on the river anyway.

            Saturday evening I did make it down to check on the boat.

            The last of the flood wall is up, running along the main building’s (*3) windows, with a double layer of heavy plastic over it and sandbagged in place.  The water is not yet up onto the front parking lot (*4), but that is only because the asphalt rises just above ground level.  By Sunday I’m sure we’ll see at least puddles creeping onto the parking lot.

Along with closing the place up the power has now been shut of too.  The street lights are still on, but otherwise the place is quiet and dark.  I’m not sure if the eerie stillness is just my imagination pumping up an otherwise normal off-peak evening or if the encroaching waters really have given extra layer of muffling insulation to the marina.

            The floating docks are now level with the shore so that the ramp that normally leads down to the docks now rises up and then back down.

            I wanted to check the bilge to make sure we weren’t taking on any unexpected water.  The engine hatch is large, heavy and awkward and, due to what I believe to be a lack of foresight, is very difficult to simply to simply lift and lean because of the way the seat edges stick out.  The hatch is either securely in place or it’s been wrestled completely free.  Or, in my case, lifted about a foot then allowed to rest on my shoulder blades after I’d squeezed under the thing.  So, this was the position I was in, sprawled across the back deck held firmly in place by an engine hatch while my head and arms dangled down and my flashlight light plumbed the depths of the bilge, as I absently-mindedly listen to all the sounds a harbor makes and thinking how forlorn they sounded; the breeze through the metal roof, the water lapping against the hulls, mooring lines stretching and relaxing, leaves blowing along the dock just outside the unzipped canvas.  It was about this time that it occurred to me that I didn’t remember seeing any leaves on the dock.  As I was quite possibly the only person in the marina it didn’t seem likely that I’d simply heard someone walking by.  Besides this was more a scratchy sound than a footfall sound.  My over-active imagination aside I decided it was just the sound of the docks flexing.  None-the-less in short order I’d decided I’d gleaned about all I could from an empty bilge and wormed my way back out and secured the boat.  I had just reached the up-and-down ramp’s apex when a raccoon and I stood regarding each other.  He was just heading up the ramp, about 30 or 40 feet in front of me, but after giving it some thought he scurried away, his clawed little feet making, to me at least, what sounded like scratchy sounds on the wooden ramp.  So it might not have been the Loch Potter monster that I’d heard with my head wedged into the engine compartment, but regardless, the next time I check on the boat I’m zipping up the canvass behind me.

*  In case you’re not familiar with Sunset Marina’s layout I’ll try and fit the parts of the marina I mention into the aerial picture of the marina at the top of this blog.  The bottom of the picture is the west side.

1. Entrance Road: X-shaped intersection near top, right hand corner.  Just below the "oo" in "Floods".
2. Gas dock: “Top” of the lake, near the center of the picture.

3. Main buildings: The buildings at the center, right-hand side of the picture.

4. Front parking lot:  Above and just to the right of the buildings at the center, right-hand side of the picture.