harbormasters

At first glance, the life of a harbormaster might not seem that exciting. After all, aren't they basically pseudo land- master who discovered it was a bunch lords — like the people who run those dry of young guys throwing a bachelor party storage places, except it's wet storage? for their friend. Increasing the embarassSure, they'll oc- ment quotient, the casionally retie a harbormaster in frayed dockline for "Sea lions are smart — this case was a you, or tell those noisy neighbors and they have a great woman, Pier 39's Sheila Chandor. to But quiet down. mostly, when sense of humor." "They were all very apologetic, very they're not busy embarassed, and collecting rent, stopped immedithey're just sitting in their offices push- ately," she recalls. ing paper around. Right? Wrong. Alarms going off are also common. We've met and known lots of harbor- Many modern boats are festooned with masters over the years, and a few have alarms — for fire, carbon monoxide, high become good friends. The majority of water, low oil pressure, etc. People often them are smart, energetic, glass-is-half- leave them on when the leave the boat, full kind of folks. Most love what they do, and every so often they go off. Unless and many have been doing it for 20 or the boat is obviously sinking or on fire, 30 years. And their stories! You couldn't the harbormaster has to play a bit of a make this stuff up if you tried. Here are guessing game as to why. a few glimpses into the 'hidden life' of "The first thing we do is call the ownharbormasters — all real incidents, all er," says Marina Village's Alan Weaver. "If happened right here in the Bay Area. it's not an emergency, they'll often come down to deal with it." Fortunately, most

Yof the alarms turn out to be something es, a good part of a typical harbor- benign. Probably the most common master's weekly routine is dealing with alarm heard in a marina is for carbon tenant complaints: so-and-so took my monoxide, which can build up inside a hose and didn't return it; those people closed up boat while charging (or overon thus-and-such boat are playing music charging) batteries. In a large marina, this can mean multiple too loud; or the halyard on the boat next Another alarm, heard regularly during alarms going off around the same time door is slapping. the extreme tides of winter, is for shallow each day — a bit like what happens in a Occasionally, there's a fresh twist on water. Boaters set these while underway clock shop at high noon. the theme, such as the one involving a to alert them when they're getting into Occasionally, alarms signal a real well-known San Francisco restaurant shallow areas. And they forget to turn emergency. Most harbormasters have whose windows looked out onto a ma- them off. So sometimes, during an ex- stories about boats that sank or almost rina. One night the patrons got a bit more treme low tide, the water under a parked sank at their slips, and a few have fought ambiance than they'd bargained for: boat gets so 'thin' that the alarm goes off. fires aboard parked boats. "One guy told some boaters in the marina sail as a movie screen and were using a the film was, Fire in a marina (like this one in Ensenada) is a harbormaster's worst nightmare. If there's time, me over must be the the phone that he thought it fire alarm going off," says shall we say, 'not appropriate for chil- burning boats are often untied and cast off to Weaver. "He said, 'I guess you'll have to dren.' The restaurant called the harbor- prevent the fire from spreading. cut the lock to turn off the alarm. And I'd appreciate it if you'd check for a fire while you're down there.'" No problem, sir.

Actual boat fires in a marina are, in the words of Vallejo Municipal Marina's Jim Hausener, "a harbormaster's worst nightmare." They are often hard to fight, they can spread to neighboring boats or docks, and there can

LYNN BRADSHAW

COURTESY MARINA VILLAGE YACHT HARBOR

Seagull's eye view of Alameda looking west toward the Golden Gate. Marina Village Yacht Harbor is in the foreground. It looks calm and peaceful here, but a harbormaster never knows what's in store when he or she arrives at work in the morning. One told us of finding a boat at the guest dock that hadn't been there the previous night. Not only that — it had sunk. A call to the Coast Guard revealed they had towed it in and "It was fine when we dropped it off." The owner was broke and couldn't pay for anything. Soon after that, who shows up but those guys from 'Mythbusters', looking for a boat to mangle on their TV show. They paid to raise it and truck it away — and later proved conclusively that the ancient Romans could NOT set ships afire with huge mirrors.

for him to rendezvous with them and take over the tow of a disabled fishing boat they were bringing in from the ocean. This he did. Soon after getting the fishermen tied up to the dock, he got another call from the cutter. They had somehow managed to get the towline wrapped in their prop and had drifted into the breakwater. So he pulled that 82-footer off and towed them in, too. Some calls are almost always false alarms, even though the callers mean well — like the ones that used to come in to the San Leandro Marina years ago about people aground in the mudflats. Seems there used to be a duck blind out on the flats, secured in place by several pilings. But what it looked like, from a distance, was a beached boat, and the pilings looked like people. Of course, every so often a boat really would run aground there, so whenever they got that call, the marina would always dispatch a boat and go check, just to make sure.

Boat sinkings in marinas are still a fairly common occurrence, although not nearly so common as even 10 or 15 years ago (due in part to bilge alarms). Still, most larger marinas average one or two sinkings a year, and the harbormaster usually ends up being to the go-to guy or gal who arranges the raising, pump out, pollution control, tow to a yard and owner liaison. While storms and neglect sink their share of boats, most at-the-dock sinkings are caused by owners. And we're talking about well-meaning folks who make a small but crucial mistake in maintaining their boats, such as the owner of a big be more than a little personal danger Jim had the only boat small enough to involved. Jim remembers one years ago get under there — a small aluminum that had started in the bow of an old pow- runabout — and managed to maneuver erboat. When the fire was suppressed under the burning dock to make the enough that he could finally get aboard rescue. "We both had to change our unand hit it from the inside, the smoke derwear after that one!" he laughs. cleared to reveal that the owner had put several portable tanks — in the fuel bow. tanks — full fuel "I've always won- M ost calls for assistance are dered how close I came to blowing myself more benign. And most of those are up that day," says people requesting Jim. Even farther One tenant managed tows. Depending on where they've back in Hausener time, became to get stuck at the top worked, some harbormasters have something of a of his mast — naked. towed several hunhero during a big dred boats over fire at the Mare the course of their Island Navy yard. A creosote-saturated careers. A particularly memorable day wooden pier had caught fire, and during for Hausener occurred back in the '80s the battle to put it out, a fireman fell when he was the harbormaster at Pillar through the burning pier into the water. Point. A Coast Guard cutter had called

SHEILA CHANDOR/PIER 39

At Pier 39, Monterey and a few other places, harbormasters wage a constant battle to keep sea lions off boat docks — and boats.

motorboat that sank at Marina Village a few years ago. Alan Weaver phoned the owner with the bad news the next day

and the guy said, "That's funny, I was just down there working on the head yesterday." Turns out he had removed the head to rebuild it, and tucked one of the hoses up out of the way. After he left the boat, the hose had fallen down. Since it was attached to a thruhull below the waterline — and the thruhull had not been turned off — the boat filled and sank.

But as with any endeavor, it's primarily the 'live ones' — the people themselves — that are a neverending source of entertainment for harbormasters. Here are a few quick anecdotes of just how goofy they can be: • A couple was asleep aboard their berthed boat when they felt someone get aboard and start to slide open the companionway. The husband leaped out of bed, grabbed a shotgun, cocked it and prepared to deal with the intruder. But as soon as the intruder realized there were people aboard (it's amazing what a motivator it is to hear a gun cocking and realize it's for you), he took off running. The husband burst out of the boat in hot pursuit, chasing the intruder all the way up the dock, up the gangway, and out the gate. Only when it slammed behind him did he realize that he was standing there, with a cocked shotgun in his hands, stark naked — and without a gate key. Imagine being on duty at the harbor office when he came knocking at the door. • One day a man dressed all in black came into the harbormaster's office of a marina in San Francisco and, in a thick accent, asked for political asylum. The harbormaster said, "We don't handle that here," and sent him to Customs. • The harbormaster who arrived at work in the morning to find one of the tenants in a bit of a fix. He had a bit too much to drink the previous night and had somehow managed to haul himself to the top of his mast and gotten stuck there. He was also naked. • A young Japanese couple was enjoying a day at Pier 39. In the afternoon, they wandered from the touristy center of the Pier to the outside to admire the boats. At some point, the woman accidentally dropped in the water a teddy bear that her boyfriend had won for her. Without thinking, the man jumped over the railing into the water to save the stuffed bear — and couldn't get out. Despite the language barrier — neither of them spoke English — Pier 39 personnel managed to rescue both man and teddy. The man's clothes shared the marina's dryer with the teddy bear and everyone lived happily ever after. • An older couple arrived at their boat one Saturday morning to go for a sail — only to find the hatches open and music coming from down below. They called out for anyone aboard, and a clean-cut young fellow came up, coffee in hand and said, "Can I help you?" The man said, "Yeah, this is my boat." The 'stowaway' barely batted an eye. He said, "Oh, you're here! Just one second." Then he went below, turned off the music, stuffed a few things in a duffel bag and hopped off onto the dock. "Have a great day out there!" he said. Upon inspection, the couple found that nothing was missing, and in fact the young fellow had obviously done a fastidious cleaning job! They admitted later that he was so nice they almost didn't report the incident. • It's not always the boaters who are the source of entertainment for harbormasters and their crews. One time when one of the marina crew was doing some demolition work on an old dock in the City, he cut the end off a dock with a chainsaw — and then realized he was on the part that was no longer attached to anything. Of course it happened in front of God and everybody — including the rest of the crew, many tenants and the harbormaster, who had to tow the guy in before he drifted out to sea. • A strange spectacle that's played itself out time and again at many marinas involves people getting pulled into the water by docklines. These are almost always folks new to boating. Wanting to be helpful, they'll untie a bowline, then walk down a finger as the boat pulls out, still holding onto the line. They let the line slide through their hands, but when it gets to the end, instead of letting go, they hang on — and get jerked into the water. "We still don't know why anyone would do that," said one harbormaster. "But we see it all the time."

Not all 'live ones' are people. Every harbormaster of long standing will have at least one heartwarming story of some interaction between local wildlife and boaters. Perhaps it's a mother duck and her flock who adopted a certain boat. Or a seagull who befriended a liveaboard dog — those two would actually eat from the same bowl and sleep together in the cockpit. In the case of Pier 39, of course, most of the 'wildlife' stories revolve around a loud and rowdy group of tenants: the Pier's popular sea lions. "Sea lions are incredibly smart," says longtime harbormaster Sheila Chandor. "And they have a great sense of humor." "If one of our guys is down working on the docks, you'll often see a sea lion slip into the water, swim around the dock and then come up and splash him with its flipper. Some of the younger ones will actually swim under the dock, come right up in the worker's face and do this little bark that I think is the sea lion equivalent of 'boo'! It can really be a shock if you're not expecting it!" The sea lions at Pier 39 have their own specially-built docks on the western side of the Pier. That's also where many of the guest slips are, so it's a constant challenge to keep the big pinnipeds on their docks and off the boat docks — and boats. In the old days, the pier crew used all manner of popguns and firehoses to scoot them away. But a few years ago, some bright person noticed that the thing basking sea lions hated most was ... getting wet! So these days, Pier 39 uses portable rainbirds attached to motion detectors to keep sea lions off the boat docks. These work very well — except when the harbor crew forgets to turn them off when a guest boater arrives. More than one visitor has arrived at the main office to get his temporary gate key . . . sopping wet. Oops.

Finally, there is the tale of Ollie, the fender-stealing sea otter of Pier 39. Ollie appeared at the popular tourist

SHEILA CHANDOR/PIER 39

Ollie the otter. So that's where all the fenders have been going.

BUT SERIOUSLY, FOLKS

With the present state of the economy, many harbormasters are currently faced with a new problem: folks who can't pay their berth rents. One longtime harbormaster noted that he used to get two to three bounced checks a year. Recently, he got four in just one month. Even more unfortunately, this means more lien sales of boats whose owners can't make their monthly berth payments. If you find yourself in this situation, all the harbormasters we asked said the same thing: just give them a call and talk about it. Don't expect them to lower your monthly rate, but many, if not most, will be happy to negotiate, perhaps spreading the payments out over the month or letting you slide a week or two longer.

destination back in the summer of 2007. Residents first noticed him playing with a boat fender. Sure, it was cute, but it wasn't long before Sheila and her crew figured out that he'd pilfered the fender from a parked boat. They got it back when he wasn't looking, but the next day, he showed up with another. And so it went. Ollie eventually ended up with one particular fender that he really liked. He spent endless hours playing with it. One time when the crew tried to get it away from him, Ollie locked one little paw around the fender and the other around a boat rudder. Eventually, the shop crew made him a toy out of two little fenders and the rash of fender burglaries came to an end. Like the sea lions, otters are wild animals. And despite their proximity to hundreds of tourists every day, wildlife experts discourage close encounters and feeding. That's why tourists aren't allowed on the sea lion docks, and that's the main reason that Sheila eventually called the Monterey Bay Aquarium, whose tag Ollie wore on one of his webbed feet. She felt Ollie was just way too friendly with people and she was afraid something might happen to him. Turns out the Aquarium had rescued him as a pup. When he had reached maturity some weeks earlier, they'd let him go in Monterey Bay. He'd made quite a swim to arrive in San Francisco. We should say he was friendly to his new friends. As soon as the MBA 'relocation team' showed up, Ollie took one look and dove into the water. Nobody could get near him all day. It was almost as though he recognized his old captors and wasn't going to let them take him back to The Big House. The Aquarium folks tried the better part of the day to get him, but it just wasn't happening. Finally, Sheila asked if her crew could try something. Sure, said the Aquarium guys. So they got the little fender toy out and waved it at the end of the dock. Ollie practically shot out of the water and right into the arms of his captors. "We knew we were doing him a favor, but it still felt bad to trick him like that," she recalls. "And he was furious! We could hear him screaming and hissing the whole way to the truck." At last word, Ollie had been re-released a little farther down the coast, hopefully there to find a more suitable playmate of the female persuasion. — latitude/jr

BERKELEY MARINA