On the Harbor: During my personal PT session, I make a physical therapy workout list for our bay

By LEN BOSE

Now that I am 60 years old, the check engine light has come on and I am running into my old friends not at the yacht club bar but rather at physical therapy. While at PT last week, I was repeatedly reminded how to complete the exercise properly. In turn, my mind wandered towards the harbor and I came up with this silly idea, “What if I pushed the people in charge to move forward on tabled tasks around the harbor by reminding them that these tasks are still needed? Then I was reluctant to write this story, because it’s improper not to call and get their response before writing a story like this. So, let’s just call this my workout list for the harbor’s PT.

I start my PT workout by lying on my back on a heating pad with feet over a type of pillow. While staring at the ceiling, I was wondering if anyone was on the harbor the last Thursday of September in the late afternoon? There was a concert permitted in the anchorage with amplified music that echoed heavily throughout the five points area. The music was unique, loud and quite often the lyrics were vulgar for 60-year-old delicate ears. What’s my point? What if we had day moorings in big Corona just to the south of the jetty seawall? With the music and amplifiers pointed out to sea, the only ones that would have complained about the concert would have been the Marines on San Clemente Island...and I’m sure they would have heard it. I would also point out how impacted the anchorage has been this summer, and that these day moorings would be another release valve for our impacted harbor during these times.

Next, my physical therapist walks up and ask’s how I am feeling and then rubes my shoulders until I squirm. At this time of my workout, I contemplate how difficult it has been to place navigation lights on top of the channel markers in the upper bay. Not sure if you have been in the upper bay on a dark night, but it can be rather challenging during a King tide, normally in December and January, low tide to find the markers and navigate safely around the shallows. I understand the difficulties of completing this task because of the many government agencies involved, yet it has been more than five years since the problem was brought back to the surface.

My next exercise is when I lay on my belly on a large ball looking down, arms extended, and lift up like a backward sit-up. Not easy for someone like me. This is when I think of the four large channel markers, that are made of one to three cement pilings with aluminum cages on top. These old channel markers have been reduced by two over the last decade when very large vessels have run into them. Most of the time it is smaller boats that have been seriously damaged and this has been going on before my time on the harbor, which has been half a century. The fix is a smaller floating buoy which works so much better in so many ways that I could fill this column if I had time to explain it in detail. Replacing these channel markers is a difficult task to complete because this is a federal channel which is controlled by the Coast Guard. Yet this discomfort continues to persist, and only hard work can remove them.

The next part of my workout is when I stand in front of a mirror and pull large rubber bands towards me. With my mask on and my morning bloodshot eyes, I look like a zombie coming out of a toxic mud dump. This refers to the difficulty it has been to set up a marine recycling center similar to what is in Dana Point in Cabrillo Beach. If you have been a longtime reader, you know what I am saying. I really should have gotten into my car and gone to Marina Park to see if the proposed marine recycling is completed and just what marine materials can be deposed of before writing this. Progress has been made on this topic, yet I’m not sure if it is completed. Let’s hope we can dispose of motor oil, transmission fluid, engine coolant, bad fuel, flares and anything toxic that is difficult to dispose of over there.

One of my last exercises is to stand on a belt pull it over my opposite shoulder and tilt my head to the side. During this part of my workout, I reflect on the length of time it will take to create the protocols for floating docks on our offshore moorings so that more than one boat, specifically a Harbor 20’s, can be attached to an offshore mooring ball. My gut tells me this bit of code will take a long time to decipher.

My intent is not to call out “the powers that be,” but to encourage them along as my trainer does with me during my workout. We all understand that our pain in the back is dredging the lower bay and if that task can be completed within the next decade along with these other pains, than we can tie our shoes and stand taller than others who do not go to PT.

Sea ya.

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Len Bose is a yachting enthusiast, yacht broker and harbor columnist for Stu News Newport.