[Philzy3985]

In my home base of King Harbor, Redondo Beach, CA, there was this long-time hidden gem about this harbor, and that is that you can just steer your boat to the side of the channel and drop anchor. You could chill out for a few hours if the sea was rough, and still feel like you're away from the dock. You can drop your stern anchor and stay the night - for which they didn't even bother charging most of the time, as long as you were registered. It has been really awesome having a calm place to drop the hook and watch the boats go by up and down the channel.

This week they're installing about 25 mooring balls, which will effectively take up all the anchoring space, and really bunch things up. The bummer is that most days, even weekends, nobody even takes advantage of anchoring along the channel area. So all the sailboats are accustomed to pulling in there to raise or lower their sails, sort things out, whatever. Now the mooring field will bring what felt like a 6 lane highway, down to a 2 lane road for all of the boat traffic.

I haven't gotten word about fees, reservations, who the moorings belong to, if I can even just stop there for a few hours anymore before returning to the dock, no information really.

Has this ever happened to any of you in your area? How did it change the freedom of being able to anchor and go whenever you pleased?

At the moment, I see mostly cons for the boaters and safety of random tourists renting paddle boats and SUPs who get in the channel, and pros for the harbor patrol or city or whoever will collect fees. The bottom is soft west coast sand/mud, easy to hook into. It's not like there are facilities for visitors or even marked tie-up docks to go into shore.

Here's a cam of the channel and the plastic moorings being installed so you get the idea of the close proximity.

Redondo Beach Resort - Harbor Cam

 

[Dirtyfloats]

Bloody awful things.
They try to put them all over the damn place up here in BC.
If you asked me, i would say they should all be illegal. Including all the privately owned ones. If you ask some people, they will tell you they already are. I don't see how people should be allowed to reserve a spot in any harbour by dumping a bunch of garbage overboard attached to a float.

Sent from my HUAWEI Y300-0151 using Tapatalk

 

[capta]

I bought this boat in City Island, NT and planned a leisurely sail up LI Sound to RI, where I would spend the winter preparing the boat for long term cruising. Each and every harbor that looked interesting and a fun place to visit and explore on the chart, was chock full of permanent, assigned moorings, to the point that in most, there was just no place to anchor at all. Absolutely the only place I found to anchor was Stonington Ct, where they have an anchorage for visitors.
In Essex, Ct. they do not allow vessels over 50' on any mooring, period! If you anchor, you are only allowed a week's stay. Absolute madness. Certainly THE most (un)friendly little town you'd ever want to visit.
On the other hand, Bristol, RI (the home of the Herrishoff Museum, for crying out loud!) has plenty of anchoring space, but you'd better not spend more than 45 minutes at the public dinghy dock (well signed, by the way), or you might find your dink chained up, and the ransom to free it, pretty darned steep.
All in all, LI Sound was a total disappointment for this visitor and I certainly did not feel welcome anywhere but Stonington.

 

[paulk]

Checking charts more carefully would show a number of good places to anchor on both shores of Long Island Sound. On Long Island we've anchored in Port Jefferson, Cold Spring Harbor, Northport, and Manhassett, to name a few. On the Connecticut side, Duck Island Roads, Milford, New Haven, the Norwalk Islands, Ziegler's Cove, and Stamford all offer well-protected anchoring spots. You may have problems if you draw more than 10', but otherwise, have your ground tackle ready!

 

[HUGOSALT]

Have been anchoring happily up and down LIS for the last 30 years.
Eastern most LIS Ct side..Deep River on the Ct. River, next town north of Essex, dockmaster was happy for us to overnight at town dock at no cost.

Western most LIS LI side... Manhasset Bay/Port Washington, 20 transient moorings
lining the channel, free 1st 48 hours...$25. per day after or plenty room to anchor with good holding and good depth.

 

[northoceanbeach]

Bloody awful things.
They try to put them all over the damn place up here in BC.
If you asked me, i would say they should all be illegal. Including all the privately owned ones. If you ask some people, they will tell you they already are. I don't see how people should be allowed to reserve a spot in any harbour by dumping a bunch of garbage overboard attached to a float.

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Yep. This is what anchors are for. Last summer in BC I thought it was a safety issue in some of the anchorages. Some of them where you may need to hide out a blow, but they are often just covered in balls. In silva bay I had to stay up all night on anchor watch because there were gale warning, and the bay is small and entirely covered in balls. So I had to anchor directly in the wind on the outside of the bay and get tossed around all night and with short scope because there were balls on one side and rocks on the other. So now I won't go back to silva bay. Bad for tourism. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

 

[chef2sail]

Many if the moorings on the LISound are for people to keep their boats in the water. There are far less marinas than the Chesapeake and twice as expensive so its a good alternative. There usually is good anchorage near the fields. But the moorings have the prime spots. Ha.ve a good dinghy.

Having cruised the LI Sound for years as a visitor, I would disagree about not tourist friendly. A mooring field more efficiently uses the space in the anchoring basin and more boats can use the basin. Also less yahoos with bad anchoring techniques are present. The fees are cheap Nd usually their is launch service.

We have a good dinghy on favors and a solid rocna anchor. We usually do a combo of anchoring and mooring balls when visiting the Sound. There are some places I actually sleep better in a mooring then at anchor

 

[capta]

Many if the moorings on the LISound are for people to keep their boats in the water. There are far less marinas than the Chesapeake and twice as expensive so its a good alternative. There usually is good anchorage near the fields. But the moorings have the prime spots. Ha.ve a good dinghy.

Having cruised the LI Sound for years as a visitor, I would disagree about not tourist friendly. A mooring field more efficiently uses the space in the anchoring basin and more boats can use the basin. Also less yahoos with bad anchoring techniques are present. The fees are cheap Nd usually their is launch service.

We have a good dinghy on favors and a solid rocna anchor. We usually do a combo of anchoring and mooring balls when visiting the Sound. There are some places I actually sleep better in a mooring then at anchor

I did not find a single transient mooring, in any place I went other than Stonington, for a 50"+ boat, nor did anyone offer one, as I motored around looking for a spot to anchor. Not that I have any interest in some unknown quality mooring, when I have something in the neighborhood of $7,000 invested in my anchoring equipment, that I am absolutely positive will hold my boat in up to at least 70 knots of wind.
I did anchor in several spots mentioned above, but found then to be either filthy, busy commercial harbors or extremely uncomfortable anchorages, which is probably why there was room to anchor. The locals can keep LI Sound and their moorings, as far as I am concerned; I don't think I really missed all that much.

 

[mad_machine]

this is from another forum.. and a few years old. but it more or less outlines what you need to go through to drop a mooring in NJ

They explained I need to submit formal application for a mooring permit using same forms and meeting same requirements as someone developing the waterfront. Fees are $ 400 to determine if wetlands are present or absent, $ 480 to determine if wetlands or transition areas are present or absent in a footprint of land, $ 600 for verification or delineation of a wetland boundary line for a parcel of land less than one acre. They suggested a mushroom anchor might rest on a square foot of NJ bottoms and I must consider a 200 ft radius for possible rotation on that anchor.

Complete engineering surveys by a licensed NJ engineer is required for the mooring site, formal notification to all property owners within 200 ft to register their objections, formal announcement in two newspapers to inform public of my intentions and inviting them to register objections.

DEP advised, no mooring permits were issued by their office in past couple of years............. only one or two were issued for commercial entities.

 

[caberg]

A hidden gem is anchoring on the side of a channel and watching traffic go by?

 

[northoceanbeach]

It's LA. Anywhere you can drop the hook is probably good.
(I like LA by the way)

The moorings in BC aren't to be rented to tourists to maximize space. Half I then are old and decrepit and rearely used. Just a ball with numbers on it to wrap up your anchor. I wrote last year that while I LOVED BC. The worst part was the crab pots and mooring balls.

 

[CaptainChaos]

I did not find a single transient mooring, in any place I went other than Stonington, for a 50"+ boat, nor did anyone offer one, as I motored around looking for a spot to anchor. Not that I have any interest in some unknown quality mooring, when I have something in the neighborhood of $7,000 invested in my anchoring equipment, that I am absolutely positive will hold my boat in up to at least 70 knots of wind.
I did anchor in several spots mentioned above, but found then to be either filthy, busy commercial harbors or extremely uncomfortable anchorages, which is probably why there was room to anchor. The locals can keep LI Sound and their moorings, as far as I am concerned; I don't think I really missed all that much.

I agree, I'd much rather trust my anchoring technique than an unknown mooring ball and, especially at 54 1/2 feet, I can't use most moorings anyway.

 

[capttb]

It's not really a channel as you may be picturing, there's no ship size traffic, very little commercial traffic and it's just a short distance from entrance. You are alongside a small breakwater which is the only thing separating you from Santa Monica Bay, not a bad place to hang and watch the weekend warriors entering and leaving.
Rumor mill has it that something is happening in King Harbor, there were 4 separate marinas. Something about ownership changes that some boaters have concerns about. A friend from there said they were charging slipholders extra to park on the 4th.