Sharks in My Parking Lot

your parking lot may come with aggressive drivers--but mine comes with this

If you’ve ever had to park your beloved wheels in a less than savoury locale, you’ll understand the dilemma of the dinghy dock.
Dinghy docks (where anchored-out cruisers park their version of the family car) are for the most part an afterthought of marinas and public piers. If we’re lucky we get a half-sunk dock that’s typically encircled by about 3X as many dinghies as you’d think can fit into the space. Often though, as you move further from the land of marinas, a dinghy dock is no more than a space along a breakwater. It might come with a cleat to tether your dingy too and if you’re really lucky the ladder you have to climb isn’t of the dangerously condemned variety. Just be sure to climb at high tide. Low tide can be tricky.

In a not-so-suburban lifestyle the dinghy dock is just another reminder we’re a long way from the mall. This is as far from a Walmart parking lot as it gets. But despite the hazards I never thought of a dinghy parking spot as particularly deadly. After all, tying up at a wall (even a slippery wall that’s being washed by surge) beats having to time your landing through big surf.

the yellow dinghy is ours and those splashes? those are sharks...

Unless there are sharks.
I know, rationally I know, these sharks a fat and happy and not interested in eating me. But when the boats are all shifting in the swell and it’s crowded as you make your way from one to the next to reach the ladder, it’s hard not to think about just who’s swimming around down there…