Getting longer term moorage in SD

[suiramor]

I was thinking of sailing down the cost to San Diego next summer. If I decide to leave the boat there till the following summer, how likely am I to find moorage? I asked at some marinas and they said: 'apply, pay security deposit to get on a waitlist' but no idea how long is the waitlist (or for that matter whether I will actually make it to SD). What are my options? Are there less accessible marinas in the area that typically do have slips available? (mine is a 46ft Bene).

[Adelie]

If you are willing to take a mooring, I believe San Diego Mooring Company has some available. Prices at $130-180/mo.

[suiramor]

Hm, that's an interesting idea! Thanks. Apart from getting a spot, from else would I need to consider? Where do people who moor like that keep their dinghies? Do you know whether insurance companies have any issues with mooring?

[Letterkenny]

It’s pretty competitive and expensive down here. You can try the safe harbor sim Chula Vista and National city for capacity but the slip fees will be high. Insurance is completely personal so you will need to contact them. For the dinghy’s, they keep them on a beach of public dinghy dock depending where you have it.

[Adelie]

I know that for the A4/Glorietta Bay anchorage dinghies are beached at the adjacent public park. You can see them on Google maps. I don’t know about the other anchorage areas, check Google maps maybe?

Talk to you insurance company.

If you are not staying in the boat you will want redundant bilge pumps on separate batteries charged by separate solar panels.

Also consider installing a hard point on your stem and using a chain or cable from hard point to mooring balls plus double nylon mooring lines, one side slacked off, and chain even slacker. So one my long carry’s load, second takes over if first chafes thru, chain carrys load of second chafes thru.

[Phyrcooler]

As mentioned, the “East Bay” marinas near Chula Vista might have openings. They are also slightly less costly. Availability (turnover) and price are both reflective of distance and time to get out of the bay to the ocean.

I’d always heard there was a multi year wait list for moorings, so was surprised to read previous post that there might be openings (I have no first hand current knowledge on availability). In regards to moorings, not only is dinghy storage/security an issue, but so is parking, as there is no dedicated parking for boaters. To my knowledge, only metered parking and paid parking lots. Lastly, in regards to locations, the “A-1” field along the face of Shelter Island is unprotected and subject to heavy “waking”. There are no speed limits on the bay, and plenty of irresponsible boaters. The “A-3” Anchorage near Laurel St. is right at the busy end of the airport, and extremely noisy. But the airport has minimal activity between 2330 and 0600.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Phyrcooler

As mentioned, the “East Bay” marinas near Chula Vista might have openings. They are also slightly less costly. Availability (turnover) and price are both reflective of distance and time to get out of the bay to the ocean.

I’d always heard there was a multi year wait list for moorings, so was surprised to read previous post that there might be openings (I have no first hand current knowledge on availability). In regards to moorings, not only is dinghy storage/security an issue, but so is parking, as there is no dedicated parking for boaters. To my knowledge, only metered parking and paid parking lots. Lastly, in regards to locations, the “A-1” field along the face of Shelter Island is unprotected and subject to heavy “waking”. There are no speed limits on the bay, and plenty of irresponsible boaters. The “A-3” Anchorage near Laurel St. is right at the busy end of the airport, and extremely noisy. But the airport has minimal activity between 2330 and 0600.

I looked into moorings once a decade ago and there were spots available.
There was a YouTube couple that came in, got a mooring at A4 and were there for part of a year before heading back to the south Pacific.

You would need to ask about availability.

If I was living aboard, A4 and A2 are where I would want to moor if staying aboard the boat for an extended period. For shorter periods A3 roadstead would be OK.

The airport doesn't start flights until 0630.
I had a downtown job where I had to do work on the highest completed level every Monday at 0400. At 0615 jets would start pushing back. By 0628 there was a line of jets at the end of the taxi way 6-10 long with more jets pushing back and taxing to the queue.
At about 06:29:45 the first jet would move forward off the taxi way to point of departure, at 06:30:00 the engines would spool up and they would release brakes between 06:30:10&06:30:30. You could set your watch by this.
It was so consistent and involved so many people and such huge sums of money and was so coordinated that it was very impressive and memorable.