What the ....

On a ten boat raft-up last week-end in Glorietta Bay, San Diego, when a boat tried to pass behind us. He was headed for our four stern anchor lines, (with brightly colored buoys attached,) when we yelled him off.

Happens to us all the time. What is worse is when some strange boat that no one in our group knows tries to raft up with us. That happened twice just this past summer.

Carolena said:

Happens to us all the time. What is worse is when some strange boat that no one in our group knows tries to raft up with us. That happened twice just this past summer.

Click to expand...

Oh man...that is almost too funny for me to believe, but I do.

We have joked about having some "reserved" signs made up to hang off the boats on the ends of the raftup.

Last 4th of July.

Last Memorial Day at Coronado Cays YC, Coronado Island, San Diego...

Carolena said:

Happens to us all the time. What is worse is when some strange boat that no one in our group knows tries to raft up with us. That happened twice just this past summer.

Click to expand...

Might be a great opportunity to meet some more nice folk, and make new friends. Obviously, they thought it was a bit of a general 'mingle' opportunity.

We have strangers ask if they can raft up and they're always welcome. It's a nice way to meet people and, since we're almost always a group from our club rafted up, we might pick up a new member along the way.

I laughed up the thread a ways and I guess maybe I shouldn't have.
I have rafted two and I think might have done three on one occasion so looking at the pictures of 10, 15 or even more is just a completely foreign concept to me.

I can't imagine trying to sleep with some, um, unsteady, hiccupping, belching, cussing 300 pounder stumbling his (her?) way across all those boats. Or do you just stay up all night?

It reminds me of Lake Havasu, Sturgis or a long table in a restaurant with 3 dozen people. It just doesn't work for me. The closest I have come to that situation were dock parties and rendezvous which were always a ton of fun when my boys were young.

I enjoy people, but enjoy solitude more and fortunately, that is still fairly easy to achieve with 16,000 miles of mostly uninhabited coastline in BC. The beauty of our cruising grounds is we can be as social or solitary as we choose to be on any given day.

Biking, camping, travelling; same thing for me.

It really depends on the situation. When a bunch of apparently drunk 20-somethings come rolling up with no fenders or lines, we are going to waive them off. I'm sure the attraction by these boats is at least somewhat related to the fact that one of the larger boats in our group has a female captain who often brings along a bunch of female friends. Also, the only time we have had any damage to our current boat was when someone we didn't know rafted to us and didn't have adequate fenders or lines. As a result, if you don't know someone in our group and/or don't know what you are doing (or don't have appropriate lines and fenders), you are not going to raft to our boat.

The rafting venues in San Diego Bay require permits from the San Diego Harbor Police to avoid overcrowding. The permits are free and readily available on-line. Our raft-ups are limited to our club members and possible club members who are giving our club a "look-see." Since the club supplies adult libations, munchies, and the use of club-owned paddleboards, I only think it's right to exclude strangers.