Finally Saw the Boat

I finally made it down to the boat on Monday. I had two fears: 1) my boat would be a slimy mess, and 2) the Bay would be a slimy mess, not necessarily in that order. Neither is really the case it turns out.

Upon reaching the marina, it was hard to spot any oily gunkiness on the shoreline, the tides had risen and fallen about a dozen times since the spill and yet there wasn't much oil up on the rocks. There were pockets of "sheen" on the water but very few globules.

That is, until I got to my dock. I've been worried because I'm at the western-most dock, closest to the breakwater. And sure enough each slip was loaded with oil (globules and sheen). BUT only the western downwind slips, my side of the dock was clean, the dock itself was acting as a boom. Some had gotten in but not much. That whole other side of the dock is full of either abandoned boats or liveaboards that don't sail. Not that that makes it OK but there is more time for the cleanup of those.

The unfortunate part happened as we were leaving. While walking back to the parking lot, Heidi slipped a bit, looked down and saw these nasty looking globules of oil ON THE DOCK. Somebody had pulled their kayak out of an infected slip and just dumped tons of goop on the dock with absolutely no effort to clean it up. We were able to clean her shoe but for the next few hours mysterious spots of oil would appear on my hands even after a very thorough cleaning.

All told, Berkeley and its environs could be a lot worse given what happened. It thoroughly sucks that the trickle down on the ecosystem will still be happening for years but this is far short of the ecological calamity I envisioned based on my very very limited observations.