I recently posted about the number of mooring buoys in Port Madison and the likelihood that most are probably illegal. That post is here. I emailed the folks at the Department of Natural Resources regarding this issue. I received a response from the DNR today. It is posted below. I also included my response at the bottom.
Tag Archives: mooring buoy
How many mooring buoys?
We were anchored in Port Madison a few evenings ago. We’ve been here many times. When we kept the boat on Lake Union, Port Madison was often our last stop on the way home. One of the things I notice is that there is very little room for anchoring compared to years ago when we first started coming here. There are mooring buoys everywhere. I find it hard to believe all of these buoys are legally placed and permitted.
Update 6.21.19: Received a nice response from the DNR. Will post more shortly.
Robert at Windbourne in Puget Sound posted additional information regarding my post. You can find it here.
Update 6.14.19: Later this afternoon … I received a response from the right resource at the DNR stating they would respond to my inquiry next week.
Earlier this morning … No response to my second email. I sent a third email to the DNR’s aquatic resources devision’s general email address (ard@dnr.wa.gov). Waiting …
Update 6.6.19: It has been a week since I emailed the folks at the DNR (aquaticleasing.orca@dnr.wa.gov). So far no response. I resent the note. Will see if I get a response …
Picking up a mooring buoy
As the boats arrive, they move slowly toward the field of mooring buoys. Invariably, there is someone on the bow, boat hook in hand, giving directions to the person at the helm. As they approach their selected buoy, the boat slows and the person on the bow reaches way down, grabs the buoy ring with the boat hook, tries to pull the ring all the way up to the deck, but can’t. Then they lean way over and go through the gyrations of running the line and securing the buoy. This often requires the efforts of more than one person and occasionally more than one attempt. While ultimately successful this seems to us like the hardest method possible. The buoy will be secured to the bow cleats, but are there rules that say you have to catch the buoy at the bow?