AUGUST 2010
Mirador was on autopilot tracking to the Gig Harbor entrance waypoint I have been using for the last 15 years. Gig Harbor was Miradors home port for over five years so I know the entrance very well, having been thru there hundreds of times. Fortunately Martin Harris, a very experienced sailor and ex-Coast Guard officer, was with me. Martin, and his wife Sandy, left Puget Sound in 1999 and have sailed their Columbia 38, Mystique, to Marmaris, Turkey where they are now living.
Martin started to get a little fidgety and nervous as we got closer to the Gig Harbor sandspit shown below:
I finally noticed the same strange object that was making Martin nervous (these pictures were taken as we were leaving the harbor so just imagine them as being off the bow. The image below is pretty accurate as to the visibility and difficulty with initially seeing the BIG new structure partially blocking the normal entrance.
Following is a picture taken a little closer to the entrance. The normal entrance to the harbor is the left of the orange sign on the the small lighthouse at the end of the sand spit - seen at the right middle edge of the picture below. It appeared that the proper approach would now be to take the big structure to starboard as we entered the 20 yard wide entrance between the spit and the mainland.
In the picture below: Gig Harbor is behind the derrick in the background - the small white boat is entering the cut between the sand spit and the mainland.
This is the amazing new structure looking from the south entrance back to Point Defiance and the north end of the Tacoma Narrows (to the right).
As we entered the cut and looked back to the SE toward Pt. Defiance and the Tacoma Narrows it became even more apparent the hazard to navigation (for inattentive old navigators) this structure poses.
As we entered the Harbor we were astounded at the size and complexity of the new structures - and we had NO CLUE as to why they were there!
The stuff completely fills the SE corner of the harbor and really messes up the docks and view for the mega-million dollar houses.
Finally - here is the view from inside Gig Harbor looking SE towards the entrance.
Martin and I had lunch at the Tides Tavern where we talked to some knowledgeable locals. The City of Gig Harbor is building a new outfall pipe for the municipal sewer system. Currently that outfall discharges way back in the NW inside part of the Harbor. The new outfall will discharge outside the sand spit under the first big structure we saw before entering the harbor. We were told all the above water structures are only to support the construction equipment and will be removed after construction.
