King Harbor Buffet

In February Easy Reader published a column I wrote entitled Sailing Around isn't Kids' Play http://www.easyreadernews.com/columns/harbor-lights-sailing-around-isn%E2%80%99t-kids%E2%80%99-play It was about Abby Sunderland's attempt to sail around the world non-stop and solo.

I wrote that I really couldn't say whether parents who encourage their kids to do dangerous things were guilty of abuse or they are enabling their kids to realize big dreams. Frankly, if she accomplished her goal the discussion of abuse would probably have ended.

She didn't accomplish her goal. Her Boat, Wild Eyes, dismasted in the middle of the Indian Ocean. She set off her Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRB) and for a few tense hours, her condition was unknown. The Australian government sent out a search plane that eventually located her 2000 miles from land.

The discussion of abuse was dialed back a notch because she lived through the storm that tore Wild Eyes' rigging down. But people are asking what was a 16 year old doing out in the middle of an angry ocean by herself?

It's a good question and the most recent answer has added fuel to the fire stoked beneath the abuse allegations. Her dad, whose occupation has been listed as sailing instructor, is alleged to have contracted with a production company to produce a reality show. Critics are now connecting the dots and accusing him of sending Abby off to battle some of the toughest seas on the planet so that he could become famous and make money.

I don't know Mr. Sundarland but my guess would be that those dots should not be connected. The accusation that a father would send his child into harm's way for money is ugly and horrible.

You can't know what's inside another person's head but I'm giving Mr. Sunderland the benefit of the doubt. I'm incredibly happy that Abby is safe and will soon be returned to her family. All of the other ancillary factors are meaningless by comparison.

I wrote a column in the Easy Reader in which I declared that I was the boating public’s conduit to city government in Redondo Beach http://www.easyreadernews.com/columns/harbor-lights-boaters-voice. I’d like to reiterate that here. If you are an individual boater who uses King Harbor for any reason from paddling a kayak to entertaining on a yacht, the city has a mechanism for you to have your voices heard within city government.

It’s me. I’m the boater’s representative on the harbor commission. I’m there to represent the interests of people who use King Harbor for recreational boating.

For the 5 years since I was appointed to the harbor commission, I’ve heard a number of representatives of groups of boaters speak to the harbor commission and the city council on behalf of their groups. That was the proper way the interests of groups with a particular opinion should be presented to city government.

That rhetoric had evolved over my 5 years on the commission. The voice of a few groups has begun to be presented as the voice of “the boaters”. As this false representation began to evolve, I began to become disturbed. A small handful of powerful boating groups were beginning to present themselves at the voice of the overall boating public. They were definitely not what they claimed to be and as much as I liked the individuals involved, I felt it was my duty as the harbor commission’s boater’s representative to point out that these representatives of specific groups did not speak for anything close to a majority of King Harbor boaters.

Allow me to prove it. If you are a King Harbor boater who is not affiliated with a particular club or organization, tell me your position on the boat ramp or a master plan for Mole B.

If you’re not connected to a boating club or group your response will almost certainly be, “what?”

The boaters of King Harbor are not screaming for a boat ramp or a master plan for Mole B (who even knows what Mole B is?). But if you attended a harbor commission or city council meeting you’ll walk away believing your boating future depends on these two things. It doesn’t!

I’ve asked the special interests involved in these movements to tone down the rhetoric. They haven’t so it’s time to come forward with the truth.

If you use the facilities in King Harbor for boating and you have opinions about the harbor and its future, please call on me to carry your thoughts to city government. That’s what I was appointed to do. Post a response here or email me at harry@munns.org.

There are plenty of reasons to avoid King Harbor but you won't see any of them here. Instead, I prefer to focus on the reasons why I spend so much time there.

I was there this morning from about 7:45 to 8:15. I was riding on the bike path. I can't remember the last time I rolled out of bed and got on my bike but last night when the urge hit me, I knew that was what I wanted to do.

My strand bike rides usually begin at Pier Avenue in Hermosa or 190th Street. I usually ride north to El Segundo.

As I've mentioned previously, I like boats. I like going places on them. I like just being around them. I (usually) like the people I meet on them. I even like taking care of them although that has to go to the bottom of the list.

So I had the notion it might be fun to ride south, through King Harbor and I was right. The first thing that should be pointed out is that if you bring music on an iPod as I did, you need to crank up the volume when you're on the street. There are a lot of cars and trucks around at that time of day.

I must have missed the sounds of the surf in the horseshoe and the seabirds but Jimmy Buffet was a satisfying substitute. Once I got out of traffic, the air was clear with the subtle scent of ocean. Even though the sun was low in the sky, it warmed the land and water with a kind of orange glow that  turned to a radiant gold right before my eyes.

The wind wasn't up yet so the water in the marina and the ocean beyond
shimmered and reflected the occasional sharp speck of sunshine.Crews on the fishing boats were getting ready to head out to sea. Cleaners opened restaurant doors then locked quickly them so they could get to work preparing for today's lunch and dinner guests.

One of the things I like about the Pier/Harbor area is that it's completely different at different times of the day. 7:45 to 8:15 was a treat. Maybe tomorrow I'll check out 7:15 to 7:45. Maybe I'll see you there.

If I’m going to be judged by this blog then I have no choice but to admit the following; I’m a lousy blogger.

What I’m going to tell you next isn’t an attempt to brag or make anyone question their own actions. One of the things that kept me away from my computer for at least part of the summer is the very thing this blog is about, King Harbor. So I guess I’m saying I have an excuse, at least since June.

Here’s a list of some of the things I’ve done in KH this summer; drinks at Old Tony’s, dinner at Samba, lunch at Joe’s Crab Shack (I’ve got an 8 year old son), sailed big boats, sailed a Sabot with my son from the yacht club, swam in the Seaside Lagoon three times, spent July 4th at the Lagoon, hiked more than half way out the breakwater, hiked to the end of the jetty behind the little pier multiple times, played football at Moonstone Park, discovered the location of Turtle Park, hiked the outside of the Galveston wall on Yacht Club Way, rode bikes all around the marina, attended 3 concerts on the pier. There’s more but rather than risking anyone saying I’m bragging, I’ll leave it at that.

King Harbor’s the place I go lots of times when I don’t really have anyplace to go. I might end up on a boat, in a park or in a restaurant. Sometimes I have a plan. Sometimes I don’t. Lots of times I just go down there and figure it out when I get there. Maybe I’m weird, but I never get tired of it.

Chances are you haven’t spent as much time in the harbor as I have this summer, but there’s still time to swim in the lagoon, rent a paddle boat, go out on a fishing boat and any number of other activities.

Please post a reply and tell me what you have done, what you wish you had done and what you’d like to do in the future. There really is a lot crammed into that little space. I’d like to hear from everyone who uses it, even if you don’t use it as much as me.

Bill Brand and I disagree on the one thing that defined his political career prior to election to the Redondo Beach City Council. He thinks the AES Redondo Power Plant would best serve our community if it became a park. I don’t believe that’s the best use for that property, when and if it becomes available for conversion from its current use. I will give him this, if a park or power plant were ever the only two options, Bill and I would be in complete agreement, bring in the bulldozers and plant some grass.

I’ve expressed this opinion in my Easy Reader column, Harbor Lights, and in public statements at Harbor Commission meetings. King Harbor, the focus of my column and my Harbor Commission work, lies in Bill’s district, District 2. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Bill and I looked at all the issues facing our common territory and found we agreed on more than we disagreed upon. In fact, it’s safe to say we both want what’s best for District 2, the Pier and King Harbor.

When you’ve disagreed, sometimes vigorously, with someone in the pages of a newspaper and other public discourse, you don’t expect to find that individual personally agreeable, at least I don’t. So it was a pleasant surprise after a few emails to finally talk with Bill on the phone and find we had a lot to talk about and it all transpired in a pleasant, harmonious fashion.

I believe in the ideal of citizen-run government and the value of diverse opinions. I congratulate Bill Brand for his election victory, welcome him to the council and look forward to working with him in coming years.

It was pretty cool (no pun intended) to see people ice skating in Seaside Lagoon in November. I've skated at the Culver City rink where the Kings practice (or at least they did then) and the mall in PV. This was by far the best of the three, palm trees swaying, the harbor and the Pacific, beyond as a backdrop.

Tom Kearney and Scott Williams worked very hard to make this dream a reality. On the morning of November 18th, hours before the opening ceremony, I saw Scott luggin equipment down to the shed that housed the compressor. I hope they succeed. They deserve it.

The city helped as did a number of sponsors. If all goes as planned, the event will repeat for the next two years and perhaps beyond.

As an an advocate for the harbor, I'm thrilled to see the Seaside Lagoon operating in any capacity during its usual dark period from September to May. It's great to see people down there having fun. Now let's see if we can figure out something to do with it between January and May.

If you've been looking at this blog for news about King Harbor in the last few months, I'm embarassed to say, there hasn't been any. My company, BookMyFun Online Reservations www.bookmyfun.com hosts the blog. We performed some major hardware and software upgrades over the summer and The King Harbor Blog was one of the last things to return to normal.

Unfortunately, some of the material was lost, specifically, comments to the orignial postings. No, I didn't delete opposing opinions. They were just lost in transit. If you posted something here in the past, I urge you to take a moment to re-type your posting.

Everything's working now so I hope to get back to blogging.  There's lots to talk about.

The Chamber of Commerce, the Pier Merchants Association, King Harbor Association, city government and various other interested parties, spend considerable time and effort trying to solve the same mystery. How do we get more people to use and enjoy the fantastic resources in the Pier and harbor area?

Walk down the pier or boardwalk any Saturday or Sunday afternoon in the good weather and you’ll ask yourself, "why all the fuss?" There’s people everywhere. Travel the same route on a Monday morning in January or February and you’ll get it within the first minute. You wouldn’t be able to hit a person with a fully-loaded AK-47.

There are plenty of reasons to come to King Harbor, restaurants, night clubs, fishing, boating, Seaside Lagoon (in season), to name a few. On some weekends, like the weekend of September 27-28, the place fills nearly to capacity.

Credit the newly invigorated Lobster Festival, the Rods, Rides and Relics car show on the Pier and the Dolphin Dash for that weekend’s crowds. In the next couple of weekends the Redondo Beach Art Group will present The Power of Art inside the AES Steam plant. Redondo Beach Marina and the King Harbor Association will host the tall ship Lynx.

What’s the message in all this? The static attractions in the harbor area do an adequate job of attracting people. If you want more people, you need more attractions. It’s that simple.

The Pier has music and a few festivals in the summer and the Lagoon has a few events scattered throughout the year. If you want more people to come here, you need to create the impression that, in addition to the regular stuff, there’s always something fun going on along our waterfront.

Part of the solution would be to coordinate the existing events and market them altogether. In addition, the frequency and number of special events should expand to fill as much of the annual calendar as possible. Then the King Harbor Events Calendar needs to get marketed so that everyone within driving distance knows that there’s always something fun going on in Redondo Beach.

A tall order? Sure, but it’s doable and as it begins to come together, our need to share the harbor and pier with others will slowly become satisfied.