When Boats Fly
GREAT SALT LAKE MARINA, UTAH – April 24, 2015 (Gephardt Daily) It is a sad day for sailors at the Great Salt Lake Marina.
State Park rangers and the Great Salt Lake Marina Master worked with boat owners and a crane company Friday to pull 85 boats out of the marina because of low water levels. More than 100 boats will eventually be dry-docked. Most of the boats will be stored in the marina parking lot until the marina is dredged, and the water level rises.
The bottom line: there will be no sailing at the Great Salt Lake this season.
“It’s very sad,” one boat owner after another told us.
There is a future for sailors at the Great Salt Lake. During the last legislative session, lawmakers allotted $1.5 million to dredge the marina. Starting in July, a private company will come in and dig out the marina another nine feet, moving the water level to about 12 feet. In comparison, that is still well below where the marina was meant to be. After flooding in 1983 the marina was built with a 23-foot depth.
Talk at the marina today centered around hope that the sailboats might be placed back in the water by this fall, but there is no guarantee. Without rain and a better melting snow pack from the mountains, the dredging alone will not be enough for sailing as the Great Salt Lake approaches a record low level.
I love the photos, the vriabnt colors and numbers; so much inspiration! And it reminds me of being HOME! I grew up near the bay and my heart loves the lure, the ebb n’ flow, the salty kisses where sea meets land and the treasures that arrive, daily~The names just make your heart smile~