Posted on November 27, 2018
What could be the last pleasure boat to depart downtown Petaluma left very carefully the other afternoon.
Exactly 5 feet of water was beneath the hull of the Sea Witch as it inched away from the dock for a 20-minute voyage nearly as treacherous as the rounding of Cape Horn.
“There’s a big bump of mud over there,” said captain Bob Boynton, his hand firmly on the tiller. “And another big bump of mud over there.”
There are big humps of mud everywhere on the Petaluma River, the 18-mile-long body of water that connects downtown Petaluma to San Pablo Bay. The narrow waterway is supposed to be dredged every four years. It hasn’t been dredged since 2003. Avast, says the Army Corps of Engineers, there’s no money right now to do such work.
So year after year, as the river grows ever shallower, fewer and fewer boats venture to the once-thriving waterfront of downtown Petaluma. The barge that once brought bay oyster shells for the world famous chickens of Petaluma to nibble on stopped running two years ago. Other barges run with half loads and crossed fingers.
For this Veterans Day celebration, which once drew scores of vessels, only five recreational sailors were bold enough, or misguided enough, to weave their way upriver, through the mudbanks, with one eye on the tide tables and the other on the depth gauge.
Source: SFC
