Some boaters are still using an old route between Huntington Harbor and the ocean following the opening in 2021 of a new channel to make it safer for vessels to transit through the Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach.
And the wayward boaters are drawing security responses.
Just two weeks ago, one boater found himself entering what is now a restricted area of Anaheim Bay by motoring down the center of the bay instead of hugging the right side, which is part of the new channel that directs civilians far from Navy operations and funnels them under the bridge at Pacific Coast Highway toward Huntington Harbor. While he couldn’t give details on the Navy’s response, it was swift, said Gregg Smith, spokesman for the base.
“You have to operate as though it’s the worst-case scenario,” Smith said, adding that there have been several similar events this summer and, in some cases, the Navy’s security has teamed up with the Orange County Sheriff Department’s Harbor Patrol to chase the vessels down. “When that happens, we have to determine what’s going on. Security does field interviews and it’s almost always somebody who got lost.”
While, so far, no boater has been cited, it could happen if they are repeat offenders, Smith said.
He compared it to a traffic stop that police might initiate on the roadways, where the boater and all aboard are asked for identification and other pertinent information and then escorted from the area with a warning.
Now, with summer in full swing and the accompanying warm weather, Smith said many more boaters are out and about near the naval base.
The new civilian boaters’ channel was created as part of a $155 million project started in 2019 to rebuild the base’s pier, which is still under construction.
The idea behind the pier renovation is not only to modernize the facility – which regularly stocks Navy and Marine Corps ships on their way to and from deployments with ammunition – but also to separate civilian…
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