"Scott Vernon" wrote in message

Does 'A' dock mean something special at your marina? At mine, it seems
the bigger ($$$$) boats are on A dock and get smaller as the letter
gets higher. Is this the norm.

Our marina, Crosswinds, at Whitehall, MI, has three docks: A, B, and C. We
are a nice marina with modest boats and very regular folks. No big
gold-plated yachts, at least not during the season. A few stop in for
haulout (Crosswind's service work is second to none in the Great Lakes) etc.
but we apparently appear too proletarian a group for them to soil their
hands in our presence.

A-dock is the reputed party dock. The term is somewhat deserved, but mostly
we are a group of weekenders that are almost more like family than friends.
We stay close throughout the winter months as well. B-dock is similar to
A-dock but much quieter. While A-dock is still partying into the wee hours,
B-dock has been dead for hours. The B-dockers like it that way. C-dock
slips mostly charter fishing boats and a few of the larger sailboats being
prepared for the time when their owners shuck their landlocked ways and go
cruising for an extended period. All in all its a great marina with more
camaraderie than one typically finds elsewhere. The marina owners are like
family to us as well, and they treat us extremely equitably. Some of the
folks in this marina have been slip holders for decades. One other aspect
is that we have floating docks, which renders the low water levels in the
GLs irrelevant. We don't need ladders to get aboard our boats, not to
mention that the docks act as breakwaters for the ubiquitous waves that have
the entire fetch of White Lake to build during a sou'wester. A-dock 101;
there will be a test.


My wife asked me one time if A dock meant something. Seems this woman,
wearing tons of jewelry (powerboater?) struck up a conversation with
her and repeatedly mentioned , with emphasis, that they were on A
dock.

Nothing like that here. The people in our marina, while often of
substantial means, find no value in pretension. Occasionally a transient
gold-plater makes an overnight stay, but generally finds us to be too
unwashed for their tastes. There is a marina at the end of the narrows,
Ellenwood Landing, where the big boats (floating condos) and the big egos
roost. We politely suggest that they might be more comfortable there on
their next visit. Of course we never see them again. But every now and
then one of them takes a transient slip, gets caught up in the friendliness,
the general joviality, and the night life on A-dock, and becomes an annual
visitor and a close friend. I won't say that A-dock is unique, but what we
have is rare. I haven't found anything else quite like it, and I've been in
every port on the sunset coast and in the straits of Lake Michigan.

Max