The basic premise of his plan was to let yacht owners mooring their boats at his location on Balboa Bay and to allow members of the club the use of their boats. The membership cost to join was to be $500 per month. For this fee, I would be entitled to schedule 72 hours of use per month of any the boats available.

I had an old Chris Craft 40′ boat that I lived aboard moored in Long Beach, but it was definitely not seaworthy. I was spending my off time slowly making the repairs, but deep sea fishing the channel islands was my passion. A flexible work schedule of 12 hours a day for 3 days, with 4 days off except for the last week of the month, which we worked 4 days with 3 days off. This gave me time to take the full day, party fishing boats several times per month. At certain times when fishing was good, they could get very crowded.

After meeting with the mooring owner, we renegotiated the price to $300 per month for the first year. He also accompanied me on a trial to ascertain if I was capable of handling the power boats. I believe he offered this to me based on my being a police sergeant and my use was primarily for fishing. He just didn’t understand my fishing addiction.

I mentioned a fellow officer and fisherman would accompany me on scheduled trips, he said no problem and guests were allowed. My friend and fishing partner agreed to split the $300 per month fee. This was less than what we paid for the number of party boat fishing trips we took each month. I don’t think he realized that we intended to use our 72 hours every month all at the same time. This allowed us to navigate to several of the channel islands and to anchor or tie to a buoy overnight in protected coves.

We never missed a month, utilizing the full 72 hours allowed. He was not happy about the deal, but did live up to the contract. To sign a contract for the next year, he requested $650 FROM BOTH OF US. A little out of our range, the experience of fishing all of the channel islands in luxury is something I’ll never forget.