Joe,

As I witness the debate regarding new marina facilities I notice you often refer to a yearly "lottery" for slips so that everyone has a chance. I see a major flaw in that argument.

While the owner of a smaller, trailerable vessel might not be severely impacted by losing their slip in such a lottery there are some folks who have larger vessels docked at the Ocean Pines facility. The prospect of finding yourself without a slip for the season could be a serious blow to the owner of something like a 35 footer that is too broad of beam to trailer. It would make investing the money in this type of vessel a very questionable matter.

I guess I fall into the "neutral" category on this issue now since I no longer own a boat. But when I first moved to the Pines I was still the owner of a 35 footer that I was trying to bring here. After three years of being on a waiting list without any apparent progress, fighting the logistics of a boat in Baltimore and a home here, I finally sold it.

On the topic of slip prices here I can only comment that Ocean Pines is, in my humble opinion, more realistic than some of the others in the area. Some of the places I checked wanted more per month than most marinas in the Baltimore area wanted per year. It seems that the market here caters more to the charter industry and folks with "floating condos" than the recreational boater.