We visited Jones one night right after the fourth of July, and we anchored between the park buoys and shore in only ten feet of water. We set our anchor well and tied to shore. During the night it really kicked up, the wind came from the north blowing straight into the cove. We were up at 3 am checking things, it wasn't until mid-morning that things calmed down.
Bid deal you say!
One week later we were back at Jones, and we anchored in exactly the same place, but the park buoy we anchored behind was gone, it was laying, along with a bunch of rusty chain up at the top of the gangplank.
Flashback to the night a week earlier and I remember a rather large yacht tied up in front of us, and we were worried about ourselves dragging onto the beach. No one even considered that a park buoy would give way and set a vessel onto us. BTW at Roche Harbor some years ago a big Bayliner dragged into us so we know first hand how difficult things can get when boats don't stay where you want.
I have suggested before that before leaving an expensive boat tied to one of these things, one should back down on them just like setting your anchor. Hopefully that's what the last visitor did to this one.
It's interesting that the parks dept. installed new pilings and floats at Jones Island but ignored the obvious deteriorated chains.
Much later, I happened to be talking with a ranger and mentioned buoy maintenance and he said they were handled by a different department. Oh well! I'm backing down even harder.
