The Dry Shore

When we first drove by, I couldn’t make sense of what I was looking at.

We were on Highway 1, following the two-lane road north along the Tomales Bay. My dad had heard about a seafood restaurant online and took us on a two-hour trip to check it out. According to the map, our destination was somewhere nearby. We hadn’t spotted the restaurant yet, but I did see a few lonely, small structures. I could just make out masts and a hull. From the road, they looked like discarded toys along a grassy strip of land. They were some distance from the water’s edge.

…Not exactly where I’d expected to see boats.

It turned out that there was a small dry dock business further up the road. I could only assume that these boats had a connection to the business. They were quite a ways removed from the neat cluster of vessels surrounding the low white building with its simple sign. The orderly group of watercraft sat upright on frames, but the strange outliers were pitched at odd angles, nestled in the dry grass, their hulls bleaching in the sun. We took a short walk to explore the odd sight. I could just see the boats if I stood next to the signs: Private Property and No Trespassing.

Who had left them along the dry shore?