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Berkeley Marina Entrance Tips

"Now that the days are starting to become a little longer and dare I say drier soon, we’ll be hopefully enjoying some late afternoon and early evening sailing once again," writes Chuck Bullett, vice commodore of Berkeley Yacht Club.

Bullett wants to point out to sailors that the north entrance of the Berkeley Marina is usually marked with the 4-second Red Flashing light "4". "It may be located on your navigation chart #18653 as Fl R 4s 23 Ft+ 4M "4" (as seen below)."

This chartlet shows the Berkeley Marina entrance, which is actually three entrances. It’s for reference only — not to be used for navigation. Check a real chart.

© Chuck Bullett

"It is not my recommendation that you use the north entrance as it isn’t the easiest or safest approach. We usually prefer the southern approach by Green 1, or the center approach when there’s enough water beneath our keel.

"The weekly Local Notice to Mariners notes that this light is extinguished currently, though is scheduled for repair sometime in May of 2017. It marks the north end of the Berkeley Breakwater, and may be seen beneath the red arrow in this chartlet." Guests visiting in the marina should be alert to this situation.

If you’re not already reading the lengthy Local Notices to Mariners, you can find them online here for the 11th District, and you can subscribe to email updates. The PDFs are several pages long, so they might take a while to load. Then we recommend skimming them for items of interest in your specific sailing neighborhood or planned destination(s). The 11th District (Pacific Southwest) covers California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona. For the Pacific Northwest, you’ll want District 13. Hawaii is covered by District 14, and Alaska by District 17.

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