Huntington Harbour boaters face a longer ride to fuel up

Though the battle over the Mariners Point fuel dock in Huntington Harbour finally concluded last month when the city bought and then sold the property to one of the largest maritime fuel suppliers on the West Coast, the harbor’s nearly 6,000 boaters will have to wait awhile longer to fuel up at their local dock.

Escrow closed Dec. 7 on the $25,000 sale of the shuttered fuel dock at 15922 Pacific Coast Hwy. to Maxum Petroleum. However, officials with the company said the station, which closed Oct. 1, would not be operational until late February.

In the meantime, some boaters have resorted to traveling north to the Alamitos Bay Marine Fuel Dock in Long Beach, about a two-hour round trip from Huntington Harbour.

To go south to fuel up at Newport Harbor would take even longer, boaters say.

Since the speed limit in Huntington Harbour is 5 mph, a typical trip from the southeast portion of the harbor to Mariners Point takes about a half-hour. It’s an additional 15 to 20 minutes to get out of Anaheim Bay north of the harbor on the way to Alamitos Bay.

“We were afraid of having to go out of our way, which cost time and money to get fuel,” said Kurt Wood, who owns a 60-foot yacht. “We’d have to go to Alamitos Bay or Long Beach to fuel up if we were on our way to Catalina. Smaller boats aren’t going to go to Alamitos Bay to get fuel. They’re going to go down to the gas station, fill up their ‘jerry can’ and try to unload gas, which is really dangerous.”

Wood and his wife, Dee, take their boat out two to four times a month up and down the coast. Their yacht holds more than 600 gallons of fuel, but they typically pay for about 250 gallons per fill at Mariners Point, she said.

The yacht burns two gallons of diesel fuel per mile while cruising at 20 mph, Wood said.

At about $3.30 per gallon, the Woods typically would spend $600 to $800 to top off their tank at Mariners Point. Dee Wood said Alamitos Bay and the Jankovich Co. Fuel Dock in San Pedro offer fuel at a cheaper rate, but she said she and her husband would rather support the local business.

“Historically, we’ve always tried to come to [Mariners Point] to keep it in operation,” Kurt Wood said.

The Woods said the closure of Mariners Point has not deterred them from using their yacht, but it is an inconvenience.

Fellow Huntington Harbour resident and boater Rod Ondatje agreed, though he has used the closure as an excuse to use his 26-foot power boat more.

“Some of the boaters, like me, love to take their boat out, so it’s an excuse for me to take it out on a longer cruise,” Ondatje said.