6 • Jan. 29 - Feb. 11, 2016 • The Log


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Letters/Online Comments


California fishing license decline


Re: Jim Matthews fishing column posted on fishrap.com. The reasons for the decline are multi. First: the last time I bought a license was just before I left for good. Price: $64 and that didn’t include all the stamps. Second: The fishing sucks! It has never recovered completely from the days of gill netting, over fishing and now restrictions on where you can fish. Zone this, zone that way too complicated. Out of state, as a senior, I can fish from shore for free and if I choose to buy a license, the price is $17 and the fishing is better by far! In short, as long as the license price continues to climb and the catch continues to decrease, expect the same for sales of licenses and eventually sales of gear will also decrease.


Jerry Clayton Submitted on Facebook


Not happening anytime soon


Re: Port of San Diego hopes to cash in on aquaculture opportu- nities (Jan. 1 issue). Nice article which makes sense , but the obstacles the Coastal


Commission and Fish and Game Dept have set up will prevent this from happening.


John Riordan Submitted on TheLog.com


Reader asks if he can place a mechanic’s lien on brother’s boat


By David Weil, Esq. Q


San Diego Bay aquaculture


Re: Port of San Diego hopes to cash in on aquaculture opportu- nities (Jan. 1 issue).One question: Who wants to eat any fish raised in San Diego Bay? I can see this in the ocean like Mexico does of the Coronados.


Anonymous Submitted on TheLog.com


Ordinance inspections


Re: San Miguel Island expected to be open for public access in 2016 (Jan. 1 issue). Yeah! Since it is a national park you cannot uti- lize a metal detector to inspect your path or campsite. Happy camping!


Anonymous Submitted on TheLog.com


Fast Facts: Channel Islands


Did You Know? Sailor Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo’s navigation along the California coast in 1542 established the first known records to identify Channel Islands. The next 474 years of human contact with the chain of islands have provided quite a few memorable moments, including these few notable events:


1602: First “good charts” of the Channel Islands


1793: Each island in the chain is given its current name by George Vancouver 1804: Spain announces plans to build a mission on Santa Cruz Island (plans never materialized) 1830:


30 convicts arrive on Santa Cruz Island; landing area becomes “Prisoners Harbor”


1869: SCI Company formed, purchases Santa Cruz Island to develop as a ranch 1920:


Alcohol smuggling takes place on islands as Prohibition begins


1934: San Miguel Island transferred to U.S. Navy 1950: 1959: 1980:


U.S. Air Force develops a base on Santa Rosa Island First park rangers set up a base camp on Anacapa Island Channel Islands National Park established


1991: Visitor center opens on Santa Barbara Island 2003: 2009:


Area around Channel Islands becomes a marine protected area


Annual visitation to Channel Islands National Park reaches 300,000 Source: National Park Service


My brother asked me to help repair the engine in his


sailboat. The boat was located in the San Francisco Bay area but he promised that he would bring the boat to our home port of Morro Bay in exchange for my help. I spent several hundred dollars on parts, and I ultimately completed the repairs after four trips to the boat and over 60 hours of my labor. He and I sailed the boat to Morro Bay, where my wife and I assumed that we would enjoy a boat partnership for years to come. To our surprise, my brother and his girlfriend left Morro Bay the next day and the boat is now in a long term slip at a marina in Southern California. Can I put a mechanic’s lien on the boat to recover the amount owed to me in a case like this?


A


Our reader’s ques- tion requires us to look at a number of


legal issues, but in the long run his biggest problems will be apparent when he tries to mend some seriously broken family fences. We have talked about mar- itime liens in quite a few installments of this column, but it seems that our readers are always able to add a new twist to the discussion. In this case, the vague nature of the agreement between the boat owner and our reader will complicate the claims against the boat. But we should first review some of the fundamen- tal characteristics of a mar- itime lien. Maritime liens are not


“put” on a boat in the way that our reader has assumed by his question. They arise as a mat- ter of law, not as a conse- quence of a clerical act. If a service provider completes a project on a boat, and that project was authorized by the owner of the boat, the service provider has a maritime lien against the boat until the claim is satisfied. This


assumes that the project itself is a service which will qualify as a maritime lien, but in most cases any service that is actu- ally provided to a boat will give rise to a maritime lien when the work is completed, without filing any documents with anyone. The document that is


“placed” on a vessel is called a Notice of Claim of Lien, and it is simply a notice that some- body claims to have a lien. The recording of that notice with the Coast Guard has no bearing whatsoever on whether the lien is valid, and the filing of the notice there- fore has no significant legal consequence. The sole pur- pose of recording the notice is to alert other parties that someone has asserted a claim against the boat, which may be helpful in resolving the claim when and if the boat is sold someday, but it will not automatically lead to the pay- ment of the claim. While the notice has no


On Board With Johnson by J.R. Johnson See ATTORNEY page 20


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