I was congratulating myself on a sail well done when the wind completely died 1.5 miles away from the pier... I thought that I might as well try and have the swell vector me towards the Santa Monica Pier anchorage... I made the mile in 3 hours (after dark), barely missed the submerged breakwater, and dropped the anchor a good ways off the pier....
I cleaned up a bit, got the sails secured, and blew up my pool raft. I put some clothes in a bag, and set off in the raft... Just like every other pier, there were a bunch of shops and stuff on this one, people fishing off the side, and a ladder that went up from the water. I rowed over to the ladder and started to tie the dingy off when all of a sudden I was spotlighted by a police officer with pistol drawn, screaming at me to back away from the pier! I was pretty surprised, and asked if there was another ladder that I was supposed to use. He was saying "You can not approach the pier, stay 150 feet away from the pier at all times, you can land on the beach if you want to." I'm trying to ask what the deal is with a beach landing when another guy shows up over the side and starts screaming that if I continue to disobey their orders that they will impound my boat.
So I turned around and rowed away. I looked towards the shore and saw some breaking waves... So I waited for the end of a set, and started rowing as fast as I could... Finally an overhead wave hits me, tosses me out, and I wash up on shore - completely soaked - with an overturned dingy and a bag full of wet clothes...
Someone was screening Star Wars on a HUGE screen right there, so I decided to wait a while for the tide to come up and the swell to go down before trying to go back out. There were a number of people standing around, wondering how I just materialized from the dark ocean with a little pool raft...
Just then, the cops roll up. The big cop comes over and starts screaming at me again, right in front of these other guys (who turn out to be lifeguards). I'm looking at the lifeguards like "Holy shit, can you believe this?" and they're looking at me like "Dude, we're sorry."
It turns out that it's a magenta alert or whatever right now, and the Santa Monica pier is a "major terrorist target", so it's not OK to have a boat anchored near it, and that I have nothing to say about it because I don't know the status (pronounced stay-tus) of this "structure." The cops called the lifeguards, because they have a boat capable of towing mine away. "The fuck you're towing my boat, I'm going back out right now." "If you attempt to return to your boat, I will arrest you." "For what?" "I don't need a reason."
