102 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM in the Westpoint Slough (including a 120-foot tugboat) in order to clear the channel. Saving the entrance of the basin for last, the diggers completed their task during a king tide the day before Christmas. “My best friend and I had our boats in the harbor the next morning,” Mark says. “Our Christmas lights were on the boats’ sails.” The harbor officially opened in 2008. STORMY WEATHER It was not smooth sailing from there. Not only did Mark have to tackle the terrain, he underwent the decade-long process of obtaining permits for the harbor from a dozen regulatory agencies, often with opposing agendas. The most difficult led to a drawn-out battle with the state’s Bay Conservation PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF WESTPOINT HARBOR - MARK SANDERS GETTING UNDERWAY Mark acquired a taste for the nautical life while serving in the U.S. Navy. “It just gets in your blood,” he says of sailing. As an intelligence officer aboard a destroyer, Mark worked in the combat information center. “I spent hours and hours on these beautifully-made machines,” Mark recalls. “And the bottom corner says, ‘Ampex Corporation, Redwood City.’” Born in San Diego, Mark formed an idyllic vision of this far-off city. “I had this image of redwood trees right down to the water,” he chuckles. So when his naval service ended, off to Ampex he went. He worked his way up through the organization until retiring—for the first time. In 1993, Mark bought 50 acres for the first new marina the San Francisco Bay had seen in decades. It was far from the serene stretch of water you see today. For years, the Leslie Salt Company had been using the site as a bittern pond, to store a byproduct of salt-making. By the time Mark came into possession of the land, he had to contend with 40 feet of salt sludge and mud. Geotechnical engineers told him that transforming the area into a 26-acre water basin would take 35 years—at least. But Mark wouldn’t put his big dreams on hold. Turning to a Dutch process called wicking, he got it drained in less than a year. Over the next four years, long-reach excavators rolled in to dredge the basin. Around this time, Mark partnered with Robert John Hoffman of the Aqua Terra Foundation to remove dozens of sunken vessels ABOVE (top, from left): Mark Sanders inspects the dredging work to create Westpoint Harbor in Redwood City; boats fill the berths at the completed harbor; long-reach excavators were used to dredge Westpoint’s basin.
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