I hope you came down and saw the big light show down at the port over the holidays.

One of the last groups of folks who were able to enjoy them were the boaters from all around the Puget Sound who showed up at 6 a.m. on Jan. 2. The boaters were there when the office opened so they could make reservations to moor at the Port of Kingston Marina on one of those coveted summer holiday weekends. They waited in the cold so they could be the first to register. Once the staff arrived, there was coffee for everyone. Kingston is one of the most preferred marinas for cruising boaters to spend a few days at during the summer cruising season. I think that’s kind of neat.

Our new port manager, David Malone, has checked in and hit the ground running. During the second or third day of his orientation, OSHA showed up for a surprise industrial safety inspection. The port did fine and the inspector said Kingston was in much better shape than most in the state. We told Malone the reservation blitz on Jan. 2 would be interesting but he had the staff all prepped and things went very smoothly.

During the second week of January, there was a diesel fuel spill in the marina and Malone learned the names and titles of all of the first responders in the neighborhood. Booms were deployed throughout the marina and the foul stuff for the most part was kept away from the shoreline. The source of the spill was still under investigation when I wrote this column.

The big Seattle Boat Show is under way (Jan. 24 to Feb. 1) and, like last year, the port has a display at CenturyLink Field. Last year, I spent a couple of days there talking to people from all over the region about our town. Most boaters know where Kingston is, but many were unaware of our facilities and activities happening in town. Because of our presence at the show, we are aware of many more cruisers who made a stop here last season. We hope to attract many more in the coming year. If you are going to the boat show, please stop by our booth and say hello.

The port has a lot of projects coming down the pike this year. The dredging of our boat-launch approach has been delayed over eelgrass mitigation issues. Hopefully, all of that can be sorted out so that the project can begin in July.

The port is installing a state-of-the-art, sanitary pump-out facility on the guest dock which will allow boats to pump out without tying up at the fuel dock. There will be a fixture at the head of every other finger pier and a portable hose for pumping. This project is 100 percent funded by a grant from SeaGrant, a non-profit foundation focused on keeping Puget Sound clean.

Some repair work is necessary on the structures in our covered moorage berths and the port will prepare a request for proposals on that soon. And, after about 20 years, we are replacing the two old worn-out outboard motors on the port work boat.

Nautical fact

Instead of a nautical term this month, I am going to give you a nautical factoid: End-of-the-year statistics from the U.S. Coast Guard indicate there were 12,101,936 recreational boats registered in the United States in 2013. This does not include kayaks, canoes, row boats or paddle boards. That number decreased from 12.8 million in 2007.

So, that’s about it for this month, but before I sign off I want to express my sincere thanks to the entire port staff and members of North Kitsap Fire & Rescue for all of their great work in response to the fuel spill Jan. 9. And thank you all for taking a few moments to read this stuff.  I will be seeing you around town.

— Pete DeBoer is a Kingston port commissioner. Contact him at pete@petedeboer.com.