Attention Mariners: Gerritsen Inlet Navigation Channel To Be Closed For Nearly Three Weeks

Ahoy there, sailors. If you dock in Shell Bank Creek or just like to sail around the Marine Park salt marsh, things might get a little more difficult on your weekday trips this May, beginning next week.

Beginning at 6am on Tuesday, May 5, and continuing on all weekdays through Friday, May 22, the Gerritsen Inlet navigation channel beneath the Belt Parkway is going to be closed.

This is to complete the installation of steel girders as the Department of Transportation continues to overhaul the overpass, as well as other spans, as part of the Seven Bridges Project.

The closure period is 6:00am to 5:00pm on all weekdays, so evening boaters won’t have much trouble. Either way, passage is still ensured – it just requires an escort.

The Department of Transportation contractor will have a tug boat and a skiff boat on site to escort marine traffic through the channel, but may have to wait for the barges to be repositioned. Mariners can request passage through the channel by contacting the contractor via the VHF maritime mobile band. If you’re a boater and anything we said here didn’t make sense to you, it might be because I exhausted my maritime knowledge when I wrote “Ahoy there, sailors.” Fortunately, you can call the DOT’s community liaison for the project, Jonathan Joseph, at (347) 702-6430.