The City By The Bay, Part 1

Bay City is the first big Linden community experiment since the population explosion of 2006, and was designed by Lindens and resident "moles" - residents getting paid cheaply by the hour to build content for Linden Lab, and they are part of the Linden Department of Public Works, or LDPW. These folks are doing a bang-up job of beautifying Second Life and making things more interesting.

Anyhow, as regards Bay City, they went for a retro feel, kind of like pre-80s urban locales. Unfortunately, many of the folks who bought land in Bay City (at grossly ridiculous prices) haven't done much with it or have not bothered to keep in theme.



We'll see more of that later. You see, I started out looking for a place to rez my boat. Well, that took a while. I eventually located and went to the Bay City Yacht Club (which is really just a designated area for boat slip rentals) and couldn't find it at first.

I eventually enlisted the help of one of Bay City's greatest advocates, Marianne McCann, for help with a rezzing area. She too thought the placement was odd. It's a little awkward, but there is a rezzing area off by a lonely pier away from the Yacht Club in New Port, try this for a rezzing area. There is no sign, just one of the many rusty old buoys that the moles have created that could mean pretty much anything. If you can't see under the water and don't have the view of property lines on, it's even more meaningless.

I decided to take Tania, the Twenty, since I anticipated shallow waters in and around Bay City.



I went east a bit and then north through the channel, per Marianne's suggestion. There is a really interesting draw bridge that connects Bay City to the old mainland continent of Sansara, the first continent. I actually forgot that it was a draw bridge and my mast crashed into it. That's a pretty low clearance - it's not like I used the Ketch!

There is a device to touch as you approach the bridge, in order to raise it and pass underneath. I figured that out pretty quickly, after I got over feeling sheepish about hitting the bridge.



What intrigues me about Bay City is its design, especially the canals. It's not your typical grid, and it's intentionally designed to have an old world European feel - something that would have developed by horse and cart, not like the huge (lazy? efficient?) grids that line the midwestern and western United States.

I will confess my shame right now: this blog isn't complete because I fell asleep. As you can probably tell, I'm a night person. I was pushing myself and my body conked out. I ended up beached on the northern coast of Bay City at Moose Beach, which, as it happens, is another public rezzing area. I'm too tired to go back into SL to get the slurl from my landmark.

I'll save that for part 2, when I actually complete this trip. I'm looking forward to sailing the canals and seeing what the hubbub is about up close. And before I forget, I will have to make a map.