Cassel Bay is cupped by the two pinchers of Cassel Dunes to the southwest and the massive Harbor Shipyards to the east.
Viewed from the balconies of the Williams Street Apartments or from the terraced yards in Shady Ridge Acres, the Bay is an unending stretch of blue, often dotted with whitecaps in fall, but welcoming as if there is to end to the world when observed from the safety of Bay City.
Cassel Bay has a history of seafaring disasters. Before Bay City was established, a primitive trading port filled the bowl nestled into the Stanwick Hills. It wasn't unusual for ships to run aground along the shifting sandbars around Cassel Dunes. A wooden lighthouse on the sandy shoals went up in the 1840s, but wooden things catch fire, and the Cassel Bay Light truly illuminated the waves during one stormy night. By then, however, the channels in the bay were better marked, and the pressing need for a manned lighthouse on the Dunes had passed.
Today, there is no sign of where Cassel Bay Light once stood, but the ships it protected during its lifetime were the leading edge of the shipping hub Bay City is today.
Follow Shorefront west to reach Cassel Dunes, a beautiful windswept fist that punches into the waters of the Pacific. Camp, picnic, or bring your windsurfing gear. Just be sure to pack out what you bring in, as there is no permanent infrastructure on the sand. Cassel Dunes is a protected sanctuary for people, birds, and turtles and is left as undisturbed as possible for an area also used by the thousands of people who call Bay City home.
While Bay City's waterfront is a working one, and there are no pleasure marinas within Bay City's jurisdiction, sailboats are a common sight in the Bay. With buoys marking the safe channels and plenty of diving spots, visitors from up and down the West Coast put Cassel Bay on their traveling itineraries, both sailing and land-based. Pleasure craft are invited to use Docks B-D to access the charms of Bay City, but this is a working harbor, so call ahead. There are moorings between Dock D and Harbor Shipyards for those with a tender for getting to shore.
Just one thing. Whatever you do, however you like to play, whenever you are on Cassel Bay, leave it like you found it, cleaner if you can. If you do, you will be welcomed to return anytime you can.
We first visit Cassel Bay when Garik Shayk and Marisa Bruni spend part of a day at The Docks in Book 1 of The Human-Hybrid Project, Shattered by Glass.