Illegally moored boats — some in place since Friday, one visibly sinking — blocked the East Bay Rowing Club's "Learn to Row" campers from reaching the Oakland Estuary on the first day of summer camp. Oakland has one dedicated marine patrol officer.

The dock at the Jack London Aquatic Center was occupied when the East Bay Rowing Club's summer camp started Monday — not by young rowers, but by a cluster of vessels moored illegally along the Oakland Estuary near Jack London Square. Some had been there since Friday evening. At least one was visibly sinking.

Club officials say the boats, moored against a four-hour city limit that wasn't being enforced, combined with debris dumped on the dock, created conditions too hazardous for beginners. The "Learn to Row" camp participants spent their first day on rowing machines. They couldn't reach the estuary.

"It's really frustrating," said Heather Krakora, executive director of the East Bay Rowing Club. "This boat here is sinking. You can see it moving forward." The vessels had been in place since Friday evening — roughly 72 hours beyond the legal limit by the time camp opened Monday morning.

For Moss Rieven, an 18-year-old volunteering with the club this summer, the situation landed personally. "This is the time for people to learn what the sport is like and get out on the water and experience what I got to do for three years," Rieven said. "So it's kind of a bummer."

The enforcement gap underneath all of it is, by one former harbormaster's count, a single officer. "There's only one dedicated Oakland Police Department marine patrol officer," said Brock de Lappe, who worked as a harbormaster. "That's not enough."

The problem isn't confined to the club's dock. Joe Morgan, who was paddleboarding the estuary on Monday, read it the way most people on the water do: a symptom running the full length of the waterway. "Dumping is a problem all over Oakland including the waterways," Morgan said. "It's too bad they can't get out there because of something that somebody did."

The East Bay Rowing Club said it would move students to Lake Merritt for the rest of the week and reassess conditions at the estuary daily. The City of Oakland and the Oakland Police Department had not responded to media inquiries by Monday evening. The dock, by then, still had boats on it.