New things are happening in St. Margaret's Bay.
Beside glittering bay waters, with a tiny island nearby, Shining Waters Marina will enter the summer season.
"We're very excited," says Tim L'Esperance of Shining Waters Marina by phone, "we really want to make this a special marina."
Having recently added new slips to accommodate more vessels, Shining Waters plans to provide the same attentive quality marine service they always have with added attractions for visitors and events.
"We're excited to be bringing Saltbox Brewing in, which will support our clients on the marina," says L'Esperance, "and build on our site to attract more boating traffic as well as general community folks." Opening soon is a Saltbox taproom offering locally brewed drinks, and later in the season the site will have even more for community activities.
A new management arrangement is opening doors for Shining Waters too. A three-way management system allows for a lot of activity. "Jill [Boutilier]'s the General Manager, I'm the Operations Manager and Kris [Campbell] is the Service Manager," says L'Esperance, "we do sub each other out fairly well and if someone is busy or tied up another team member can step in."
The management team makes short work of obstacles that come up, and with three people they are finding many opportunities. "Basically we're each other's sounding board," says L'Esperance, "but the beauty is in most cases we generally wind up on the same page, maybe slightly different approaches. But that approach offers a lot of flexibility."
Each has their own specialty. "Jill has been a longtime service person here, so she knows all the clientele," says L'Esperance, "Kris is our MST ABYC certified technician, so he has a really good handle on all the services we provide...and has a couple MST apprentices working under him."
It's all about people. The three managers are sure to visit any place they can, to spread word of their activities and find new connections to create new opportunities.
"We felt strongly as new managers that the more people we could meet the better, and the more diverse the background the better,"explains L'Esperance, "it's opened a lot of doors, frankly...We've got everything from good advice to good contacts to potential employees."
Shining Waters recently hired a Ukrainian employee, a former ship's engineer, as a result of these efforts. "He's been an amazing employee," says L'Esperance.
"Ultimately our goal is to have a fun environment here, to look after the boats but also become a destination for people enjoying a nice craft beer," says L'Esperance, "to be a community anchor we've been in the past and to be more diverse in our service offerings."
The Shining Waters Saltbox taproom will officially open the May long weekend (May 18-21), with more events planned for the summer.