VILLAGE BY THE BAY History and Life in Discovery Bay
	MARCH 2004

by David and Mary Piepho
Photos by Aerical Expressions (http://www.AerialExpressions.com)

Sometimes we have to pinch ourselves to make sure that we aren't living in a dream. Most of us in Discovery Bay are living lives that other people can only imagine. Residents can sit in a kitchen nook in the morning sunshine and sip coffee while they critique a duffer who's lining up a shot on the adjoining golf course or watch a fisherman haul out of the sparkling waters the big 'un that he's been after for the past hour.

Discovery Bay is a great place to live! And our backyard boat dock is an on-ramp to a watery highway we could follow to anywhere in the world. We sometimes throw an ice chest of food in the back of our boat and six hours later we are walking around Old Sacramento. We have neighbors who have untied the lines from their docks and, like modern Marco Polos, have sailed off to distant parts of the world.

MORE THAN A PLAYGROUND
Many of our friends and neighbors moved here simply to enjoy water-skiing and playing in the sun. Attitudes and habits often change for such people, however, once they have been coming here for a while and slowly begin to realize what a wonderful community this is.

That is exactly what happened to us! We initially didn't have great expectations for experiencing wildlife, or the local society. We came here during the summer simply to enjoy the opportunities the area affords for playing in the water and sunshine. Discovery Bay was a place to dock our boats and to hang our towels. We used our residence as a summerhouse.

However, after a while we began to add some weekdays to our weekends. We discovered that the more frequent our visits, the more powerful our desire to stay. We began to develop a great affection for the Discovery Bay community itself!

During the first full winter we stayed here we discovered that the area offered more than sufficient activities to hold us over until the sun came back in April, when we could leave the wines and cheeses of winter life and return to the Mai Tais and Margaritas of summer. 

We've become lovers of wildlife through watching the exhibitions that nature daily produces outside our windows. We enjoy watching terns divebombing the fish in our channel. Last year a flock of brown pelicans visited us for a few months, and during one unforgettable week we watched the antics of a 400 pound sea lion swimming around and under our dock.

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