Re: m-day follies
Things I saw over the weekend:
Several drunks driving like supreme idiots.
Jet skis being driven dangerously by kids obviously under the legal age alone.
Multiple pontoon boats driving around at night with their docking lights on. Turn 'em off, Jerks. They ain't headlights.
Several boats with no nav lights.
Boats with improper nav lights, including a pontoon with a red starboard bow nav and no masthead displayed. This same boat was abandoned for a couple hours anchored in the middle of the lake with no lights at all on while the occupants were in another boat driving around like jackasses at full throttle (this lake is no wake after dusk).
Morons using 1:1 scope on their anchor rode and wondering why they can't hold bottom.
Two boats, a Bayliner Capri and a pontoon both drove full throttle into a clearly labeled no wake zone with no more than 1ft of water. That was entertaining to watch.
A solid 80% of the boats were "baylinering": Driving around with the fenders dragging in the water at all speeds.
Open illegal drug use. Can I have your boat after you OD?
Twice I had kids on tubes suddenly fly in front of my bow forcing me to alter course. If the kids had been flung off I would have hit them. If you are overtaking you are the give way vessel and if you are trying to kill your children please choose someone else to operate the weapon. I'm not interested. The fact that you are passing me and arcing your tow in front of me while I'm cruising at 25 tells me that you really enjoy visits to the hospital for those 30mph tubing mishaps.
This was all on a small private lake in a highly conservative community with no public access (have to swipe an activated card to open gate to boat launch). The term "Money doesn't buy brains" rings true here. It is a quaint idea to think you can be lax with rules on a private lake like this but it is a frigging miracle that no one was killed this weekend. Complete mayhem. The beautiful weather had a double-edged effect of amplifying the boating ignorance around here. A few neighbors and I were discussing not wanting to be the jerks that increase the police presence on this lake (we currently get a 1/yr visit), but after repeated attempts to educate the boaters on this lake of even the most basic things like proper nav light use, we feel there is little choice left. This State requires all inland bodies of water, public and private, to observe the Inland Waterway Rules. Pretty obvious as to why.
does make ya look again...
