The following piece is published in this month’s Put-in-Bay Gazette. The Gazette has been producing incredible independent Put-in-Bay island news for over 40 years. If you have any interest at all in what is happening on South Bass Island, we urge you strongly to subscribe to the Put-in-Bay Gazette. One-year online subscriptions are only $15, and print subscriptions are available as well. To subscribe please click here.
By Paul Bolden, Vice Commander of the 9th Coast Guard District, Central Region, Division 16
The End Of An Unusual Boating Season!
Here at PIB, October marks the unofficial end of the boating season. Many of us have or are making plans to pull our vessels out of the water by the end of this month. The pandemic has certainly made boating this season more complicated for mariners than it has ever been (at least in my lifetime). We can only hope that next season will see things back to normal with Covid-19 being in our collective rear view mirror.
PIB Maritime Academy To Restart
Starting in November and over the winter we will once again conduct our annual PIB Maritime Academy. This gives island boaters the off season to tune-up their boating skills as we will focus on seamanship and maritime issues pertinent to navigating the waters around our islands. We will cover many of the basics with special attention being paid to hazardous boating that I have witnessed while on shore and during patrols. For the salty dogs amongst us, I like to think of these series of articles as a refresher and a primer for our new and/or less seasoned boaters.
Your First Assignment
Your first assignment which will be due by next month’s article (the first in our Maritime Academy series) will be to watch the following YouTube videos and identified what the boaters are doing wrong. These boaters are on Haulover and Boca inlets in Florida. I chose these inlets because their conditions are similar to that which occurs in the Western Basin especially around the islands from time to time. I will give you the various time indexes but as you will see nearly every vessel is in violation of something, least of which is common sense. These clips are TRULY ASTOUNDING which makes it difficult to isolate any one infraction or lapse in judgment. With that being said you can skip ahead to the indexed locations if you are short on time but I guarantee that you’ll want to see the entire clip. Remember you’re on the honor system to complete this assignment by next month:-)
First: Go to YouTube and enter the clip title into the search bar.
Second: Identify the issue on each clip at the indexed locations. Some clips have more than one index.
Clip #1: Don’t let your kids do this at Haulover index 02:45 & 09:10. Clip #2: Boats fight nasty waves at Boca Inlet index 00:22, 08:20 & 08:32. Clip #3: Man goes overboard at Haulover Inlet index 00:30. Clip #4: Boat makes reckless decision at Haulover Inlet index 02:00.
Third: Nearly if not all the vessels in all of the clips have something uniquely in common. For some it is a question of poor judgment, for others it is a violation of law. What is the issue?
PIB Ice Fishing?
As in the past. If we have weather supportive of ice fishing, we will preempt the Maritime Academy and install our annual “Ice Fishing” edition.
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