WHO'S LIABLE IF I DO GET HIT?
 

In article
,
KingOfTheApes wrote:

On Aug 21, 11:18 am, "
wrote:
On Aug 20, 1:36 pm, KingOfTheApes wrote:

The question is, WHO'S LIABLE IF I DO GET HIT?

Don't know, but we're all going to chip in and buy him a beer.

Steve

You must one of those who celebrate the Law of the Jungle.

I bet you got one of those bumper stickers that say, "We support our
troops."

At least they don't whine at extended, exhaustive length, looking for
someone else to blame.

fast motorboats sound to me like WMDs
 

On Aug 21, 2:10*pm, Steve Hix
wrote:
In article
,

*KingOfTheApes wrote:
On Aug 21, 11:18 am, "
wrote:
On Aug 20, 1:36 pm, KingOfTheApes wrote:

The question is, WHO'S LIABLE IF I DO GET HIT?

Don't know, but we're all going to chip in and buy him a beer.

Steve

You must one of those who celebrate the Law of the Jungle.

I bet you got one of those bumper stickers that say, "We support our
troops."

At least they don't whine at extended, exhaustive length, looking for
someone else to blame.

They do blame somebody else: Hussein, WMDs, terrorists...

But I'm talking about the safety of those very activities (green,
healthy) that should be promoted, not be left to the Law of the
Jungle.

Hey, fast motorboats sound to me like WMDs. ;)

how best to survive out there
 

(This is a contribution by the very same person who sold me the last
kayak. Reporting from the watery jungle)

Flex 029 wrote:
hi folks, first time here .. met Sr. Commandate Banana at my shop ..

one way of dealing with this problem is to NOT paddle in these areas
on weekends.
when i go on any given week-DAY, there’s usually nobody around -
EXCEPT for all that damn trash~


Howdy Flex, good to see you here so we can discuss how best to survive
out there. I totally agree with you, and in fact I stay away from the
waterways on weekends. The weekends belong to the predators, so to
speak.

I also canoe at night (which you told me you do too), which not makes
for far fewer motorboats, but also hides the mountains of trash (yes,
including batteries and mattresses) left behind by the said
motorboats. (I have a bright kayak for daylight, and camouflage canoe
with proper lights for night time.)

As you know, the beautiful kayak I’ve got from you is as bright as
sunrise (that’s the color), as well as the lights and flag I’m getting
from you. So if the superfast, superbig boats don’t see me is because
their drivers (I deny them “captain” status) are superdrunk and
superhigh.

Hey, we’ve developed the same strategy for survival! Actually it was
developed by the early mammals at the time the dinosaurs ruled the
earth.

That’s kind of metaphorical, isn’t it?

WHO'S LIABLE IF I DO GET HIT?
 

wpns4l wrote:
"this thread is crazy lol. stories of lions and the jungle.

do yourself a favor and carry a hand held uhf radio or something and
if you see people, motorboat or not, acting like asses call the police/
coast guard."

Hey, you seem to be ready for “the jungle” in that picture. Either you
have big guns… or have a banana to go in there (I have to tell the
metaphorical meaning of it).

Anyway, I do carry a cell phone, and I assume they don’t see me. But
I’m not sure that’s good or bad because then I get all stressed out
over the damn boats, and it defeats the purpose of the kayak, which is
to relax. In other words, I ignore them.

So, I go back to one of the favorite slogans of the revolution,

“Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

how best to survive out there
 

I also canoe at night (which you told me you do too), which not makes
for far fewer motorboats, but also hides the mountains of trash (yes,
including batteries and mattresses) left behind by the said
motorboats. (I have a bright kayak for daylight, and camouflage canoe
with proper lights for night time.)

In all my years of boating and kayaking, I've never, ever seen a battery
floating by. As far as I know, boaters aren't really well known for dumping
their mattresses in the water either.

Perhaps you'd like to explain why you crossposted your complaints about
boaters in the Intracoastal to rec.scuba and a UK group, all of whom are
extremely unlikely to even know what the Intracoastal is, let alone care
about boats in it.

Lee

fast motorboats sound to me like WMDs
 

Hey, fast motorboats sound to me like WMDs. ;)

BFD. I kids bicycle probably sounds like them to you too.

how best to survive out there
 

In rec.boats.paddle Lee Bell wrote:
I also canoe at night (which you told me you do too), which not makes
for far fewer motorboats, but also hides the mountains of trash (yes,
including batteries and mattresses) left behind by the said
motorboats. (I have a bright kayak for daylight, and camouflage canoe
with proper lights for night time.)

In all my years of boating and kayaking, I've never, ever seen a battery
floating by. As far as I know, boaters aren't really well known for dumping
their mattresses in the water either.

Perhaps you'd like to explain why you crossposted your complaints about
boaters in the Intracoastal to rec.scuba and a UK group, all of whom are
extremely unlikely to even know what the Intracoastal is, let alone care
about boats in it.

We have a canal here called the I&M canal. Around 1996 a dam rupture caused
the canal to drain exposing all sorts of stuff. We were on the bike trail
the following weekend and were looking at all the recliners, washing machines
and stuff in the canal. The canal is only open to canoes and kayaks and I
don't think many canoeists or kayakers were taking washing machines or
recliners in their boats... course, I could be wrong...

Most of the larger garbage was concentrated near bridges...

--
John Nelson
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chicago Area Paddling/Fishing Page
http://www.chicagopaddling.org http://www.chicagofishing.org
(A Non-Commercial Web Site: No Sponsors, No Paid Ads and Nothing to Sell)

WHO'S LIABLE IF I DO GET HIT?
 

On Aug 22, 12:37 pm, "Lee Bell" wrote:
I also canoe at night (which you told me you do too), which not makes
for far fewer motorboats, but also hides the mountains of trash (yes,
including batteries and mattresses) left behind by the said
motorboats. (I have a bright kayak for daylight, and camouflage canoe
with proper lights for night time.)

In all my years of boating and kayaking, I've never, ever seen a battery
floating by. As far as I know, boaters aren't really well known for dumping
their mattresses in the water either.

Well, there are islands on the water and the batteries are left behind
on the islands.

It would be mighty difficult to leave piles of garbage on the water,
even if they tried.


Perhaps you'd like to explain why you crossposted your complaints about
boaters in the Intracoastal to rec.scuba and a UK group, all of whom are
extremely unlikely to even know what the Intracoastal is, let alone care
about boats in it.

Lee

Well, maybe they heard of the coral reefs in the tropical waters of
the Caribbean dying because of all the pollution and motorboats that
anchor in the wrong places.

By the way, do you have many coral reefs in the UK?

WHO'S LIABLE IF I DO GET HIT?
 

do yourself a favor and carry a hand held uhf radio or something and
if you see people, motorboat or not, acting like asses call the police/
coast guard."

That's a really good idea. You'll make so many friends and gain so much
respect that way. Be sure to curse and make obscene gestures as they go by
too. You wouldn't want to miss out on any opportunity to make an
impression.

This is all a great way to ensure that, when others don't have a legal
obligation to consider your needs. they are considerate anyway and even to
be really sure that, should you ever actually need somebody with a powered
boat to assist you that they'll do so without hesitation.

Here are a couple of clues. Power boaters have been picked on, harassed,
limited, and taxed almost out of their activities. It takes hours for them
to get where their fishing, diving, or other activities take place because
they have to travel at idle speed to keep manatees never seen in the area,
safe just in case they every happen to be there. They pay substantially
more for the fuel that the use simply because they use it on the water.
They bought their very expensive boats either because that's what they
enjoy, because that's what it takes to do what they bought a boat for, or
because they don't have the time to use slower, more economical vessels. No
matter what the reason, they have a right and a right to expect to be able
to use them to their maximum potential when and where the law allows.

You guys, and I, for that matter, have chosen a slower, more sedate and less
expensive mode of transportation for very different reasons. We don't us
kayaks to do the things others do in power, or sail boats. We can get closer
to nature, into places that power boats can and should not go, and generally
relax in ways unique to us. Why not do that in places best suited to what
we enjoy? Why encroach on the few places left that power boaters can use
their transportation the way the want and bitch about them doing it?

One more thing to keep in mind. It costs you nothing to wait a minute for a
power boat to pass. It probably costs a boat 25 feet or more in length, and
certainly the high speed monohulls you guys were complaining about, anywhere
from $10 to $20 extra to slow down and return to a plane. Perhaps that will
give you at least a little understanding of why they are so reluctant to do
so.

You want to cross the channel, no problem. Find someplace where speed is
limited and go for it. God knows such places are all over the Intracoastal
You want to share areas where boats go faster, great, do it out of the
channels, in shallower water where your vessel is designed to go and power
boats aren't.

You want consideration, so do the power boaters. You want consideration
from them, try giving it to them.

Now, before you guys get all excited and tell everybody about the
occasionally jerk, ask yourself this. For every time a power boater
inconvenienced you, how many times do you suppose the power boater was
inconvenienced by you.

Lee

WHO'S LIABLE IF I DO GET HIT?
 

KingOfTheApes wrote

Well, there are islands on the water and the batteries are left behind
on the islands.

I suppose it's happened, but it darned sure doesn't happen often. Boats big
enough to carry batteries, don't work without them. They have to have them
to start the motors. It's really unlikely that anybody would go to all the
trouble to drive their boat out to an island with a spare battery on board,
change the battery while on the island and go to all the touble to take the
battery off the boat just so they can leave it someplace where it will later
have to be collected by another power boater. It could happne, but I don't
know why.

It's much more likely that any batteries you round were taken to the island
for use by somebody camping there. They may or may not have gotten to the
island by power boat, but the batteries you see almost certainly weren't
lift there because they are power boaters.

Well, maybe they heard of the coral reefs in the tropical waters of
the Caribbean dying because of all the pollution and motorboats that
anchor in the wrong places.

In more than 45 years of diving, and boating in the Caribbean, no, I've
never heard of it. I have heard of them dying because of fertilizer,
sewerage and other chemicals washed our from those on land who have less
consideration than either you or I do. I have heard of reefs destroyed by
sewage outfalls operated by Miami Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties. I
have heard of reefs destroyed by "accidental" leaks of millions of gallons
of raw sewage from Miami Dade about twice a year. I have heard of reefs
destroyed by those that dispose of thousands of tires as "artificial reefs"
that nothing ever lives on.

Here's a clue. Gas floats. Reefs don't. Anchors don't do much damage and
their use is not limited to motor boats. Sailboats and even kayaks carry
them too.

Lee