we very rarely venture into the piankitank river in the summer because it is a noisemaker's playground with jet skis, water skiers, tubers, kneeboarders, you name it - all creating not just noise but wake as well. now that we no longer have to worry about getting back to the marina in time for work on monday morning, we can go to places like these during the weekdays and have some relative peace and quiet. one would think. but no, the yahoos come out after 5:00 p.m. and take advantage of the longer days and later sunsets. one little carolina skiff was buzzing around the anchorage pulling both a water skier and a tuber and generally being annoying when it just got too close and pushed tom too far. he grabbed his camera and jumped into the dinghy and went after them! two boys were in the water and a girl was driving. no spotter either. tom took pics of them and said that he was reporting them to the marine police and when they said that they were members of the fishing bay yacht club (as if this was supposed to mean something), tom said that he was reporting them to their commodore. anyway, they certainly got an earful and eventually slowly motored away, very much subdued, their parade having been rained on. my goodness, don't try to tell me that this is the first time they've been told off for buzzing other boats? please. a little later, the boat came back and stopped quite some distance away. after a while, they motored slowly over and called out. first they apologized and then they started to argue about the boating rules. this is where i turned my hearing off and went back to work so i didn't hear the whole conversation. as far as i'm concerned, it doesn't take a rocket scientist (or any marine rule book) to know that if one vessel is going at top speed very close to another vessel, it is highly likely that the people in the stationary vessel will be irate about being waked. i don't think it is necessary to quibble about exactly how many feet. too close is too close - there is plenty of water out there where the kiddies can play! anyway, when that conversation was over, they slowly motored away. tom said that they came back to apologize because it was the right thing to do. i contend that they did so in the hope that tom would not report them to either the marine police or their yacht club commodore. there is always the possibility that their youthful exuberance could have been misinterpreted and daddy might unjustly take the boat privileges away, you know. hey, i was a brat once, too. tom, obviously, was never a brat. besides, one of us has to be the cynical one. it certainly wouldn't do if both of us were the "good one" - people would walk all over us! and since i've had plenty of practice anyway..... my younger brother, mikey, was always "the good one." i was perfectly happy settling for being "the smart one." :)
last but not least, it turns out that fishing bay yacht club's commodore's name is commodore WAKE. oh, that just cracked me up!
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| tadhana at fishing bay |
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