Re: 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 ***** 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 op****tunity 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 fi****ng, 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 trans****tation 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 trans****tation the way the want and ***** 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