Re: WHO'S LIABLE IF I DO GET HIT?

> Sometimes that law doesn't exist or is not enforced and they just
> follow the Law of the Jungle. If you talk about the channels their
> speeds are not terribly willd, but still you are a sitting duck.

It exists everywhere you're ever likely to be in your kayak.  There's more

enforcement on the intracoastal, per boater, than in any city or state 
anywhere near here.

Yes, you are a sitting duck, which is a really good reason not to go where

you can't be safe.  I presume you would not ride your bicycle on I-95,
which 
would you ride you kayak in a zone where running on a plane is legal?

> But going past the
> buoys at the beach is reasonable, since staying within them would make
> me a danger to the swimmers, and I don't want to become the predator.

Yes it is.

> The thing with a motorboat is that you don't know if stopping puts you
> at lesser or greater danger. You just have to predictable, and
> hopefully they'll steer around you.

Depends on where you are. I was talking about the channel.  It's not best
to 
predicably paddle out in front of a power boat legally on a plane.  Out by

the buoys, is a different story.  Both of you are responsible.  There are 
boats out there on autopilot and, no matter what color your kayak is,
you're 
not as visible as you think.

> There's no safe intersections in those channels, much less a signal
> light. ;)

Yes, there are.  You just choose not to travel to one of them.

> I do. The problem is NOT them actually. But the whole set up where we
> --kayakers and canoeists-- are exposed to uncessary dangers, and where
> they can speed, drink, get high, be reckless, and get away with it.

You can kayak to your hearts content in most of the lakes in south
Florida, 
places where no powerboater is allowed at all.  You can kayak in any of
the 
no internal combustion areas in south Florida, places where power boats
are 
not allowed at all.  You can cross any of the hundreds of acres of flats, 
where power boats can't go at all.  What's wrong with some places that
power 
boaters can go?

> Some steering from them to avoid you is NOT an inconvenience.

It depends, doesn't it?

Lee