Category: Featured Post

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There Ought To Be A Law

Panel votes to make boat hit-and-run a felony

By Lee Davidson The Salt Lake Tribune  Feb 03 2012 03:53PM

After witnesses said boaters at Pineview Reservoir left a swimmer to bleed to death after they struck her last summer, lawmakers advanced a bill Friday to make leaving the scene of a boating accident clearly illegal.

The House Transportation Committee voted unanimously Friday to pass HB92 and send it to the full House. It requires people who have “reason to believe” they have been in a boating accident to remain at the scene. It makes it a felony to flee the scene when someone is killed, and a misdemeanor in other cases.

Its sponsor, Rep. Richard Greenwood, R-Roy, said it comes in response to an Aug. 21 incident where Esther Fujimoto, 49, a University of Utah researcher, died after being struck by a boat on Pineview Reservoir.

A witness told deputies that men in the boat yelled at the woman to see if she was all right — but then fled without offering aid. Her screams were heard by another passer-by, who rowed to her. As he called 911, he was unable to pull her into the boat, but held her head above the water.

Rescuers arrived and performed CPR, but Fujimoto — who suffered lacerations to her torso from the motorboat’s propeller — died before she reached shore.

Our view from the helm: It is truly sad that our government needs to pass legislation that makes “boat hit-and-run” a felony because of man's inhumanity to man, chilling indifference, or just outright selfishness.

 In short things like what happened to Esther Fujimoto should never happen to anyone, anywhere. Get it together people!

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Baby It’s Cold Outside

The months of January, February and even part of March are not known as the best months for boating here in North Florida. In fact, many us tend to focus our attention on other things and try to patiently wait out the less than ideal conditions. However, as a passionate boater I find these down times to be a blessing in disguise. As with any lifestyle, it’s imperative to set aside time for planning and education. I know that this doesn’t necessarily sound exciting, but you’ll have to trust me – it is!

The Perfect Destination
If I’m not going somewhere on my boat, the odds are I’m planning my next adventure. I’ve come to realize that thinking about and planning a trip to a tropical paradise can be almost as rewarding as the actual trip itself — and honestly sometimes better. In my mind the weather is always perfect, my boat never breaks down and the seas are always calm. Therefore I find myself spending the winter months either planning my summer trips or daydreaming about warmer days and tropical destinations.

Your first stop in planning a cruise is often the internet, but the information you’re hunting for is often hidden and difficult to find. That’s why I created Florida By Water — to save you the endless hours I spent searching for new destinations to explore by boat. The site is broken down by city and then into categories like campgrounds, marinas, daytrips, restaurants, boat ramps and hotels. Often you’ll find reviews from other boaters that can help you make your decision. Every location on the site is accessible by water. Florida By Water does not charge for listings, therefore we list anywhere and everywhere you can get to on your boat.

My recommendation: look for areas you’ve never visited before. Last summer we discovered Carrabelle, Florida. It’s one of those small but great boating and fishing destinations that tend to be overlooked by the majority of boaters. Carabelle’s a quaint town with great water access and the charm that only a small fishing village can bring. Here’s another example a Florida By Water member sent me a few weeks ago:

“We are still cruising. We are at Whiddens Marina on Gasparilla Island, a charming, hospitable, old Florida marina that has been in the same family since the twenties. Another one of those hard to find spots only locals know about. This place has character. A highlight of our journey! When I asked the lady how much to stay the night she said she gets $40. When we said we would anchor in the harbor for the night she said to just stay on the dock for free as there is no one else here staying. I believe she lives in the upstairs of this old building. There is an old (everything here is old) museum attached and an outhouse with shower. It's wild. Like we have gone back in time. While it may not appeal to all, we feel privileged to find and be able to experience the rustic nature of this place. We will be back home on Tuesday.”

Once I’ve chosen my destination, I spend the next few weeks charting my waypoints. Personally I use Garmin Homeport for my charting software, however many companies make the same type of software. I can easily add all of the GPS coordinates from the comfort of my home, create routes and upload them to the chart plotter. Then I’ll save these and revisit them many times before heading to my new location. Another great information source — a quick call to a local sea tow or marina can provide valuable tips about the area. Just make sure that when you’re boating in unfamiliar waters you always use your charts, as well as local information.

Events
Another winter option is to attend some of the many boat shows that are held after the first of the year. More than half of the NMMA boats shows are held during the month of January. Here in the Jacksonville area, the Jacksonville Marine Association Boat Show is at the Prime Osborne Convention Center from January 27-29, and the Southeastern Boat Show’s at Metropolitan Park April 20-22. If you’re up for a road trip, one of the best boat shows in the nation is in Miami on February 16-20. You can find a complete list of boating events at http://www.floridabywater.com/events

Whatever you decide to do, you’ll find you don’t have to completely break from boating just because the weather is a little less than desirable.

Rusty Gardner is the owner and President of floridabywater.com & Boatflorida.com

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Thar Be Whales On My Toilet Paper!

Absolutely potty: £640 for a Moby Dick novel

(but it's typed out on four and a half toilet rolls!)

By Jill Reilly

Some people will go to any lengths to win a bet – including one man who spent hours typing out an 822 page novel onto a set of toilet rolls.

But even more puzzling is now that he has finished copying across the classic novel Moby Dick, he is trying to sell the four and a half rolls on eBay for £640.

The American was challenged by a friend to write a book on a loo roll after joking that toilet tissue should come with instructions.

Weird wager: The American was challenged by a friend to write a book on a loo roll after joking that toilet tissue should come with instructionsWeird wager: The American was challenged by a friend to write a book on a loo roll after joking that toilet tissue should come with instructions

 

Roll for your money: The four and a half 'clean' toilet rolls are advertised on eBay with a starting price of $999.95 (£640) but is yet to receive a single bid with the auction ending in the early hours of Thursday morningRoll for your money: The four and a half ‘clean' toilet rolls are advertised on eBay with a starting price of $999.95 (£640) but is yet to receive a single bid with the auction ending in the early hours of Thursday morning

 

Labour of love: He typed out the 822-page Herman Melville novel - which tells the story a sailor hunting a giant sperm whale - on four-and-a-half 'clean' toilet rollsLabour of love: He typed out the 822-page Herman Melville novel – which tells the story a sailor hunting a giant sperm whale – on four-and-a-half ‘clean' toilet rolls

He went through with the weird wager and is now selling the work of art on eBay for a staggering £640.

The man, who is from Florida and goes by the name ‘The-Heppcat'.

He is selling the toilet roll ‘to prove the doubters I actually did it'.

He typed out the Herman Melville novel – which tells the story a sailor hunting a giant sperm whale – on four-and-a-half ‘clean' toilet rolls.

The-Heppcat said: ‘My friend and I once joked that toilet paper should have instructions printed on them for certain people.

‘One day, the conversation grew from there and turned into a wager that i couldn't (or wouldn't) be able to type out a novel on toilet paper.

‘Yes, we did have some time on our hands but, as you can see from the photos, I won the bet.'

It is advertised on eBay with a starting price of $999.95 (£640).

The auction ends in the early hours of Thursday morning, but is yet to receive a single bid.

There are a couple of rips on the rolls, which the seller describes as being in ‘excellent condition'.

Our view from the helm: For a novel that is known for its metaphors and symbolism we're not sure what it being typed out on toilet paper means but in the end if it gets people reading then it can't be a bad thing, right?

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Plotting A Course For Disaster?

NOAA satellites aid in the rescue of 207 people in 2011

January 23, 2012

In 2011, NOAA satellites were critical in the rescues of 207 people from life-threatening situations throughout the United States and its surrounding waters. The satellites picked up distress signals from emergency beacons carried by downed pilots, shipwrecked boaters and stranded hikers, and relayed the information about their location to first responders on the ground.

NOAA’s polar-orbiting and geostationary satellites are part of the international Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking System, called COSPAS-SARSAT. This system uses a network of satellites to quickly detect and locate distress signals from emergency beacons onboard aircraft and boats, and from smaller, handheld personal locator beacons called PLBs.

Of the 207 saves last year, 122 people were rescued from the water, 14 from aviation incidents, and 71 in land situations where they used their PLBs. Other rescue highlights from the year include:

  • Alaska had the most people rescued on land last year with 39, followed by Florida with 11, and California with 8.
  • NOAA SARSAT played a critical role in the rescue of a group of student hikers from a grizzly bear attack in Alaska by directing first responders to the scene.
  • In the pitch of night, two people were rescued from a life raft after their boat sank 140 miles off the coast of Marco Island, Fla.
  • An elderly hiker was rescued 74 miles south of Colorado Springs, Colo., during a heavy snowstorm.

“With each rescue, this system performs the way it was intended — as a real, life-saving network,” said Chris O’Connors, program manager for NOAA SARSAT.

When a NOAA satellite finds the location of a distress signal, the information is relayed to the SARSAT Mission Control Center based at NOAA’s Satellite Operations Facility in Suitland, Md. From there, the information is quickly sent to a Rescue Coordination Center, operated by either the U.S. Air Force for land rescues or the U.S. Coast Guard for water rescues.

Since 1982, COSPAS-SARSAT has been credited with supporting more than 30,000 rescues worldwide, including more than 6,700 in the United States and its surrounding waters.

By law, owners of emergency beacons are required to register them with NOAA at:  http://www.beaconregistration.noaa.gov. That registration information often helps provide better and faster assistance to people in distress. It may also provide information about the location of the emergency, how many people need assistance, what type of help may be needed and other ways to contact the owner. At the end of 2011 NOAA’s registration database contained over 329,000 registrations.

NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Join us on Facebook, Twitter and our other social media channels.

 

Our view from the helm: Have the advances in technology made boating safer or have we become too reliant on technology and thus we are more willing to take chances because we know that no matter how bad we screw up all we have to do is flip a switch and we'll be rescued?

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Hey Spain, Give Me Back My Boat!

3 years after US accident, boat washes up in Spain

Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard

A boat that was lost at sea off the coast of Massachusetts in 2008 washed up on the coast of Spain more than three years later.

By Becky Bratu, msnbc.com

NEW YORK — As he swam toward the coast of Nantucket, Mass. in August 2008, Scott Douglas, 58, watched his yellow fishing boat disappear, carried away by the swelling surf. He thought it would be the last time he'd ever see the Queen Bee.

But yesterday, more than three years after Douglas and his brother-in-law were tossed off the boat by a wave, the U.S. Coast Guard called to say the vessel had washed up on the Spanish coast. It was rusty and covered in barnacles, but intact.

“It looks entirely different,” Douglas said upon seeing the photos. “That's amazing.”

Douglas remembers the water was restless on the day he set out to sea, and the fish weren't biting. He tried to keep the boat stationary, bracing himself as huge rollers crashed into it.

“At all times, it's a very sketchy area,” Douglas told msnbc.com. “You wouldn't want to be dumped in the ocean there.”

But that's exactly what happened when a rogue wave knocked Douglas and his brother-in-law, Rich St. Pierre, off the boat and into a sink-or-swim fight for survival.

Douglas remembers thinking the water was not too cold. “The only way I was going to survive was just to get started, not tread water,” he said.

But swimming didn't come as easy to St. Pierre, 68, who had gone through open heart surgery a year earlier. However, a survival kit containing an inflatable device had been knocked off the boat and floated to St. Pierre's side. It was a miracle, Douglas said, noting that the kit was the only item from the boat in the water with them. 

 Scott Douglas, 58, watched his yellow fishing boat disappear in 2008, carried away by the swelling surf. He thought it would be the last time he'd ever see the Queen Bee.

Douglas swam for about an hour and made it to shore on Smith's Point, a beach off the coast of Nantucket. Dripping wet and exhausted, he walked up to a cabin and asked to use the phone to alert the Coast Guard. Not long after, he saw St. Pierre walking on dry land.

“At the end of the day, it just wasn't our time,” Douglas said. 

While that marked the end of their ordeal, the Queen Bee's journey didn't end there. 

Lt. Joe Klinker, a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman, said the most likely scenario is that the boat somehow got across the continental shelf and into the Gulf Stream.

“From there it may drift north off the coast of northern Canada and then east with the North Atlantic currents,” Klinker told msnbc.com.

He said it's rare, but not unheard of for an object off the coastline of the United States to drift across the Atlantic to Europe. But a boat? “I've never heard of anything like this,” Klinker said.

It's not uncommon, he said, for the Coast Guard to locate derelict ships from Florida off the coast of Virginia, or vessels from Virginia off the coast of Massachusetts, but never in Europe. 

The ability to withstand the hardships of the Atlantic has a lot to do with the make of the boat, Klinker said. The Queen Bee is a 26-foot center console fishing boat made by Regulator. 

“It probably could have floated for another three years,” Klinker said.

The Spanish Coast Guard alerted their U.S. counterpart Tuesday. Based on salvage law, the boat now belongs to Spain.

Douglas, who is now retired and lives in New Jersey, said he doesn't want the boat back. But with four grandchildren, he has thought about turning Queen Bee's story into a children's book.   

“It's interesting to see what life takes and gives,” he said.

Our view from the helm is this: How is it possible that this boat which is owned by a U.S. citizen now belongs to Spain just because it washed up on their coast but the treasure found by Odyssey Marine from the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes doesn't belong to the salvage company and has to be returned to Spain? 

Does Spain get everything regardless?

How about this. Spain gets to keep the boat and Odyssey gets to keep the treasure from the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes. That's quite a deal seeing as how Spain didn't have to exert any energy or spend any money in either case.