Boating is...by boatguy Ed Fort Myers Beach is a satirical site!

A potential member of the "Dead End Canal Yacht Club" came very near to destroying several neighbors boats a few days ago. He used his throttles to help him swing his new 36 foot power boat around to line it up with the slip. There was no tide, not much wind to speak of and no reason to hurry the turn but that is what he tried to do. "Using throttles is like trying to console your wife after a bad hair cut. It's going to get out of control no matter how many times you say, 'it doesn't look that bad'," said Power Squadron Wayne. He should know because he teaches several seamanship courses. "We've all done it and it only takes once to convince us that it isn't right!" The potential member and I say potential because just living on the right canal doesn't necessarily mean automatic inclusion into the club, was very apologetic about scaring his neighbors. "Dumbest thing I've seen in a long time," said Captain Crunc...

http://www.soundingsonline.com/dispatches/291061-video-the-biggest-no-the-baddest This is video but the link? 

"After all else fails," my dear old pappy used to say, "read the directions!" Who among us hasn't added to much hardener to the epoxy and wondered why it was smoking? I've screwed the pooch on many occasions but from the pros I expect better?  Whenever I walk into a boat repair place I always look for the older mechanics. That may sound politically incorrect or age bias but it has been my experience that the younger mechanics may be book smarter but they don't have the hands-on time. Case in point was a new starter that I didn't need. Whenever your boat won't start or even turnover it is most likely the battery. The Florida heat is as hard on batteries as the New England winters. Long ago the boat wouldn't start so I called the service department who sent a clean cut young mechanic over to the boat slip. After a very short diagnosis he exclaimed, "You need a new starter!" "How are the batteries," I asked ho...

The old versus the new is always a heated subject. Was boating better back 29 years ago or is it better today? Are we spoiled by technology or endangered by the leap in electronic navigation? Are boats built better today? In ancient China, the emperor wanted one absolute truth to be enscripted on his burial shrine. So he sent out a decree that every wise person in the land should put aside their work and come up with one indisputable truth. I wonder if we consumers could demand one boat builder build the absolute best boat? Does that concept even exist? Forgive my reaching for an idea! When I came to SW Florida 29 years ago the old timers were talking about the good old days. They remembered when fish jumped into their boats and everyone knew on which side of the channel to stay. Since I only have twenty nine years in which to remember, I am at a disadvantage. Despite my advanced stage of senility, what I can remember was better. Better, if only in the fact that there ...

"They're coming back, for sure by-yiminee," said Minnesota Sven as he watched the clubhouse of our beloved "Dead End Canal Yacht Club" fill up Sunday night. The low summer attendance numbers swelled from around ten members per meeting to 25 warm bodies on the patio by the time the keg was tapped. After a 45 minute gab fest where everyone wanted to know everything that happened last summer, the gavel dropped right on time. First point of order is the Commodore's report from the bridge which was "nothing much happened last summer!" Then the reading of the minutes of the last meeting was suspended because no one took any. Then the Treasurers report was next and then the normal battle started. "Commodore, let's suspend the report," suggested Cap'n Dick who'd just returned from Cheeecaga. "No way, this needs to be heard by all in attendance," answered Treasurer Paula. "We're broke and they need ...

Have you ever gone to a waterfront restaurant by boat? Do you know that in a recent survey of non-boaters, they really, really envy people who arrive by boat at waterfront restaurants? Many people have entered the sport of boating just so they can be among those who are envied. Despite surveys pointing to boaters being happier, more contented and better lovers. Non-boaters slough off all that off and concentrate on their desire to simply stepping off a boat and onto a restaurant’s dock. That is their main reason they might one day get into boating. In effect, you as boaters have a responsibility to boat to more restaurants. Not just for the great food or the enjoyment of being on the water with friends but to preserve the boating lifestyle. A skillful landing is often more difficult than it seems to non-boaters. Observers often break into animated discussions about a less a skillful landing when the skipper misjudged wind or tide or the speed needed to make the smooth landing. ...

WTF is up with all the boohooing about wild fires and Super storm Sandy and boardwalk fires and Colorado floods? Nobody mentions the Southwest Florida's disaster. One fly-over by Governor Scott-Free/w/da money is all we get. Listen up people and I'll tell you a real tale of woe! The Sanibel and Fort Myers beaches have tea brown water lapping at the shores. Tourists are vacating like 'Cane was coming and the fish are dying on the beaches. Why, because in the middle of our state there is a cesspool of pollution known as Lake Okeechobee where fish don't even spawn anymore. This disaster didn't happen overnight. The dairy farmers to it's North allowed Cow poop (phosphates) to wash downstream into the lake. The Corps of Engineers built a Dike around the whole lake to prevent another over-wash during a 'Cane like back in 1926 when thousands ppls were drowned. (A lot more if you count the black farm workers which they didn't in '26) Also to blame are ...

I am an unabashed, unrepentant 'Wing-aholic!' I am also a connoisseur of wings and you ask why I am qualified to claim that title, because I make the best wings, ever! Ever is a pretty big claim but I've worked at this for a long time. Why, because I love good, no, great Chicken wings and they are extremely hard to find on Fort Myers Beach. One other factor is, I like my wings cheap, like $.50 or $.60 each but hardly ever $1 but exceptions do arise. I once paid $15 for six wings in the San Francisco airport but I was starving between flights. I wish I could tell you they were the best wings I've ever eaten but they weren't. About equal to the ones at 7/11 dried out by the heat lamp. That brings us to my pet peeve. Dried out wings! Why don't they just serve Southern Pine whittled to look lie wings instead of the dried out tasteless wings that have been “precooked” and then cooked again. That is the way the 'Pukin' Pelican' does it. They cook ...

A salvage team tasked with removing the Costa Concordia, which ran aground off Giglio, Italy, is preparing to rotate the ship into an upright position using a technique known as parbuckling. Parbuckling involves using a purchase to pull the ship onto an underwater platform, then refloating it using sponsons. It has never been attempted on a vessel the size of the 952-foot Costa Concordia. The ship will be towed to a nearby port for dismantling. The Reuters news service produced this compelling report on the status of the salvage operation. The salvor, Titan-Micoperi, says the operation is 77 percent complete, according to The Parbuckling Project , which is documenting the operation. There are 28 vessels on site and an estimated 474 workers. After months of debating the risks, the Italian government decided that delaying the parbuckling until the spring might compromise the operation, according to a statement . The manslaughter trial of the Concordia's captain, Francesco Schet...

Insurance@BoatUS.com http://smtp.boatus.net/dm?id=2BE6F20834FDED56F441BC562729F56F

Here we are 2nd week of College football and we are so happy! Yet exhausted from non-stop 12 noon until after midnight. It's a lot harder when your favorite teams lose.

http://www.soundingsonline.com/dispatches/290967-video-mystery-sinking-solved--or-is-it

It's only a month before the snowbirds return, some are already here by the look of the long tables in a few Beach bars. It hasn't been a good summer for the young people and some have resorted to crime to get themselves through September. I heard a quiet squeak and then a splash. I'd been visited by the midnight maurader before so I rolled out of bed and flipped on the dock lights. I could see nothing so I picked up my shotgun and walked out through the pool cage wondering if I could invoke the "Stand Your Ground " law if I shot the maurader. I stayed in the shadow and waited for the timer on the lights to turn them off. Then it was total darkness and my eyes strained to adjust. I waited until I was nearly asleep again before I heard the second squeak. 'Why you cheeky bastard,' I thought. The noise was coming from two houses down the canal and I recognized the sound of a ill-used boat lift motor being hand lowered. It had to be Chicago Mike's bo...

You would expect harbor police to be careful, prudent boat operators — certainly not the type to crash at high speed into two boats tied up to a dock. But that’s what happened during the weekend in Washington, D.C. "No pun intended, but immediately my heart sank," Shawn Kuykendall, who had docked one of the two struck boats — a powerboat he borrowed from a friend — told WUSA 9 News . No one was aboard either boat, and no injuries were reported. Kuykendall had docked at Georgetown's Washington Harbour on Saturday and was at a nearby waterfront restaurant when the accident occurred. http://www.soundingsonline.com/dispatches/290956-video-police-hit-two-docked-boats

Erie Earl's Labor day picnic equaled emergency room visits. A half dozen boats ventured up the miserable mile to a small island behind Sanibel for a picnic and some beach fun. Not much beach but a lot of very sharp Oyster shells and a very hot morning sun. All was swell until one of Run-aground Ralph's grand sons cut his foot on a shell and bled something fierce into the water. Several other g-kids started the rumor that they had spotted sharks circling the blood and that ended the swimming. Ralph and family raced back to the canal. He ignored the 'Slow Manatee' signs at the bottom of Pine Island and was cited by a unsympathetic Sheriff's Deputy. Manatees over red-headed grand kids? Ralph was nearly arrested for dissing a Deputy but Mrs. Ralph talk their way out of another of his scrapes. We tried keeping the little ones under the pop up tents for shade but it was like herding cats. Their mothers were well into the second liter of wine when the Grandmothe...

http://www.uscgnews.com/go/doc/4007/1888001/ ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Four people were rescued by the Coast Guard after their 23-foot recreational boat capsized eight miles west of Clearwater Pass, Sunday. A person aboard the boat contacted Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg watchstanders at 9:48 a.m., via VHF-FM radio channel 16, yelling Mayday several times. "Using Rescue 21's fixed postion we were able to pinpoint their location of distress," said Petty Officer 1st Class Ronnie Leavell, a search and rescue coordinator at the sector. Sector watchstanders launched a 45-foot Response Boat-Medium crew from Coast Guard Station Sand Key to the scene of distress. Once on scene, the boatcrew plucked four mariners from the water. Their vessel has been marked as a hazard to navigation, but no pollution concerns have been reported. "Thankfully, all four were wearing their life jackets," said Leavell. "This case could of turned out much differently i...