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

Unprepared Boating is Worrisome? SEE FUNNY VIDEO AT END OF BLOG Just over 700 ppl died while boating last year. Not bad compared to the number who died on the roads. Alcohol is blamed in many of these deaths. So boating is safer than driving? Now that Run-aground Ralph and several other members of the 'Dead End Canal Yacht Club' have joined one or another Boat Clubs', I'm worried about the seamanship required and learned while belonging to those boat club. Seamanship doesn't require years of experience, it can be learned from taking classes from the coast guard auxiliary.  Or acquired while working on a boat. But the boat clubs members don't wash the boat they use, change the oil, lube the steering cable nor launch or retrieve that boat. All they really are required to do is bring back the boat full of fuel! That may be okay for the lazy experienced boater but what does it teach the novice? I never worried while boating when I was...

Why I got into Boating or The Caboose Ride from Hell! PART TWO Forty five years ago! ...And the rain started and the wind blew and the train wrecked! There wasn't a scale in Lisbon so the Bill of Ladings had no weights and no overweight notations on the hopper cars. They were loaded by John Deere type front-end loaders so we had no idea if they were level loads or not. In the back of our minds, every Conductor and Engineer mulled over those questions whenever taking a train down that old, poorly maintained tracks. But it wasn't our jobs to know or check? There is an old Railroad Poem that explains the frustration of most of that era's train crews; "It's not my job to run the train. The whistle I don't blow.  It's not my job to say how far, the trains supposed to go.  I'm not allowed to pull the brake, or even ring the bell.  But let the damn thing jump the track, and see who catches hell!" I...

The Caboose Ride from Hell! In my past life or in the past, in my life I worked on the Railroad. Please don't sing that song, I hate it! In 1964 I graduated High School in a quaint town along the Mahoning River in Mahoning County, Pennsyltuckey. That is what some New Yorkers call the hinterland between New Jersey and Chicago. Those were good years for young people looking for jobs. I applied to 3 railroads and two steel mills and was called by every one but the one I really wanted to work for, the Erie. Two of my Uncles by marriage worked on the Erie but I never put them down as references. When they found out, I went to work immediately! The switch yard at night is a very confusing and scary place. There were powerful lights on high towers and the reflection off the shiny rails seemed to go in every direction, reminded me of shiny tinsel thrown haphazardly on a Christmas tree. Add to that there were rail cars that constantly rolled passed. My mouth was as dry ...

What is Donald Trump and his family doing to my Republican party? If you've seen me recently, I'm sure you've whispered into the back of your hand, “He looks to be in a daze?” And you'd be right. It all began many, many years ago when my favorite County Commissioner switched from the 'D' designation to the 'R' designation. Still, he never broke stride in his cause for middle of the road issues. Then I noticed that the Reagan years had converted most Southern 'D's to 'R' without any discernible change in their policy, even Jim Crow. “Why, how, when did this happen,” I asked Conservatives and Progressives alike. Then the common sense answers lined up behind the fact that there weren't enough Progressives in our County to fill a primary voting booth. “There are plenty of Progressives but no Progressive candidates for which to vote,” said a die hard 'D' who had switched to 'R' just so he could vote. I hope ...

July 3rd, 2017 Back in the log cabin days, I remember the 4 th of July fondly. My spinning a sparkler around, and round until it went out and then my Dad would light another until the package was empty and we were done. The folks let some of us stay up until almost midnight on the front porch. One year we even dragged pillows and blankets onto the swing or floor just in case there were more BOOM! Some how we awoke in our beds. Maybe I dreamed it or maybe the Fireworks Ferry carried us up to bed. The 5 th of July was spent searching for remnants of the explosives that we had watched. A fragment of paper or string was a prize worth a lot of marbles in any trade. We never heard an Ambulance that I can recall. We heard all the gory stories around the baseball fields but never saw anyone missing fingers or eyes. There was one man with Angela Jolie lips on our paper route who had put a dud firecracker in his mouth as a young boy while he struggled to light another match. ...

The clenched jawed, white haired woman said,” You aren't taking my Grandchildren 30 0r 40 miles offshore in that 24' boat!” “Mom, it's brand new, less than a hundred hours on the engine with all the safety equipment that we'll ever need,” the Son replied. “I put up with you and your Fathers' foolishness because I was outvoted but a Grandmothers vote supersedes everybody,” she retorted. I started to slink away from the 'Pukin' Pelican's bar but wasn't stealthy nor quick enough. “Tell her boatguy, you've been out there plenty and always made it back,” said the Son. “He has nothing to say about this. Everybody knows about his fool hardy escapades in small boats or sinking boats BUT he's been plain lucky,” she said with the her Grandmotherly assuredness! There it was, my out, a clear path to the door. Yes I was lucky and even luckier, I was free because she dismissed me. Did I take it, no! I sat back down and blurted out, ...

"We're in a bind here," shouted the boater from the sandbar, "can you pull us off?" In most cases any boater would gladly help another boater in distress but this case was different. The stranded vessel was completely surrounded by sand and was a good two feet from water. "How long have you been aground," we asked. "We were shelling and the water just receded," answered the young woman walking around the boat. After checking the tide chart we noticed that the next high tide was eight hours away so we explained the situation to the stranded couple and offered a solution. "We'll nose our boat into shallow water and you can wade out to us. We'll take you to the nearest dock or wherever and you can call some friends, okay?" "We can't do that, this is a rental boat and we have to have it back in an hour. Just throw us a line and give us a pull," said the young man holding a short dock line and m...