 |
| Last day at Titusville - the sun sets on our stay there |
There's been a lot of internet postings about problems in Marathon, Florida. It's a final destination for many snowbirds. With 220 or so moorings available, they have lots of room for transients. However, it's also the training grounds for Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) officers. Florida doesn't think the Coast Guard regulations are tough enough so they have their own requirements for boaters. For example, all dinghies must have not only the all around white light but also a red and green lights up forward, full running light for a dinghy! Furthermore, they have issued citations for boaters that have a dinghy tied to their moored boat when the dinghy didn't have its own anchor light (the mother boat was properly lighted)! Also, when motoring in the dinghy at night not only do you have to have the proper running lights but also nighttime flares (3) and also a class B-1 fire extinguisher along with a sound signaling device (horn). Of course, they continue the Coast Guard requirement of life vests for all. So today we visited our local Walmart and purchased a Class B-1 fire extinguisher for our dinghy (!) and a compressed air horn. We already had full running lights and life vests. To help address the requirement for an anchor light for the dinghy, we bought a sun powered patio light which is probably not legal but we would otherwise have to get a 12v battery and solar chargers, a little too much. We'll see what happens when we visit Marathon.
I'll turn the Hertz rental car in Monday morning and then we're off as soon as I get back (Hertz now offers free rides to and from the marina, competition from Enterprise I guess). We'll aim for the west side of the ICW at Eau Gallie for the night at anchor.
0 comments:
Post a Comment