01/28/99
The plight of a pillory idiot boater
From all of us who've stood at the Crandon Park marina and watched aghast as the weekend flotilla of reckless nitwits attempted to launch their boats: Bless you, Don Middlebrooks. He's the federal judge who has banned from Biscayne National Park a man named Guy Amodie Jr. Mr. Amodie came to the attention of U.S. authorities by plowing his large pleasure boat, She's a Lady, up on shallow sea grass beds. This occurred three times in a span of four months -- astounding nautical ineptitude, even by Florida standards. Judge Middlebrooks was so impressed that he fined Amodie a sobering total of $131,000, most of which will go toward restoring the damage he caused. Amodie was also banned for three years from both Biscayne and Everglades national parks. It was by far the toughest penalty ever handed out to a recreational boater, and it was desperately overdue. Sea grass beds aren't only important storm barriers, but crucial habitats for fish, turtles, plankton, lobsters and shrimp. It's against the law to run a motor vessel up on a flat, but it happens daily. From the air, the banks of Biscayne Bay and Florida Keys look like they've been attacked with a giant rake, the grass is so crisscrossed by errant propeller trails. Being various shades of brown, flats are easily distinguishable from deep navigable water, which usually is blue or green. So it takes a special brand of cluelessness to park a 46-foot vessel on a grass bed that's only 18 inches deep. Typical scenarios: 1. Idiot boater leaves port with no marine charts and a large cooler of beer. 2. Misreads several very tall, brightly colored channel markers, and proceeds to run his boat hard aground. 3. Scratches head in puzzlement, eats lunch and has another beer or two. 4. Doesn't wait for tide to come in so he can float off the bank. Instead, he guns his throttle and tries to grind his way back to blue water, spewing geysers of mud and leaving a hole the size of a hockey rink in the grass beds. Rarely are these brain-dead navigators caught in the act. When they are, the penalty is usually a negligible fine. Meanwhile the sea grass is shredded, the banks scarred for years. One day last April, Amodie was unlucky enough to run aground in the heavily traveled channels of Stiltsville, where a beached 46-foot cabin cruiser tends to draw stares. His did. Park rangers soon arrived. After refusing to take a blood-alcohol test, Amodie was taken into custody for eight hours. The next day he returned to the scene and tried to retrieve his vessel by simply roaring off the flats, gouging a crater in the grassy bottom. Amodie eventually would plead guilty to two counts of boating while intoxicated, and three counts of destroying, injuring or disturbing park resources. In addition to the hefty fine and the banishment, Middlebrooks gave Amodie four months of house arrest and three years' probation, and ordered him to begin alcohol-abuse treatment. Park rangers were excited, as they should have been, to see a judge so seriously address not only the environmental carnage but drunken boating, which is epidemic on all Florida waters. It was fortunate that Amodie went aground inside a national park, or he wouldn't have faced stiff federal charges -- and wouldn't be shelling out $131,000. That ought to be a stark warning to every potential maritime maniac, but many of them pay no more attention to the news than they do to the tide tables. May they all end up in front of Don Middlebrooks, or at the bottom of the bay, before they kill another living thing. By Carl Hiaasen Carl Hiaasen is a columnist for the Miami Herald. Readers may write to him at: 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132, or by e-mail at HeraldEd@aol.com. |