Missouri: Police Roadblock Harassment Caught on Tape

[TurboDan]

When I'm THAT drunk, I just crash on the boat

Ha, I have a good story on that topic - reposted from a fishing web site I frequent in a "funny scenes at the boat ramp" thread:

Cove Haven Marina (now Lightning Jack's), Brick, NJ, Manasquan River:

First day of boating season, circa 2000. It's that first week of warm weather in April, and the marina near my house is full of people splashing their boats for the season - including some new boaters.

There's the usual array of "incidents," including a couple of the forgotten plugs. However, there's this one guy who gave himself a bit too much credit for a newbie. Apparently, he had never owned a boat before, and had purchased a 30' (or so) CC over the Winter. He planned on taking about five minutes to get his boat in the water and then spend the rest of the day fishing. He had no one with him helping, but figured he could do it. He has a cooler of bait and an equally large cooler of beer.

So, the hours are going by. My boat is in, and I'm working on setting up my slip. I'm hammering in the fenders, tieing all of the lines, setting the minnow trap, and doing the rest of the first-day-of-the-season activities. Ran 10 minutes back home a few times, decided to get a new propeller, blah blah blah.

The other guy's day isn't going as well. He's having every problem in the world with his brand spankin' new boat, but refusing help from everyone that's offering. As he sweats in the 80 degree weather, he begins having the sandwiches he packed as well as the beers to wash it all down. He slowly but surely makes it through most of the icy cold beers he packed as he works on the boat.

He's definitely unintentionally hammered at this point, but makes it down the ramp just fine and parks his truck. He unties his boat from the floating dock, pulls out of the marina, and drives his new boat at full speed (that he spent all day working on) right up onto a HUGE sand bar. 

Poor bastard had to wait hours until high tide to even attempt to move it. At least he had probably sobered up!   

[J86]

   Those people get what's comin'- boater's are friendly, listen when they have sound advice to offer!

I once ran an ex-girlfriend's fahter's boat (38' Baltic, proper boat!) onto a sandbar and had to wait over three hours for the tide because I, um, wasn't terribly focused on the course of the boat at the time...

[TurboDan]

LOL.  I'd spend a few hours on a sandbar for, er, whatever reasons might steer me off course for a few moments when there's a girl onboard. 

My uncle has a 37' sailboat.  I haven't been out THAT many times, but on a few occasions, I've been piloting it while he's been doing stuff below.  Maybe it's because I don't sail on a regular basis, but I'm always freaked out that it's going to run aground somewhere.  I stare at the damn depth finder more than what's ahead of me! 

I suspect that if I did hit a sandbar in a 37' sailboat, I wouldn't be able to get out and push like on my boat.    The only time I was ever scared to hit bottom was when I hit one just inside of an inlet with oncoming boat traffic, during a summer thunderstorm - because I may or may not have decided to cast my fishing rod without realizing I was being basically pushed ashore.  Ahh, fun times on the water.    :P