Well what a way to start off a Sunday. After leaving the boat, going about our normal ride into the marina, we were stopped by the federal wildlife offers for speeding through the channel. Now, if you were to ask anyone, we are no different from anyone else in the marina, or for anyone who uses this channel here at Dinner Key Marina. We are constantly pummeled by huge wakes put off by people speeding past or even though the boats here in the mooring field.

As I am writing this, we are getting put sideways by the boats passing by. Well so we got a ticket. This is our first time we have ever been stopped on the water, the first we have heard that you can’t get up on plane in the channel, everyone else seem to do it in much larger boats. There is a sign on the other side of the channel up a way that says in the shallow area you can’t do that, which I know and understand. As well as when you get into the harbor you can’t do that as well and is marked. So why all the sudden is rule never been enforced, maybe I haven’t given it much attention to it happening but out of all people why us.

We obviously know not to do it anymore but this is bogus because it seems no one else has gotten stopped today besides us. So now we have a bogus $175 citation for putting off a wake in a “manatee zone”. I mean in a dinghy how fast can you possibly go compared to the people driving the huge fishing boats who are putting off a 4′ wake!! I don’t see anyone stopping them….

Later that day: All day we were able to witness all the boats speeding by ours that were going a lot faster than us and were a lot bigger. Isn’t the problem the people who are visiting these waters rather than living on them? No one got stopped at all today after our incident. Such a shame. At least we had a pretty end to the day.

**As always let us know your thoughts (keep the bad ones to yourself though). Sympathy is always appreciated!