Winterfest Wrap Up

The massive boat parade was, as it usually is, very nice.

I had a much better position this year. I was placed pretty much just to the side of the main route. Way closer than the public was allowed to be. Volunteering paid off this year.

I was actually scary close. The first three boats that come through are sponsored, or maybe even owned, by the Seminole Tribe.

The same Seminole Tribe that paid something like $10 BILLION to buy up the entire Hard Rock empire. All the restaurants, all the hotels, and all the casinos.

Them likeum casino. Pale face go to casino with a lot of money - leave with a little money. Chief Wam-Pum take days to count all the swag collected in just one hour.

But hey! Nobody forces people to the casino!! And we DID steal their land. And try the whole genocide thing to get rid of them. So I guess it all worked out. For the tribe members alive today anyway.

But history and shit nobody can do anything about aside - the first three boats in the parade were enormous. I was surprised there was enough water for them to be able to float!

And when they passed me I could not have been much more than 25 yards or so away. So after I confirmed that I was supposed to be where I was, and that I was NOT considered to be in the channel, rather off to the side of the channel, and able to see I was not going to get run over by a cruise ship - I was able to chill out and just watch stuff float by.

And then 10 minutes later (or less) one of the parade boats hit a day marker. Once again - I had front row seats. I do not think anyone on the boat was hurt - but the boat had to take some damage. There was that "fiberglass hitting steel" sound. Kind of a crunching scraping cracking sound. The bow popped down and the stern popped up. I do not think the boat even slowed down. If it was in reverse trying to slow down when it hit then the stern would not have popped up as much.

And more importantly, the boat would have backed up almost right away. Once the steel post of the day marker stopped the forward motion.

But what happened after the noise was that the boat sat there for about 10 or 15 seconds. THEN it backed up.

Now if it were my boat......well I would not have hit the marker. See I have the GPS and electronic chart I paid all this money for. So I use it. I can look at the GPS screen and it shows me where I am, where I am going, and what is around me. So when I see on the GPS screen that there is a day marker near by I LOOK FOR THE THING! Then I DO NOT HIT IT.

Pretty simple concept really.

But....shit happens. That is why it is called "shit" and not "a wonderful, fragrant, cheerful bouquet of flowers I would love to have in my living room".

Anyhow assuming I was not paying attention to the thing I paid the money for and I was not looking for steel posts with reflective signs attached to them and I did not one - I would check the vessel for critical damage. You know, hull leaks. Punctures. Cracks. Smashed in fiberglass. Something like that.

However what do I know? Probably nothing.

The cops also saw it and they pulled the boat over. I do not know what happened after that.

And now here is the fun part. After the incident the US Coast Guard showed up to make sure the marker was OK. It was. The marker was fine. Then they asked me if I could move to act as a floating "hey watch out for this day marker" lighthouse. The reasoning was that surely someone would see me, with my 4 strings of LED Christmas lights covering the t-top on, the pretty bright LED anchor light on, the rotating orange light on, and my blue LED strip lights on.

So I did that. And nobody else (that I am aware of) crashed into anything else. So I guess I did a good job acting as a lit danger marker.

I have some photos to put up, but they need to be resized and shit. Ill have them up very soon!!!