Rude Behavior

When I first arrived in Sitka, I was told that most Sitkans were pretty darn polite to each other. I asked the reason for this and was told that you never knew when you'd be in dire straights out on the water and need a helping hand. Experience has taught most of the people up here that now and then their lives can easily depend on each other. As such, there are very few "rude behavior" incidents. There are however incidents of extreme heroism in which boaters leave a safe "hidey-hole" in the middle of killer storms to risk their lives in order to save others.

What is the most amazing is when the Coast Guard or the community gathers to recognize these true heros, those heros can hardly stand the attention. Inevitably they respond that of course they literally risked their lives, there just was no other option and they knew someone would do the same for them.

Yes, the weather stinks in the winter up here, but the trade off is that you get to live around the type of people that used to be everywhere in America. Rude behavior up here can result in a very lonely death.
 
Here's the flip side of the "helping hand" thing.

2 years ago (many of you WA folks will remember this), the Harborview Marina in Gig Harbor burned to the water. A battery charger aboard one of the boats caught fire & the whole thing went up.

marina_fire_3_083105.jpg


My mother & father in law lived at the end of that dock in their 50' Krogen. The morning the fire broke out, their 65' fishing trawler was tied up alongside, as she was getting ready to head out for another tuna trip.

The neighbor (one boat over) was the dock manager & he had walked up the dock to the parking lot for something when the fire erupted - the fire spread so fast that he couldn't get back down the dock (covered marina) - he radioed his wife onboard their boat and told her to go wake up my father in law as it was early in the AM (my mother in law was enroute to our house to see the grandkids).

The neighbor's wife got onto my father in law's boat and got him up & he ran up the dock to try and make it to the fire hose, but by this time the fire was soming down the dock fast, "Backdraft" style. He got her onto his boat and he gotup into the pilothouse and got her started. By this time the flames were to his boat and it was on fire.

He didn't have time to cast off & gunned the boat in forward & then reverse & snapped the cleats off (remember, there's a 65' steel hulled fishing boat tied alongside.)

THe crew from the fishing boat were up now & had on their fire gear & were aboard his boat with the Halons, they got the fire out by the time he was about 100' off the dock, but the entire starboard side was torched from the waterline to the top of the pilothouse.

He motored her out farther away from the dock & was about to drop a pick when a guy on a POS dive boat motors up to him and offers to tow him out a bit further into the harbor. John says no, as the fire was out & they were about to anchor anyway. The guy really presses it & John finally says OK. The guy tows him about 25' further & they anchor.

A week later this guy puts a million dollar lien on each of the boats and claims marine salvage rights. He even went so far as to try and prevent the fishing boat from going out fishing. They had to "lawyer up" and spent over a year getting the case together to defend themselves from this a-hole. There was video tape and a ton of witnesses corroborating the facts as I've described them, but in the end, the insurance company paid this guy $30,000 to go away. Turns out the guy has pulled this same thing before too.

50 boats and a multi million dollar marina lost that day, not to mention the miracle that they got off the dock with only minor burns and this guy swoops in for a payday.

Guess that goes beyond "rude"...
 
PWC people are a pain in the ass where I boat. Total disregard for and rules of the road.

I am very supprised there are not more injurys and death then there is.

Another group with seems to be growing (gasp) is these idiots that pull their kids behind them on these floating death traps.
I was coming down our river heading home, it was avery busy weekend boats were flying by, I had two pass me (i was at 19kts) one on each side, while boats where heading in the opposite direction. keep in mind the river at this point is about 60 yards across...suddenly I look there is a a 8-9 year girl being pulled
by a boat...she is hanging on for dear life thru the wakes that are being kick up. I slow down just as she goes flying into the water.
Of course I come to a complete stop at that point....other boats still flying by! I am just thankful I seen her in time.
It amazes me that these people "morons with money" put their children in such harms way....

a few years ago a PWC person with their daughter on board decided they would run wide open up to a pontoon boat and cut hard and splash the people on the boat, only problem was he cut the engine at the last moment which meant he lost all steering ...not good...he hit the boat, daughter who was about 6-8 years old went flying she hit the boat decapitating her...he ended in a coma finally dying....
MOST PWC are a clear and present danger as far as I can see.


James
 
James,

Your story about the PWC crashing into the pontoon boat is sad, but I guess that is natures way of cleaning out the gene pool. It does upset me that the idiot killed his daughter for his stupidity....I'll never feel good about that. :(

Squarehead,

Your story is very disturbing because that scum-of-the-earth lives to prey on some other poor unsuspecting soul. I do have faith that in the end people get what they deserve.

-Carl
 
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