Florida Anchoring Laws as of late 2017 are as follows:
- You may not anchor or moor within 150 of any marina, boat ramp, boatyard, or other vessel launching or loading facility
- You may not anchor within 300 feet of a facility that services or repairs a yacht with a water line of 120 feet or more in length
- You may not anchor within 100 feet from the marked boundary of a public mooring field
** You may only anchor within the above boundaries if:
-Your vessel suffers from mechanical issues that puts the vessel or persons onboard the vessel at risk of unreasonable harm (vessel may anchor or moor for 5 business days or until vessel is repaired, whichever occurs first)
-Imminent or existing weather conditions in the vicinity of the vessel pose an unreasonable risk of harm to the vessel or the persons on board such vessel.The owner or operator of a vessel or floating structure may not anchor or moor within the marked boundary of a public mooring field unless the owner or operator has a lawful right to do so by contractual agreement.
- You may not anchor or moor within the marked boundary of a public mooring field unless the owner or operator has a lawful right to do so by contractual agreement or other business arrangement.
- You may not anchor, moor, tie, or otherwise affix your vessel to an unpermitted, unauthorized, or otherwise unlawful object that is on or affixed to the bottom of the waters of this state.
- You may not anchor or moor a vessel that is at risk of becoming derelict (taking on water with no means to dewater, spaces on vessel that are designed to be enclosed are incapable of being sealed, vessel has broken loose or is in danger of breaking loose from anchor, left aground, sunk or partially sunk).
These laws are enforced by the Division of Law Enforcement of the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and its officers, the sheriffs of the various counties and their deputies, municipal police officers, and any other law enforcement officer.
A violation of these laws is a noncriminal infraction and the penalty is as follows:
1. For a first offense, up to a maximum of $50.
2. For a second offense, up to a maximum of $100.
3. For a third or subsequent offense, up to a maximum of $250.
Another way Florida is trying to keep derelict boats from piling up is by increasing the fine for expired registrations. Now the penalty for having a registration that is more than 6 months expired is $50 for the first offense, $250 for the second offense and $500 for the third offense and you must appear in court.
In addition to the laws mentioned above, anchoring limitation areas are being enforced in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. On July 1, 2016 overnight anchoring was banned in Middle River (between Northeast 21st Court and the ICW), Sunset Lake, as well as section of Biscayne Bay (between Rivo Alto Island and Di Lido Island; San Marino Island and San Marco Island; and San Marco Island and Biscayne Island).
These areas were selected because they are densely populated urban areas that have narrow state waterways, residential docking facilities, and significant boating traffic. Anchoring is still permitted during the day but is off-limits between 30 minutes after sunset and 30 minutes before sunrise.
This information was gathered from the 2017 Florida State Statute Chapter 327 .
I hope this helps!
Sierra
Thank you!
The state is trying to push people into public mooring fields like Marina Jacks in Sarasota.
I was born here in Florida and have seen this over the years.
they seem like very reasonable rules
The Miami restrictions is only done Because the rich don’t want us Parking And Blockimg Their View
That’s just ignorant. This won’t work if some of y’all don’t grow up and learn just a little respect. I am not rich. Pay $7,000 a year in property tax. I built and rebuilt my boathouse twice after hurricanes, no help from “fisherpeople”.
Live and let live, but yesterday four guys waded up UNDER my boathouse, so that’s basically IN my house. With spearguns. Uh uh. No.
Keep up the rude activities and laws will be changed because of a few self entitled jerks.
Try being nice and respectful if you want to keep fishing open. Jerk.
A motor boat doesn’t even need to be on water honestly unless it’s beam is over 8.5′ wide and I doubt your keeping a sailboat with a hinged mast step in a boathouse just by seeing you talk. If your boat was lifted out of the water you may have some cause of concern that something could fail and it fall on them and you wind up sued. You may want to post some signage if so. I’m a sailor and think you guys are the laughing stocks of the marina honestly, tying up slips used by people actually going somewhere. When I contrast what I do with what a person on a pontoon boat is doing, I find it very odd we refer to someone operating one as a business as a charter captain. Little tourist pontoons boats. Meanwhile I’m sailing, building yachts, making rigging and splicing, and I feel silly calling myself a captain, because I also work on cruise ships, and I don’t think I could pilot one of those at 300 LOA. I wouldn’t want to take out a Hatteras 114 I worked aboard either although I’ve been out on it. How does it make you feel when sailors are climbing masts checking the rig before leaving? It’s even more bizarre you’ve tied up access from someone via property ownership who has a vessel that draws more than yours and will now be beholden to marinas so you can have a boat you could splash at any ramp on property you own. Then you’ll turn around and complain when they are anchored out, that they may break anchor and hit your boathouse. Yeah, surprise, you have a negative effect on others lives too. I cringe when I see motorboats on any canal exceeding a depth of 3 feet. Sounds like you’ve got more money than your brains know how to deal with and failed to account for naturally occurring things that reduce hurricane damage in where you purchased property. That’s your own failing to do due diligence and a study on your property. Perhaps you missed the part that unless they entered the water on your land, they aren’t on your land. Your boathouse extends into public domain, they have to be UPON your boathouse to be trespassing. You probably wouldn’t have to spend so much money rebuilding boathouses IF YOU KNEW HOW TO BUILD THEM. Considering the permits for the dredge and pilings is already done. It’s wood and labor. Are you mad that FEMA wouldn’t pay for it? I use to get irritated when manatees would wake me up bumping my sailboat. Until I hauled out after 6 years of being in the water and didn’t even need a hull scrape. Thank you manatees. Now my boat is hauled and they are starving to death. You only own the property to low waterline of the body of water. if they were in water, sorry, you don’t own that, but your feeling of entitlement is solely in your head, to something you don’t even have a legal claim on because you paid too much in taxes for it. It’s your fault for accepting a government that raises property taxes by valuation and doesn’t have site valuation taxation. Mr, I’m not rich but I pay 7 grand a year in property tax, (which must mean you are pretty stupid) because you own property in one of the most expensive states to own property, entered into an agreement to do so by buying land there, accepted a tax system that allows them to increase your taxation if you improve the property or if they decide it’s worth more (which I don’t subscribe to personally), They should be encouraging improving society not tax penalizing for it. And actually fellow, during Hurricane Matthew and Irma, I lived aboard a sailboat, and my line of work after the storms repairing the houses that got damaged while jack shit happened to my ocean going sailboat. I took on more water during Florida’s daily rain storms than I did in either of those hurricane’s. My bilge pumps didn’t even kick on because the water level was too low for them to kick on. How many rivers did you extract from other people’s houses fellow? How much drywall of people OTHER THAN YOURSELF did you tear down and replace? How many roofs did you tarp other than your own? People who are fishing are not vessel owners. Nor are they dock workers or construction workers. You are expecting them to do something for you because they fish in water that happens to adjoin your land but every state in the country has zero ownership of waterways and they are following the laws and you are mad they are following the laws? Are you nuts? You should be mad your state taxed you for improving property instead of a site value taxation, but you are so mad someone else is enjoying their lives without being taxed to death for it. You would have a great case here, if your boathouse is on a pond, and you own the entirety of it, even more so if they stocked it, because that is theft in addition to trespassing. Your property deal didn’t grant you ownership of all the fish and moving water attached to it. I’m surprised you are even intelligent enough to own property. Are you sure you didn’t inherit it? I’m not surprised to see others have had similar reactions to your response. Much the same as the manatees cleaned my boat for me while waking me up, are people who are legitimately fishing not providing security by their presence keeping away the psychopath who’s been eyeing your boathouse and sizing up when you go to work to rob it? While I did suggest you likely paid out your ass to keep a boat that could be splashed from a ramp, be careful with that. Make sure you are doing it somewhere with security or tons of people fishing. Because if you splash a boat, you tend to leave a vehicle and trailer on land. And without anyone there fishing or security – which is how most public boat ramps are. Guess who comes in. The people who know you launched a boat and left your vehicle unattended. They’ll smash out your windows and strip your vehicle of everything. If your lucky they won’t hook your trailer and go. And you’ll have no people who like to fish to blame for it. You’ll be saying those “fisherpeople” weren’t here blocking my boatramp and they didn’t even stop the psychopath that smashed out my windows and even stole my trailer in broad daylight. Fisherpeople as you put it are tomorrow’s vessel owners. Or are you to suggest that, you own a boat, have a boathouse, but don’t really fish? I’ve known sailors that did it for the enjoyment without really caring to eat fish and were more drawn to voyaging and racing. But I’ve never met anyone in my life that liked to DRIVE a boat around just to get sunburned and complain about fishermen. I actually think the value of a house with a dock is that we don’t get stuck with someone like you at a marina. Keep up the rude activities and laws will be changed? Fishing is a rude behavior? Perhaps they should talk more kindly to the fish before killing it? You must think you funded the elected official and have control of the laws. Sorry fellow, the government just takes your taxes, the corporations choose who you can vote for. You said you weren’t that rich. So you are just being delusional in thinking you have any pull in changing laws. Also, if you said ANYTHING to those people doing that, they could have had you arrested for harassment. So I’ve just made a decision. I was looking at property today that would grant me access to the tip of a river. I could JUMP over my property line and never step foot on anyone else’s property because it has a lot of leeway left delineated open access to the actual shore and that touches a corner of the property. But I’ll be sure be watch out for KAREN boat owners on adjacent properties that think because their property line has more frontage they someone have more legal right to what is ACROSS THEIR PROPERTY line even though in the example of the property I’m talking about, I have the absolute right to cross my line onto what is delineated as the tip of the river and launch a boat into it. So long as myself or my boat doesn’t touch their land. You don’t own the AIR over your property either. But don’t tell the airlines that. They have more money than you. Maybe you should tell the Air Force to stop flying over your property. Here is reality. You don’t own property. You are only permitted to do what is allowed with it. Right now, you are complaining about what is allowed with the property you think you own. If I had a dock and there were folks out gigging I’d probably have a beer with them. Figured out who they were and if I should be concerned. Maybe try not being a douche and they’d probably give ya some of what they caught in return. I bet you have a lot of dock pics
Do you always wake up pissed off and long winded? Guess you missed the part about them carrying spear guns. Since you seem to be a long time resident and regulations knowledgeable individual, you should know that spear fishing may not be done with in 150 feet of the shore or dock or jetty. Most of us Native Floridians also know that many unscrupulous spear fishers use power heads. These are strictly forbidden and to even possess one on your boat is an arrestable offense. Yes, it is the few that mess everything up for the many but, that’s also why most beaches ban alcoholic beverages. Since my lineage here in Florida (1850 on Dad’s side, 1904 on Mom’s) we’ve been witness to many challenges to what was once paradise. Most done in the name of progress. I say we put out our “No Vacancy” sign and start sending those that migrated here after 1970 back from whence they came. Ridiculous isn’t it.
God you sound like a little 2-year-old cry baby shut the hell up already
I can’t believe I read all of that . I’m gathering info because I’m selling my house up north and buying a Morgan 382. Very nice and roomy . May have to move every three days …
Ahhh yes I never sailed a Morgan but knew those that did and watched them plow into docks, reefs and other boats and the Morgans took the hits. Each no worse and maybe better for the boat and the captains.
You’re an idiot. The jerk stated the waders had spearguns. Probably a lie that hes using to mask his greed based yankee attitude, but nevertheless if they did have spearguns and weren’t carrying identification it would win them a quick trip to jail. Its illegal in Florida to possess a spear or speargun within x amount of distance from any manmade structure or residential canal. I think you and Jerk should get a motel room and work things out. You both represent the bottom ends of both arguements.
Oh my God I love it give him hell
Your property rights end at the waters edge. By law, Florida waters are owned by the citizens of Florida. Public access to Florida waterways is an important and aggressively protected right. A waterway is considered private only if all the land around the lake is privately owned and there is no water access from any public area.
Amen to that! My kids boat, fish and swim in our area. We feel the danger if someone dumping waste overboard due to non functioning pumps. We too have a high number of boats entering and exiting our harbor. The scum boats are hauled off twice a year at the taxpayers expense. Not the freeloaders.
thats when you crank up the music at 530am!
The Florida freedoms of boating,fishing and beaches are becoming a thing of the past as more and more northern people move into Fl they bring yankee law with them the right to use the waterways and beaches were taken from those who have not and given to those who have they have destroyed what was once free to everyone and given it to the few in northern states and are now here in Fl to do the same when voting remember to vote for Fl natives and throw out the carpet baggers
Carpet baggers and Yankees! LMAO! You treasonous southerners LOST THE WAR. The only Confederate flag that mattered was a T-shirt on a stick!
You’d take a much different tone, boy, if you were standing in front of me.
Did I hit a nerve? Sounds like you might be a little light in your loafers, sweetie.
You are correct, as a Damn Yankee I agree stop the northern agression!!!
These high dollar socialists from communist states like New York will come here and destroy this state faster than they did New Jersey. They are professional legislators and politicians with plenty of experience in running the working man out by raising prices and taxes.
Bravo! You nailed it!
Bravo! You nailed it!
Now that’s just plain ignorant.
Keep drinking the koolade ( orange) . I lived in Marathon in the early 80’s . It was changing then .
Excellent idea. Give the money grubbing yankee gotminers the boot. 70 % of the the canal fronting homes in the Fl Keys are empty in the warm months, owned by Yankee Gotminers from NY, etc. The lions share of coastal county realtors in Fl are stinking carpetbagging yanks.
Nice job Sierra!! Thanks for the info.
I live on my sailboat in florida and when anchored in indian harbour beach florida a resident filed a complaint with the city Hall that i might destroy there dock in a storm if i break free. I held in a hurricane and the the cop’s still kicked me out of town by threatening to tow my boat and charge me all the bills for it when i have no income… The rich talk and the cops obey regardless of the law….
Oh, how selfish! I am not rich, barely make ends meet, but I DO pay $7000 a year for my little riverfront 120 feet. My boathouse was destroyed twice and heavily damaged a third time costing me nearly $100,000 since 04 because of improperly anchored sailboats crashing through it during storms and hurricanes. We cannot insure our docks on the IRL, did you think of that or Eve ven care? Unfortunately, many off the grid live aboard sailers are just escaping taxes and have nothing to offer when they damage someone’s property, just derelicts gone with the wind. And dump their poop in the IRL. So, IMO, some of these “Rich against the Poor” narratives are sadly one sided, totally unhelpful for any meaningful dialogue, and plain ignorant.
Why should you be allowed to have a dock on the peoples waterway? You want to live on the water, that’s fine, but if i can’t anchor, you shouldn’t be allowed to have a dock.
It’s Florida law is why. The law is made by the will of the people. You can lobby to change it, and that’s your right.
You need permission to anchor within 150 feet of a boat launching facility. But I am ok with respectful fisher men, I even have tossed them cold beers.
It’s just people as I said, with ignorant (and often barbaric attitudes). Poor parenting I guess.
I do have recourses and will use them…within the law.
Are you insane. In Florida and everywhere else the laws are made by career politicians and lawyers who
serve lobbyists for special interest groups.
Quit Lying Samantha. You’re making up a big fib as you go.
That’s when you find a waterway that is on a protected wetland where no one can build and anchor there. That’s how I wound up on this thread. Looking into the laws on doing that. Because there are no property owners to piss off. It’s all FEDERAL wetland while having a navigable body of water through it.
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What do you think Florida would look like if yankees didn’t come down here and bring their money . Think about it for the past 70, 80,maybe even 100 years. Yankees as you guys call us , brought down a lot of money which allowed Florida to build-up, hotels, Walmart’s , home depots newer houses, Better roads. Yankees pay more taxes which is helping the police and fire department, And yankees also living bigger more expensive house, And pay a lot of money in taxes which helps support the South and make it Beautiful place to live here. You should be grateful that you live in such a beautiful climate. yankees come down here and spend their Hard earn money working 40 to 50 years of their life and Bring their money down here till. You take care yourself
I think you are missing the point Joe. Florida would probably look like it did 100 years ago. It would probably have a lot more publicly accessible land and water.
We don’t want you to bring your money down to Florida and give us “better, bigger” things like Walmart, Home Depot, or bigger houses. Florida Wouldn’t need a better road infrastructure or the beach front hotels if the Northerner’s weren’t coming in droves. We don’t want you or your money. Go “improve” another state.
Bless Your Heart.
Amen. Florida was more beautiful without them.
Truth spoken.
But you guys need our money to take from us how else would you live if it wasn’t for our money you will still be in tin shacks
You speak like you own the state, sound a little like the mayor of New York.
Uhmm, Walmart is an Arkansas company, and Jim Walton is a republican contributer, Home Depot’s co founder announce his support for Trump in 2020 amidst a pandemic. A Floridian New York Democrat turned cheetoh combover sapian, parading around as a republican while giving us Reagan era trickle down economics that failed,and unlimited property tax rights offs on value losses by exactly the same people you are complaining about taking over Florida. While I do agree Walmart minimally improves Florida due largely to the profoundly cheap price of beef due to all the land developers using rent a cows to zone industrial and commercial properties as agricultural. That I’m actually ok with, until you can’t do it on residential land. You can have a hundred cows on residential land. Sorry no exemption. Just crying neighbors. Your property values would be flat if not for northerners. Jobs pay jack in Florida. I built yachts for SeaRay on Merritt Island at ooh $15 an hour. The same job with NauticStar in Mississippi paid 96K a year. We don’t want you or your money, what that means, is we got Florida and we want it all for ourselves, while we sit on our property investments, flip, and acquire more. Which that would be fine, if we cut all federal funding to Florida and kicked it out of the union and didn’t allow you to travel outside of the state of Florida without a passport, and into it as well. I vote we kick Space X, Blue Origin, and Amazon out as well and not allow Amazon to ship to Florida without paying an export tariff. LOL. Florida has passed laws barring people from buying land without US citizenship. And for the record, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush gave you every abortion law you have in existence. Bless your republican heart, because it’s on it’s way to hell. Hope you enjoyed Florida before you got there. It goes to show people don’t really think critically. Balance is the way to be most effective. I don’t wrestle with this stuff. It’s really simple to solve it. Tax land by SITE VALUE TAXATION multiplied by QUANTITY of LAND owned across ALL US territories PER INDIVIDUAL whether they hide it under a corporate name of not. You want to stop your land from being monopolized. Put some tax laws in that punish people for doing it instead of letting them put 5 cows on a 50 acre plot and call it agricultural while they subdivide it and carve up roads and sell it to you as residential, and that’s if they don’t build an Amazon on it. Go to Amazon Ruskin right now you’ll see a field with a handful of cows beside the parking lot of thousands of spaces. Florida’s greatest threat is AIRBNB, you are about to be forced out of all rental housing access by that entity. You’ve failed to limit them by a progressive property taxation scale. And none of what I’m saying is new. This is all 1890’s Henry George economics. The problem. Was George died, and the rich got to right the laws that benefit themselves. So you are here complaining that rich people are doing what they are allowed to do. When you should be complaining about the laws that allow it and even ENCOURAGE IT because the more the properties are valued, the more taxes are generated upon them. Something you don’t get with SITE VALUE TAXATION, which is a value assessed by what surrounds the property. Not a fair market or improvement value. Don’t conflate me with a democrat either, but what I see you complaining about here is republican capitalism. I’m actually ok with beachside condo’s. My problem is when they want to tie up navigable waterways and force liveaboard sailors out. Here is a reality check. If you don’t sail. You don’t really belong in the deep water areas of Florida. You are tying up navigable waterway critical for sailors just because you like the weather. But to agree with you on one point, they do elevate your cost of living by using revenue gained in a higher earning area of the country to monopolize land in the south at what was a lower rate. Brazilians go to Miami work three months then head back to Brazil and live as kings. This phenomena is buy low sell high capitalism that shakes out to cultural Marxism. I gave you the answer to your woes within this. Balance is the key. I agree with you the pretty roads mean very little. My first trip into Florida I was in a rental car on those pretty roads to buy a sailboat, and because of the traffic on those pretty roads, the car in front of me switched lanes no turn signal and I ran over someone’s fender from a car wreck that the police couldn’t clear out of the road because of the traffic. Luckily, the rental company didn’t notice the damage and I was able to halfway snap the front of the car back to together, but I know it was missing some of it’s attachment points. I agree though with your sentiments of OLD WORLD Florida. But don’t think for a second the north has Walmarts. The north tends to ban Walmarts actually. The Walmart capital is probably Mobile Alabama. Look up how many Walmarts are there. DC metro area for example. No Walmarts. There is a Target there with a parking garage you take an escalator up to get into the store. Your problem shouldn’t be northerners, your problem should be greedy monopolists. Those condo’s on the beach aren’t simply northerners, they are land developing firms from all over the country. I got forced out of my marina by one that took over out of Virginia. Virginia is still southern. Capitalists will do whatever they can to make a buck. That’s capitalism. Don’t like it. Move to Cuba. You’ll get lots of old world heritage there. You probably should be complaining more what mass agriculture is doing to your state by contaminating it’s waterways than hotels on the beach. Or perhaps of nuclear subs dumping spent nuclear fuel offshore, enriched uranium and plutonium in tapwater. Neighborhoods built on land with nuclear waste buried by Patrick AFB and rezoned residential and sold for a buck. You folks in Florida need to work on your nepotism and threatening to kill people that aren’t sycophants you perceive as liberals. I’m every bit as southern as you are. I grew up on the Mobile Bay and in Dothan Alabama, merely miles from the Florida line. If you saw me back then, oh god I was such a tourist. When no, I was just someone who’s family built a little further inland to be hurricane protected. And that hurricane that hammed Panama City, You can drive the strip of destruction right up to Dothan Alabama and the destruction wanes off right as you enter the city and you can see my old house. Totally unharmed. Don’t get me started on how many of you folks are scamming FEMA to fix your screwed up houses that already had problems before storms hit. I use to work as a fire, flood, and mold damage mitigation in Florida. My last project, we had to limit our remodel because it turned out this ladies house was lined in blue crystalline asbestos which is common in Florida, beware blue houses. She had her house redone by Fema, drywall taken out of half of it, new floors and joists put in because her joists were rotting. Guess what had caused it all. Living on a canal which is the most expensive property in Florida aside from beach and riverfront. The humidity caused her joists to rot. Her husband put in her HVAC system and didn’t seal it. So condensation was blowing through walls in her house and molded it throughout. Paid for by FEMA. It got caught at the end of the project because in a mold damage you leave that system off to not pull mold into it. Well when she called us back complaining of more mold the AC was on, and you could see water condensing on her power breaker box because the metal was getting colder than the surrounding drywall because her AC was not sealed and was blowing through her walls. Or how about how Florida will not let you build your own house, it must be done by contractors, yet the QUALITY is lower than that of homes in Mississippi where they ALLOW you to build your own home up to 50 thousand dollars without having to hire a contractor. You can’t blame New York on those policies. Those are policies designed to keep working class people out and gentrify the state. This is fundamentally the crux of your complaint. You feel as though you are being gentrified, and it’s true. To en extent. Now you know how it feels to be black EVERYWHERE IN THE USA.
Another point that should be mentioned, is under Trump, we attempted to make the work opportunity tax credit permanent, which is the loophole that allows the ultra rich to pay less than 1 percent and in some cases be paid by the federal government to operate. Amazon comes to mind as having been paid to operate by the federal government in I want to say 2017 or 18. Have to look it up. These same corporations that have moved in and BLOWN UP your real estate market in Brevard County. Land went from 6-8 K to 30k an acre just with Amazon moving to Orlando, and now it’s upwards of 70k an acre. And to the lady below, uhmm I’ve never been to south Florida. I hit Fort Lauderdale and turned around. The folks there drive like they want to kill pedestrians by not stopping to right turn on red lights. Which is customarily when that pedestrian is suppose to be crossing. And between that and all the canals you cannot walk hardly anywhere. Seems like you may want to entertain elevated rail systems to some degree. One thing prevalent I see that is absolutely retarded is putting power lines above ground within proximity to navigable waterways (why Florida wants to leave them above ground is beyond me – but seems that was voted on and the electricians like the risk pay of being in bucket trucks more than handed a shovel). I’ve seen many many many properties of navigable canals made unsailable because oh these apartments of here with their fancy HOA ran power lines over the canal. And yet somehow the actual loss in property values on that canal isn’t recognized, because a motor boater will buy it. Irritating. Because these are the ones that can splash in just about any boat ramp and not have to worry about bridge clearances. But because we are too stupid to put power lines below ground in these areas. This is the result. Not to mention what happens when hurricanes decimate these above ground power lines in a state smacked routinely by hurricanes. I can go on and on and on and on. I haven’t even touched on how not having a site value taxation multiplied by quantity of land owned per entity and these agricultural exemptions keep us locked into mass agriculture, mining phosphorous to fertilize it, massive dead zones in the Gulf when the Mississippi River discharges the agricultural runoff. But lets not forget the republican administrations of Florida since Bush dumping 900 thousand tons of human biosolids into the St John’s River and calling it free fertilizer. While it’s safe to a point to do that those nitrates do seep into your ground water and elevate the nitrate levels which once they reach ten percent are downright unsafe to drink for humans. As far as the comments on sailors dumping into waterways. I think the problem lies in people not having a clear understanding that if you use your holding tanks only for fecal matter, minus toilet paper which can be incinerated, and pissed overboard which is relatively safe, you wouldn’t really have the need to discharge the more dangerous fecal matter. Dead serious. I’ve been in a situation where I’ve had to live with a lug a loo. It took me over two months to fill a five gallon bucket with just poop. I think that’s an easily solved problem just by using your brain. The government treating urine which is sterile as blackwater ultimately results in people at anchor filling up their tanks and dumping fecal matter illegally. When they could have gone a very long time without needing a pump out had they simply been leaving the urine out of the holding tanks. So it’s an example of where an overreaching policy ultimately results in more damage. Would south Florida’s septic tanks be overflowing if people simply pissed on the grass? I’ve actually been on jobs were apartment complexes had municipal sewage back up into the the lower floor units of their complex in Florida. But don’t pee overboard within 3 miles of a coastline, just wait until you get back to your hotel’s swimming pool and let her rip, free of penalty. Liveaboard sailors are working class people, people pissing in pools are tourists. $$$. Don’t pee in the river, just wait for the state to let 900 thousand tons of human biosolids go into the river you can’t pee in. If you own property along that river, we’ll pretend it didn’t hurt your property value, because if it did you’d owe less property tax. That said, I’d never agree dumping human feces intentionally in a waterway is a good idea for sanitation. Now that I think about it, when my marina was overtaken by AirBNB for many many many months before I left they had a septic leeching out into a lower level parking lot then down into the marina water. Full discharge of untreated waste right into the water all the people on the boats walked their asses up to the head to prevent from happening. Here is a tip for sailors though in Florida. Try to keep a federal registration or utilize Florida 6 month on the water registration laws to avoid registering with Florida. When a marina takeover occurs the firs thing they do is make you register with Florida. If you are coast guard registered or out of state they will evict you with a 72 hour notice. And you are lucky if you even get that. I saw many sailors sent packing to anchor out in the river ahead of a hurricane while they were originally docked in a hurricane hole marina we use to pack with boats during hurricanes. What’s really happening there is two things. The rich and the government have partnered against you. And you registering with the state grants the marina power of lien law. Then what you’ll see is sycophant workers who signed on with the new marina to keep their boats there sizing up what gear is on other people’s boats they want. Then pushing to get that boat without a functioning motor evicted. What winds up happening. Is it wound up being crushed in the water by an excavator on land loading them over in to 20 yard cans. Oil and transmission fluid going everywhere in the water. I worked the Macondo Prospect oil spill. I saw more oil in the water with them doing that than during that oil spill. And the port authority gave them the permission to do it, while the septic tank was still pouring over, and they are evicting people that are living aboard into a hurricane. I was fortunate in that my sail strategy involved being able to haul out onto a trailer with my Albin Vega and not being beholden to marina’s. So I simply hauled out. As I was leaving the marina evicted despite complying with their terms they were crushing an Alberg 30 in the water. Though I can remember workers mentioning things to me about my outboard bracket and various equipment aboard before this. What they were doing was sizing up what they could gain by stripping my boat after seizing it. I refused to comply with registering in Florida and registered my vessel in Mississippi and cited my vessel can be in Florida waters less than 6 months per calendar year without registration. This action prevented them from being able to lien law and crush my vessel. I saved an Albin Vega from AIRBNB that day. Couldn’t save the Alberg 30, and that boat while being tossed for being a little rough on the outside, was in pristine condition inside. An Alberg 30 though, is pushing the limits on what is trailerable. So they were stuck, because of this marina acquisition eviction amidst a hurricane coming all the marinas were full up, and because these new owners weren’t packing the hurricane hole marina, people were left out at anchor to weather a pretty serious hurricane. Don’t ya love capitalism. A system designed by the rich to keep you constantly working or constantly moving, unless you join their ranks and do it to others. NO LOITERING. Keep your covid moving. We’ve gone from covid denial, to mask denial, to mask enforcement and barriers, to vaccines and mask barrier abandonment (I feel to test the vaccines in real world conditions), now realizing breakthrough back to masks and barriers, while everyone has been swinging like the roaring 20’s with their vaccines, that may or may not ultimately wind up having boosters at this point. I have family that lost their colon from blood clots after taking 2 Pfizer’s. And that’s one I can get a booster for when I’m 25 years older LOL. What I can say I learned with Florida law while looking at properties with navigable waterway access is that you can IN FACT anchor within 150′ of a marina, boat servicing facility, or someone else’s dock if weather conditions are such that it is a risk to your life. So what we should have done during that AIRBNB marina takeover, was moved our boats out of the slip AND DROPPED ANCHOR because hurricane was coming in. Blocked the whole marina and channel off. LEGALLY. And no more vessels would have been able to be evicted for lack of a way out. What would you call that…hmm…a naval blockade protest.
Ive lived in South Florida for almost 50 years. Florida used to be sooo much better: Pristine white natural beaches, savannahs, scrub pine forests, and live oak hammocks. The aquifer put out clean, delicious water in most places, and septic tanks weren’t overflowing entire neighborhoods. Now it’s congested roads, gas stations, fast food, and rundown apartment complexes and condos, and everywhere smells like asphalt, gas fumes, and drain fields. You can keep your grimey money, yankee, i’d rather have my grassland back.
Oh, please with the progress argument already. Florida would be a paradise without all the so called infrastructure that just supports more yankee gotminers.
The crap you people think is great is what’s wrong with Fl. That, along with your mindset. “Woohoo! We’ve made the NE an unlivable shthole, now lets go kill off what’s left of the once great state of Florida.”
Sierra-thank you for your hard work!
I’m in lake worth, have a17 foot sloop and am looking to comply with legal mooring , fwc sent me back to the city of lake worth naturally I want a stable mooring to put my boat on. Does anyone know the local rules?
That’s when you find a waterway that is on a protected wetland where no one can build and anchor there. That’s how I wound up on this thread. Looking into the laws on doing that. Because there are no property owners to piss off. It’s all FEDERAL wetland while having a navigable body of water through it.