Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Stuart - a Victory of Sorts

Stuart and Martin County reversed their 300 foot buffer zone in Manatee Pocket after strenuous opposition from boaters incensed at losing this superb anchorage. This shows what we, as boaters, can do to stop this insidious removal of our rights to anchor.
An interesting side story came up here. This website contacted Sarah Heard, the commissioner for the Manatee Pocket area, to discuss the buffer zone and anchoring issues with her. She absolutely denied that - well, let me give you the quote:

No one has proposed prohibiting anchorage in the Manatee Pocket, Mr. Moran.

Sarah Heard

Yet at the November 22 meeting - well, here's another quote, this time from Mike Ahern's Waterway Guide story -

Commissioner Sarah Heard of District 4 asked, "Is there a way that we can prohibit anchoring in any area 
other than the two "pods" on the map?" Fitzpatrick responded, "There's nothing directing us one way or 
another, except that we have received a lot of emails from people who were upset that we were eliminating any anchoring in Manatee Pocket."
"How do we keep boats from anchoring in the unregulated areas?" asked Heard..."

So we now know quite clearly who our enemy is in Stuart. It's Sarah Heard. Keep that fact in mind folks. For the full story on the Manatee Pocket victory, see this page here.

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