Watch inept boaters catch air and lose passengers at this Boca Raton inlet

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/08/08/watch-inept-boaters-catch-air.html

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I gave a like just for the Caddyshack reference.

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That’s fucking horrifying. Seriously. Searching for a person overboard and “don’t know how this ends” is not for shits and giggles.

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I would have enjoyed this a lot more were it not for the fact that I think I threw out my (admittedly always dodgy) back just watching. And because of how many of the passengers were children, few of whom—if any—were wearing life jackets.

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In the thread on YouTube there’s an update - the guy is fine, having swum for the rocks after falling out. The videographers didn’t notice there was a problem until they were in editing.

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Thanks for that. I really appreciate it. It’s hard to see scale on the water and the sea is a right bastard that is always out to kill you.

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“Let’s turn around and pass over at full speed to see if we can find him!” :woman_facepalming:

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That’s what struck me in those clearly unsafe waters, was the lack of life jackets on the passengers, especially those little kids!

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That was a lot of video for a few seconds of mild entertainment. 1/10, would not watch.

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I know, right? Dafuk was that?

I’m not a boat expert or anything. I grew up by the sea but boat owners were a different class. Either fishermen or poshos.

Sort of unrelated but I remembet being at a house party out west one time and I told someone that the local fishermen didn’t learn to swim (because you fall into the Atlantic and you are dead in no time) and she didn’t believe me so I grabbed a fisherman I knew in the house to confirm.

Next month he drowned. In the harbour. Awful. The sea is a bastard, even when you think you have it tamed.

Which reminds me of a black sand beach in Fuertaventura called Playa de la Muerta in Puerto de la Pena. There was a vicious undertow and the fishermen in their small boats fired a chain to the jetty and got cranked in. Beach of Death. Port of Sorrows. Sea is a fucker.

Edit because I can’t spell in English let alone Spanish.

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Let’s see the Trump Flotilla top THAT!

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Ugh, those videos make me miss South Florida not at all.

(@AndreaJames, Haulover Inlet and Boca Raton Inlet are two separate inlets from the Ocean to the Intracoastal Waterway. Haulover is in Miami/Dade County; Boca is up the coast in southern Palm Beach County.)

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Reynisfjara beach in Iceland is also a black sand beach and it claims tourist lives every few years. It’s incredibly photogenic, with basalt columns and outlying spire islands but there is a strong undertow and freak waves will run up the beach much further than the rest, taking selfietakers with them.

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One of those boats was a towboat, which didn’t seem to be doing any better than anyone else. I don’t know that the pilot was (particularly) inept, given that it’s presumably their job…

At least a couple of the kids shown in that first video had life jackets. Literally a couple, was all I saw. I didn’t notice any adults with any.

The pilot wearing an “Ocean Rescue” shirt, no less…

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Is it a prerequisite that boats over a certain price threshold have to be as ugly as possible?

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I mainly grew up in Kansas, but I remember boaters who would go to Cheney reservoir between Wichita and Hutchinson always had plenty of life jackets. Maybe there was better enforcement there.

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A visual for those unfamiliar with the area…about 40 miles, per google maps.

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As others have noted, this is Haulover (home to nude beach on North end) not Boca Raton (rat mouth)

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Watching a few of those idiots turn off the waves was amusing, I guess.

But, holy shit, is that mostly boat-chop?
When does that get fun?

Fun for an experienced (and reckless) jet skier… maybe.
But such high traffic tho.

I, a little bit, wish harm on that blue line boat and crew.

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