Continued Damage to Island Homes - urgent appeal

Dear Members,

URGENT:

This is an urgent appeal to all those that go Down The Islands, out the Boca's, etc.

Over the past few years there has been a drastic increase in the number of larger and faster cruisers/sportfishing boats, and as a result, most of the the low lying homes and their respective jetties are being damaged by the huge wakes left by these vessels. Many homeowners have spent huge sums of money shoring up their properties shorelines because of this rapid erosion being caused. The risk of someone being seriously injured from the huge waves caused by the aftermath of these vessels going by is ever increasing. One can speculate that it was the newer (less experienced) boaters that were the main culprits, however, this is not the case as many seasoned boaters with years of experience, who should know better, but just don’t seem to care! This appeal goes out to these persons to have some compassion before someone is badly injured, or even killed.

This really relates to the larger vessels that reside at the TTYC, Crews Inn, Sweet Water, Coral Cove, and other Marinas in and around the Western Penninsula, and also the SFYC. Many persons are already complying, however there are still many boats passing at full speed without regard for homeowners’ safety and property.

Some of the problems occuring are:

Personel safety - Persons being loaded and offloaded onto jetty's.

Cargo Safety - Loading and offloading goods onto the jetty's.

Damage to Jetties and Houses.

Coastal Erosion of the land.

This location map shows some proposed "No Wake Zones".