Coast Guard Shuts Down 3rd Annual Boat Parade! Posted Monday, August 20, 2007 at 5:32:13 PM     Alexandria Bay, NY 1000 Islands  Comments  Unique Views 1691/Total Views 1697

UPDATE:
According to the guy that wrote the letter this issue has been resolved and and the Chief of the Coast Guard says the Coast Guard and the Boaters will work together to make the next event like this a success. It was all a mistake.

That is excellent news !!






This was just posted in the discussion forums..

Based on a post in the forums it appears the The Third Annual Christmas Boat Parade which was even listed on this site all month as an Event was shut down by the Coast Guard.



Below is part of what was posted...

"Good morning,

If you recall we had a parade scheduled last night and 10 minutes in with rousing  support from Pine Tree to Bonnie and the Rum Runner and in the Bay itself the magic and the fun came to a abrupt end. The Balconies and shoreline were alive with people cheering and yelling. No one at the Hospital opened their windows to cheer but I know we had some smiles their. We made a point to get extra close for the patients.

As we left the Bay at the Edgewood we were stopped by our rule book laden Coast Guard who said the decoration lights were confusing our 3 nav lights and therefore were a danger on the water. We needed a permit for this activity and we could continue as long as our lights were off. They doubted that the parade was held before when we explained it was our 3rd annual event.

What really upset us was the refusal to escort us and let us proceed through our 2 mile trip.

What part of being human comes into play when no one was drunk or disorderly. We had several hundred hours into the decorations on the boats and camps of the participants.

The intent of this event was to help promote The Bay, The River and boating as well as Pirates weekend. People as far away as Artificial Island decorated their camps and it looked like our 'Light Up The Bay' idea was going to grow and become a staple of Pirates weekend. It was discouraging to me since I promised the Artificial Island group we would include them in our route. When the call came to see what happened I was speechless.

The growing trend to drive away the lively hood of this great recreational area is alarming to many who come here to get away and recreate in our own ways. It should be alarming to all of the residents to see the Bay docks empty most all of this summer. Writing warnings to expired meter parked cycles is just another sign of the trend that will make a Bay comeback less and less possible ." .......................... and it goes on...

To read the rest and to discuss this you'll have to go to the forums.
http://www.abaynews.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=108&PN=1

Here are my thoughts. If this is true then obviously this is all very unfortunate. In Ft. Lauderdale the Coast Guard Cutter Hudson actually participates in their annual Boat Parade, yet our's gets shut down. Of course maybe these people just should have gotten a permit. I don't know if they would have been able to get one or not. In their defense since this was a previously successful Annual Event I can see why they wouldn't think it was a problem. If the Coast Guard had a problem with it why didn't they just say something ahead of time so these people could get a permit or not waste their time getting all of this organized. Since many of my Coast Guard friends go to this website I find it a little difficult to believe no one knew about the event.

Regardless, I have nothing to do with any of this. The Coast Guard guys I do know are very good guys who treat people fairly as did the old Chief who recently retired. Maybe it is some of the new guys that need to lighten up and realize that this town survives on tourism and events like this and if you do things like this the 5000 people a day that go to abaynews.com might end up knowing about it.

Hopefully the powers that be at the Coast Guard do the right thing in the future and help to make this event happen again and not just die off because of this incident.

If this is not the whole story however the Guard is welcome to explain it's side.

So go check it out in the forums... if your not a member of the forums you'll have to join to view the dicussion thread.


See Videos Below from Ft. Lauderdales Annual Event.

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