Water Sports - Counting The Costs

The Price of Catering to Tourism?

First, let me state that I'm not an authority on all things watersports related. That said, I was thinking about what a short time it is until families, friends and every other sort of tourist descend on our county. Hunkering down in Hotels, rental cottages, campgrounds, RV's, and more often than I'd like, back seats of cars in large parking lots and even along the side of the road. Some, too exhausted, broke, or just passed out in their tracks and collapsed. As you might expect alcohol consumption is not only the preferred past-time of many tourists, it is the underlying cause of 95% of the trouble we run into in our small community. I'm not just talking about loudmouthed drunks, or red faced old men cursing in the name of whatever deity they bow before, but real nasty stuff like running Cigarette boats into breakwalls at 60 mph, pleasure boats crashing into and over jet-skis and a plethora of dead bodies that are found by search and rescue teams or simply wash up somewhere. The same goes on the highways and State Routes, high speed head on collisions, 60 mph broadsides and the odd cyclist or jogger who's invariably picked off by a drunk driver.

This is what brings the real revenue to our city and other smaller villages in the surrounding areas, the life blood that our Chamber of Commerce cow-tows too at the expense of the permanent residents, who are taxed heavily to keep our town "spiffy" and in order for the tourist dollars that the C of C members will divide among themselves. The tourist pays nothing of the burden for the improvements that we are taxed for but our city government cares nothing about this heavy burden of increased taxes since they are raking in the tourist dollars. As a lifelong resident, I've never had a tourist walk up and put anything but their middle finger up in the air for me but we're sooooo happy to have you Mr. Big City Drunk, please feel free to abuse the locals.

Before you begin thinking that this just a rant - hold it. I've been watching this for many years and there's not an untruth in this post. In fact, I have been very kind to our tourists and city keepers (I can't bring myself to call them City Fathers - bunch of self absorbed son's of b****es) and could've railed on with many hair-raising tales of the exploits of drunken tourists and fishermen, who are the constant nuisance we locals have to deal with every spring and summer. So, let's change course ok?

There are many great water sporting endeavors to be found here, in fact I can't think of anything really that we don't offer our visitors in the way of fun in the sun, in and under the water. Sunrises and sunsets are spectacular, water clarity is great and prime for diving and fishing. Jet-ski's have become so much of a nuisance - like swarms of angry killer bees, that they have begun to legislate and enforce bans on areas, to preserve safety and some kind of order. There are a lot of sailing purists sporting some very expensive looking sailboats and of course, power boats are thick on the water over weekends and create a constant "chop" on the surface of the lake and bays until night, when the tormented waters lay down flat again. The smell of barbeque is in the air and with it, the smell of 1000 campfires. You can smell them shifting and mixing as you drive down the road with your windows down. All in all, except for the tourism trade-off, a very sweet place to live!

If you're headed our way this summer in search of fun in the sun and all of the great water sport opportunities, bring your essentials and don't forget to bring your camera and waterproof case hopefully, to the beach or on the boat for the memorable pictures of your little ones splashing in the water or the big one that "didn't get away" - see you soon!