When it comes to boating laws, Florida seems to one of the most regulated and controversial places on the planet. There seems to be a constant battle between the good boaters of Florida, and the municipal and state politicians that insist on passing rather unfriendly boater legislation. There was a recent anchor bill passed that unusually was being a little more boater friendly when it came to anchorages and live-aboard boaters.
Previous Florida laws in certain communities forced boaters to leave an anchorage for a certain period. Sometimes that period would be as little as twenty four hours, or as restrictive as only be able to stay for seven days every thirty days. What this law doesn’t apply to is liveaboard boats. Basically, as I interpret it, that means local municipalities can force live-aboard boats that are either businesses or residences to move. I suppose, that in one sense livaboards are really more homes than boats, and the local jurisdiction should be able to regulate them more strictly.
This of course sounds just a little strange to me for a couple of reasons. The marina I keep my boat at gets just too cold in the winter for anyone to be crazy enough to want to live-aboard. And secondly when we go for an anchorage up north for example, then I know some boaters that stay for weeks and months at a time without these kinds of restrictions. I suppose there are advantages and disadvantages to every area, no matter where you decide to do your boating.
I could see where this type of ruling would make the more popular anchorages even difficult to get into, but on the other hand, it should only mean the less used ones may be easier to get into. The best solution, would be to have more anchorage spots, or less boaters. the reality is, that neither one of those options is going to happen anytime soon.
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