I’ve been boating in Florida a lot and there’s one main rule. The driver needs to be sober. I don’t care how drunk you get when you get to shore, but drunk boating can get very dangerous. This incident along Madeira Beach in St. Petersburg could have ended much differently.
Not sure how long he had been speeding along slumped over the wheel, but long enough that the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office helicopter was able to get over him and get this video. The boat luckily kept along the shoreline rather than heading to the beach. You can see he was close enough that he went in between the swimmers and the kayaker.
I wish the helicopter would have zoomed in so we could see the looks on the faces of the people on Madeira Beach. I’m sure some of them were just as drunk as the guy driving the boat. Back in high school we called it Mad Beach. Do they still call it that? I have about a week’s worth of stories I could tell about that place, but some of the people involved are married and have families now. It wouldn’t be right. I’m trying to be respectful, Brenda.