Name:   Lifer - Subject:   The scrouge of our slough....PADDLEBOARDERS! Date:   6/16/2016 10:47:40 AM

I have been reading the recent threads on wakeboat(er(s) and had to get this off my chest.  In the last few years our slough has become overrun with paddle boarders.  Its phenominal the way these folks behave and the rest of us just have to tolerate it.  First of all let me say this sport, if it really is a sport, seems to be dominated by younger females.  As an old heterosexual white male of priviledge this offends me, yet in that Talladega pile-up meets Victoria's Secret Runway kinda way I can't, and don't even have an inclination, to look away.  They slip in silently leaving barely  a ripple.  You don't even know they are there unless you happen to look at the right time, and here lately, that seems to be more often.  Sometimes they come in gangs.  I have seen as many as 3 boards at one time.  That may not be that many, but one of them had two riders!  And these folks are not required to WEAR  their life vests like wake surfers and wake boarders, so what we end up with is a somewhat steady stream of lovely ladies in swimwear paddling by like they own the lake, which is really an affront to those of us that do!  Its gotten so I don't even want to go out on the lake on weekends.  I end up sitting in the shade, drinking cold beverages and just watching the parade of paddle boarders come by.  Sometimes these folks even have the audacity to stop and chat awhile.  Imagine the horror of having to actually interact with your lake neighbors.  

On top of these horrors these gangsters are 'based" further out the slough closer to more open water.  Since they spend most Saturdays terrorizing the rest of the slough it has cut down on the boat/pwc traffic actually entering the slough to bathe us in there glorious wakes and noise pollution.  It seems they repel boaters of all types and dramatically slow down those that don't turn away.  Do you think the Water Patrol will come force these folks to move along and stop blocking traffic? Maybe we could get some new bouys marked NON-MOTORIZED CRAFT PROHIBITED.  

For those without a sense of humor and the local liberals, but I repeat myself, this is written tongue in cheek.  I feel the pain of those with big water.  Lived it. Loved it. Hated it.  Even as far up as I am we still have an occasional PWC come through plowing water.  They are generally met with curses, sometimes in stereo, from me and/or the neighbors are likely to get hit with a tennis ball to get your attention.  Someday I am going to build a gas launcher for tennis balls so I can really reach out and touch someone.