Liveaboard/Landing Issues at Tarpon Basin, Key Largo, FL Keys Inside Route, Mile 1139.5
Tarpon Basin - Click for Chartview
Tarpon Basin is crossed by the FL Keys Inside Route, just south of Blackwater Sound and Dusenberry Creek. There are at least 3 good spots to drop the hook here, and creative skippers will find more.
One of our readers, Captain Mary Dixon, sent us the link below, which leads to a truly interesting article, which appeared in KeysNet.com (http://www.keysnet.com), about boats anchored long term in Tarpon Basin. As you will see, the problems reported in this article center around a small group of (I will NOT call them “crusiers”) people living on anchored vessels in Tarpon Basin. This unfortunate group is making life difficult for everyone, including fellow boat owners whose vessels are anchored in Tarpon Basin. Here is a case where many of those living on the water are asking for change, as well as the shorside powers that be! And, if this situation is not resolved soon, the responsible boat owners in Tarpon Bay may lose their rights to a public dinghy dock, which has been a great resource for all legitimate mariners!
With special permission from KeysNet.com publisher, Captain Wayne Markham, we have reprinted a portion of his article below. Follow the link in Captain Dixon’s note, or below the excerpted portions of the story, to read the entire text. Many thanks Captain Markham!!!!
Cruising News:
Interesting development for Key Largo Tarpon Basin. http://www.keysnet.com/2013/
Mary Dixon
Reprinted by Permission from KeysNet.com
Key Largo liveaboards beg to keep access
By KEVIN WADLOW
kwadlow@keynoter.com
Posted – Saturday, August 24, 2013 10:35 AM EDT
Reluctant to evict the solid citizens of the Tarpon Basin liveaboard community because of a few scofflaws, Monroe County commissioners decided Wednesday to seek more law enforcement.
It was a problem that cropped up literally in the commission’s own back yard, the bayfront park behind the Murray E. Nelson Government and Cultural Center at mile marker 102.5.
“We’ve had people showering naked next to the dumpster. People bathing in the fountain, naked,” county Building Official Jerry Smith told the commission. “We deal with this on a daily basis.”
Commissioner Sylvia Murphy said the small park once attracted sunset-watchers and children’s parties. Efforts were made to accommodate a number of well-behaved boaters who started using a small dock at the site to tie their dinghies.
“We were very good to the people who live on the hook out there,” Murphy said. “For two and a half years, it was wonderful. Then all of a sudden, a different quality began to take place.”
Now the park has been overrun by a small group of sketchy characters who create anxiety among visitors and county staff, she contended.
…..
Several boaters who rely on the government-center property for shore access appealed for the county to oust the “bad apples” before banning everybody from the dock.
“The undesirables showed up when you closed other areas” used for liveaboard landing spots, said James Chapman. “You pushed them to us.”
He added, “They’re mostly gone now because they were arrested or their boats sunk.”
Murphy agreed the boaters who attended the Wednesday session “are the good ones. You’re not the problem, and you can’t solve it,” she said. “I don’t know what else we can do, except close off the dock to dinghies.”
“If you choose to close this off, you’re saying Key Largo is a town and island that is inaccessible by the water,” said liveaboard Chadwick Acevedo, married and employed. “What kind of island has no water access for the public?”
The boaters describe themselves as working locally for modest wages or retirees living a fixed income. Local marinas are too expensive, they said.
County Mayor George Neugent, a former liveaboard, said the proposed ordinance to curtail use of the park “gives me heartburn.”
Full article can be read at:
http://www.keysnet.com/2013/08/24/489480/key-largo-liveaboards-beg-to-keep.html
Click Here To Open A Chart View Window, Zoomed To the Location of the Tarpon Basin Anchorages
Be the first to comment!