On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:55:22 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:
How far out are the exclusion buoys? If not too far, you could anchor
outside and swim in.

This is interesting because I'm not sure they can do that.

Don't take this as fact, but Federal statute on beach ownership is to
the Highest High Mean Tide point - anything lower than that it open to
the public.

We just had a case down in Greenwich, CT and over in Jamestown, RI
where those owning beach front property wanted to restrict access to
"their" property which they took to mean Mean Lowest Low Tide. Ain't
so and the cases were bounced from state and Federal courts.

There was also an issue on a State beach about five years ago about
beaching boats where swimmers were. The State lost the case for the
same reason as the private owners.

Now, exclusionary zones are legal in terms of wake and speeds can be
regulated, but I'm not at all sure that landing rights can be denied.

Again, this is all from memory and I'm too lazy to look up the
references. Take it for what that's worth.

===============================================

The various park commissions that control the ocean beaches on the
south shore of Long Island have banned boat landing and launching for
years. I'm not sure if any of it has ever been tested in court but
the regulations are in place.

My sense of it is that the parks people are hyper sensitive to legal
liability issues, and that the various environmental factions back
them up because they'd prefer that NO one use THEIR beaches for any
purpose whatsoever.