I am not debating, simply telling you why I think the Marine Patrol
should be avoided and why I think they cannot be counted on. OTOH, the
Coasties seem to do better although we rarely see them. They do have a
vessel in Carabelle and an auxiliary station at Shell Pt. They have
always seemed friendly. Whenever someone is missing, i see them send
planes out of Panama City to look, I never see the marine patrol doing
much besides hassling fishermen. It'll be many years before local
people here trust the FL Marine Patrol.

Besides these two well publicized incidents, i have also had three
run-ins with them. In one case, they actually put my nearly hypothermic
80 yr old father back in the water in january telling him he could swim
to shore. In another case, I think the officer had to be drunk cuz he
made no sense but I declined to argue. In the third case he actually
got a broken halyard wrapped round his prop and tried to blame us. We
had pitchpoled a Hobie 16 in a thunderstorm, broke the shrouds even.
We paddled most of the way back to shore and then this marine patrol
boat comes along to help when we were 100' from shore. We declined
help but when he tried to leave there was anawful noise with him
cursing like crazy. Accused us of blocking the channel.