Sometimes that law doesn't exist or is not enforced and they just
follow the Law of the Jungle. If you talk about the channels their
speeds are not terribly willd, but still you are a sitting duck.

It exists everywhere you're ever likely to be in your kayak. There's more
enforcement on the intracoastal, per boater, than in any city or state
anywhere near here.

Yes, you are a sitting duck, which is a really good reason not to go where
you can't be safe. I presume you would not ride your bicycle on I-95, which
would you ride you kayak in a zone where running on a plane is legal?

But going past the
buoys at the beach is reasonable, since staying within them would make
me a danger to the swimmers, and I don't want to become the predator.

Yes it is.

The thing with a motorboat is that you don't know if stopping puts you
at lesser or greater danger. You just have to predictable, and
hopefully they'll steer around you.

Depends on where you are. I was talking about the channel. It's not best to
predicably paddle out in front of a power boat legally on a plane. Out by
the buoys, is a different story. Both of you are responsible. There are
boats out there on autopilot and, no matter what color your kayak is, you're
not as visible as you think.

There's no safe intersections in those channels, much less a signal
light.

Yes, there are. You just choose not to travel to one of them.

I do. The problem is NOT them actually. But the whole set up where we
--kayakers and canoeists-- are exposed to uncessary dangers, and where
they can speed, drink, get high, be reckless, and get away with it.

You can kayak to your hearts content in most of the lakes in south Florida,
places where no powerboater is allowed at all. You can kayak in any of the
no internal combustion areas in south Florida, places where power boats are
not allowed at all. You can cross any of the hundreds of acres of flats,
where power boats can't go at all. What's wrong with some places that power
boaters can go?

Some steering from them to avoid you is NOT an inconvenience.

It depends, doesn't it?

Lee