I'll tell you a really outrageous one.
In the mid 80s, My wife and I went to Crystal River, Fl in January with
my elderly parents to snorkel and look at the manatees. We all had wet
suits that would keep us warm for an hour or so. There are areas where
you are allowed to snorkel in Kings Bay and "manatee zones" that are
off limits.
While we were watching the manatees, we failed to notice that the fog
had closed in so thick that the vis was only about 25' and we didn not
the way to shore 1/4 mile away. We all drifted for 3 hours getting
colder and colder. Finally, we drifted near an orange buoy marked
"Manatee Zone" and held to the buoy and my parents managed to hang onto
its mooring line.
After about a half hour, the fog lifted a little and a boat approached
with a FL. marine Patrol Officer aboard. He helped us into his boat
and we were all really thankful about being rescued until I saw him
writing. I asked what he was doing and he told us he was writing us
all tickets for violating the manatee zone. We were all too shocked
and cold to argue much but THEN HE INSISTED WE GET BACK IN THE WATER
and he took off.
Fortunately, we are all damned good swimmers so we did all get back to
shore. The tickets were $100 so i talked to a lawyer who advised us to
just pay it instead of going to court. We did but I am convinced now
that we should have fought it.
To this day, I have never met anybody from the FL Marine Patrol who is
worth anything.