Every five years the Horne Lake Planning Committee sends out a questionnaire to its residents to verify and establish the priorities for our community. Included in this year’s summary are also the results from five years ago.

While this seems like a tedious process, it’s invaluable to maintaining the quality of our lakeside experience. It’s also a great way to educate cottagers on issues that they may not even be aware exist.

Take wake boats for example. Five years ago one of the biggest issues vexing cottagers were jet skis. For those folks who didn’t own one, having to listen to their neighbor’s insistent throttling motor as they tore donuts around the lake, swamping canoes with their waves generated a lot of negative feedback. According to Murray Hamilton the Horne Lake Property Manager, the owners of these pleasure crafts grew up and moved on. Jet skis have ceased to be an issue on the lake.

It seems wake boats have taken their place according to this year’s survey. The big waves generated by these powerful boats are being blamed for shoreline erosion, dock damage and general annoyances. The underlying culprit, according to Hamilton, is a lack of respect and education. “Owners of these boats think everyone wants to enjoy it with them. Running these boats parallel to the shore is just wrong,” Hamilton explains. He goes on to add, “There is a way to enjoy them without disturbing your neighbors.”

I must admit, I secretly covet the big black Malibu that lives across the bay. I love it’s big chrome lights and metal tower. Pulsing down the lake with its throaty stereo blasting just screams cool. I also concede with my neighbors. Scrambling to grab my kids so they don’t get knocked off the dock from its massive waves breaking against the shoreline is a huge pain.

Can we have our wake and enjoy it too? I think so. While the provincial government owns the water and protects the riparian areas, it’s the federal government who regulates boating. According to Hamilton, wake boats are not on the docket at least not for now, so the onus is on us, the cottager, to manage our behavior.

Next week we will be looking at boating manners 101. I’m betting it’s not just our lake that’s grappling with this behavioral problem.

Cheers,

Julie

This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 10:47 am and is filed under Boating. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.