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Thread: Lake Superior Stoke
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04-02-2013, 03:58 PM #26
This was a few hours ago. I was ordered out of the water by police, who threatened to charge me with "whatever they could" if I surf here again because it's "an industrial area and a shipping lane" and the only places I can "swim" are at "designated bathing beaches".
Honestly, I'm pretty upset about this. I haven't been able to surf for 4 months and life has been very difficult and I struggle with major depression. This is the one thing I really enjoy these days and these motherfuckers are trying to lock me up for it. It hurts nobody. I do my absolute best to live a clean, sober, moral lifestyle. I'm good to my neighbors, I don't drive like an asshole, I do my very best and fucking life is hard. This is sort of my "one thing"...and these cocksuckers call the police about it, and the police don't use their judgment and blow it off. It wracks me, and I'm pretty upset tonight.
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04-02-2013, 04:57 PM #27
Tell em to pack sand.
If the shocker don't rock her, then Dr. Spock her. Dad.
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04-03-2013, 12:25 AM #28
Lake FUCKING Superior?
BEAT IT FUCKING HAOLES!!!!!!!
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04-03-2013, 05:37 AM #29
Yeti: Don't let the man get you down. Keep surfing.
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04-04-2013, 01:49 PM #30
this is turning into kind of a shit storm. the newspaper is involved, I'm going to be on TV tonight, emails with city commissioner and police chief. I'm trying hard to stay on message and gain something for surfing here.
This what I wrote in response to the newspaper publishing my thing in the police log:
This is trite amusement for many, please know that I understand that, but I want to find a way to briefly communicate how important this issue is to me.
First, the officer was polite, professional, and earnest; I respect him, his job, and his department. He patiently phoned this in to a supervisor and followed whatever departmental guidance was available to him. It's my understanding that the major issue with surfing in that area is, essentially, that people call 911 about it, and that call volume produces a workload they would like to avoid. They would prefer to avoid it by way of me not surfing, I would prefer to avoid it by people minding their own business and ceasing to report my safe and legal recreation to the police. Failing that, I would like to avoid it by the police recognizing me, my vehicle and board, and knowing as an agency that my paddling a surfboard is safe and legal, and not a police matter...and all reports should be treated like any other unfounded, mistaken report of a safe, legal act.
More though, I have a pressing need to communicate something else...I am not Jeff Spicoli or Gidget. I am a 35 year old veteran of 14 seasons of wildland fire, fire-aviation, and wildland fire dispatching. I made a difficult decision to quit firefighting after the "Iron 44" helicopter crash killed 9, and the "dutch creek" incident killed an 18 year old on his first fire, this in a season when my arthritis was reaching a level that made digging and cutting fireline agonizing. It has been a long, difficult road of nursing school, crewing a ship in the pacific northwest, and driving long-haul trucks to get back to my hometown of Marquette and start over. In some very traumatic and stressful times reconciling my depression, arthritis, and PTSD, surfing has been more effective than any other therapy.
Surfing, usually alone, in the big, powerful, frigid water of the north Pacific for years while I lived on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington was my meditation, my physical therapy, and my escape from a difficult life where I struggle with depression and chronic pain. It remains all of those today. I get a sense of relief and rejuvenation when I'm paddling that surfboard that is unlike any other thing available to me. It is physical, psychological, and spiritual therapy. When it's treated as some sort of trifling amusement it saddens me to my core. When people want to make it a police matter and have me removed from the water it saddens me to my core. Like many, I'm barely making a living in Marquette while I search for a better job. I live a simple, sober, and ethical lifestyle; I genuinely want to always be on the right side of the law, on the side of justice and decency. What have we become, as a society, when my innocent, harmless, therapeutic outdoor recreation is subject to police monitoring?
I hope you will read and understand this, or perhaps publish it for others to see. This is an issue close to my heart and I'm begging you to handle it with respect.
This got passed around a lot, and a city commissioner asked if I wanted to have a statement read into the record at the next meeting so I wrote this:
I take it for granted that there is a natural, longstanding right for people to freely access navigable water at their own will. This Public Trust Doctrine has been passed down from the Roman empire through the magna carta and into the vast majority of modern civilizations. At the same time, there is a great institutional momentum toward identifying and eliminating risk, even the perception of risk, in these modern times; thus, some conflict is inevitable. I just hope we can all take a moment to clearly mark the line between what decisions are publicly regulated and what is left solely to the judgment of legally competent adults. I believe an adult's choice to challenge nature, be it climbing, or skiing, or diving, surfing, hiking, skydiving...whatever...is beyond that line; I wish to clarify and highlight that line so the process of getting out to enjoy these activities isn't stained with bureaucracy, or ever mistaken for criminality. The underlying principle is that there are unknowable gains to society that come from people having these experiences on their own terms. There are unquantifiable levels of personal growth and strength and wisdom that ultimately branch out to benefit everyone at large in a huge variety of subtle and intangible ways; if we start eroding free access to nature, even (or perhaps especially) challenging aspects of nature, we stand to lose valuable parts of our collective human spirit we can't even adequately describe.
If the commission feels an adjustment is needed, I support any needed adjustment(s) in protocol, policy, and/or procedure which would also allow unabated access to the shoreline for surfers but also allow dispatchers and/or officers a streamlined process to efficiently disregard complaints of surfing with an absolute minimum of workload for officers and dispatchers.
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04-04-2013, 02:03 PM #31
Yeah! The lakes belong to Vince!!!!!
Work through this. You certainly have more dedication than me, but if that is th ebest wave around, fight for it. NYC cops once ordered me out of the water and off the beach (that Perfect Storm swell was sick). When I was running back up the beach at one point I told them they could arrest me later or paddle out after me now, because I was headed back out. They never even stepped off the boardwalk, even though the water line was 50 yards away. And they did not stick around to arrest me either. I guess they had some law enforcement to go do.
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04-04-2013, 03:14 PM #32
Well done yeti. Well done!
amen...
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04-04-2013, 03:29 PM #33
Vince - you're only going to find people to beat it with in your own lineup you gaper
maholo you haole biter.
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04-04-2013, 03:29 PM #34
sweeeeeeeeet
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04-04-2013, 03:47 PM #35Hugh Conway Guest
That sucks. Hope it resolves successfully and quickly
years ago in a big summer "storm" aka a couple foot waves it was a shock going to Lake Ontario in the hopes of body surfing to find the beach closed and police/life guards turning people away.
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04-04-2013, 11:54 PM #36I NEVER troll
- Join Date
- Jun 2009
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04-05-2013, 10:29 AM #37
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04-05-2013, 12:45 PM #38
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04-05-2013, 01:17 PM #39"Have you ever seen a monk get wildly fucked by a bunch of teenage girls?" "No" "Then forget the monastery."
"You ever hear of a little show called branded? Arthur Digby Sellers wrote 156 episodes. Not exactly a lightweight." Walter Sobcheck.
"I didn't have a grandfather on the board of some fancy college. Key word being was. Did he touch the Filipino exchange student? Did he not touch the Filipino exchange student? I don't know Brooke, I wasn't there."
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04-12-2013, 10:58 PM #40
I think this was my last ride of the day. I'm in the background riding...don't know the paddler in the foreground. I took a pretty good beating or two out there today, but got my share.
there have got to be more photos...may be a few days before they start showing up.
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04-13-2013, 04:25 AM #41
sick turns Jer. Keep up the fight. You are so right on this. contact local great lakes surfrider foundation for contacts - info - and advice.
Cheers and glad you are still paddling!!
Kev
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04-13-2013, 08:06 PM #42
The better half of yesterday's madness was today's hike to glassy longboarding rollers.....
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04-14-2013, 07:56 AM #43
Sick Yeti. I'm glad you've found some solace in the waves.
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04-14-2013, 04:25 PM #44
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04-19-2013, 03:48 PM #45
I missed the window today, here's from a buddy's fb. Looks epic.
Last edited by ill-advised strategy; 04-20-2013 at 05:33 PM.
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04-21-2013, 01:00 PM #46
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04-21-2013, 01:16 PM #47
Damn Yeti! Keep on keeping on. Sick icicle picture.
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04-21-2013, 02:41 PM #48
Really impressive stuff, Yetiman. Looks like your dedication has been paying off lately. Keep posting the stoke!
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04-22-2013, 02:26 PM #49
here's some more of Shawn Malone's photos from the other day....
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04-22-2013, 05:30 PM #50
Yeti, I think you might be surfing in the lineup with one of my buddies, he lived in New Zealand and Ventura for a while but now he's back there. He posted some similar shots from the same photog. Looks fun, especially the waves in that vid.
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