Sailfish City - Stuart Florida Community Site

It’s almost time for lobster mini-season to begin - it starts this Wednesday, July 30th at 12:01 AM and goes until midnight on the 31st of July (Thursday for those of you not paying attention).  If you are planning on doing any tank diving, I hope you have your equipment already ready to go, the line for visual inspections is out the door in most places and you have a good chance on not making it in time if you aren’t already in line.

The limit for mini-season in Martin County is 12 lobsters per person per day in the water.  On land it is 12 the first day and 24 the second.  Only people who carry a valid salt water fishing license with a crawfish stamp are allowed to harvest lobster.  The bag limit only counts officially to those people harvesting lobster, in other words you cannot have a non-diver get a license and have someone else harvest lobster for them.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen parents take their young children on the boats and get them licensed and catch extra for them.  Just last year, I was talking to an officer from Florida Fish and Game as he was inspecting a boat.  They had 24 lobster and it was a man and his young son.  The son was licensed and the officer asked the boy, “How many lobster did you catch?”.  The boy answered honestly, unfortunately for the dad.  Don’t know what happened to him, I was to busy cracking up at the honesty of children.

If you go, be smart and dive safe.  Don’t dive alone!  Use the buddy system and make sure you check your equipment BEFORE you get on the boat.  And don’t forget your dive flag.

You probably heard about some of the laws going into effect as of today - most of the ones making the headlines are the FCAT changes and the new gun laws.  There are plenty of others and in my opinion almost all of them are good changes.  No, I don’t beleive this is government once again poking it’s nose where it doesn’t belong.  These are changes that will for the most part be for the good of the people and (I believe anyway) will be what most people will would want to see changed.  All these laws benefit us.

We’ll start with the hot topic, the gun law.  It’s now legal to have a gun in your vehicle at work.  This could probably be the most debated but I don’t see how this is going to change much.  I’ve always believed personally in the right to bear arms and if you took away that right then the criminals would be the only ones armed.  If you are worried now that someone is going to go postal and come into work with a gun - what was stopping them before?  You think a law against it was keeping them at bay?  No.

FCAT laws are changing, at least for high schools at the moment and becoming less of a factor when grading the school.  Graduation rates and participation in advanced classes will be more of a factor when determining how a school is performing.  Elementary and middle school FCAT rules are staying the same for the moment, but if the laws effecting the high schools have a major positive impact I’m the the rest of the school system won’t be far behind.  They are also pushing the FCAT’s back a month to give students more time to study.

Traffic fines for speeding are going up by $17.50 or more from the Florida Highway Patrol.  And now all non-criminal traffic fines can be paid off through community service if you don’t have enough cash to pay the fine.  Most folks will pay the fine to avoid the aggrevation but at least it’s a good alternative for folks who don’t have much extra money on hand.

Two of my favorite laws are the drunken driving and the grow house laws.  Both of which are problems in surrounding areas on the Treasure Coast.  First, the drunken driving fines are doubling across the board from first time offender on up.  What’s more the fines will go up even more if you have a blood alcohol level of .20 or more.  The legal limit right now is .08.  The grow house laws have changed to reduce the number of pot plants required to be considered a grow house from 300 down to only 25.  It is a second-degree felony to operate a grow house and a third-degree felony is you lease or rent the house to someone knowing they are using it for that purpose.

The one change I wasn’t real big on was the changes to the State song.  Basically they are taking the song and doing some edits to make it more politically correct.  I’m not a politician, I’m just your average Joe - so I’ve never been a big fan of politically correctness.  If it offends someone, they’ll get over it in my opinion.  Or they won’t, either way doesn’t bother me much.  Then again I’m not easily offended.

For more info on the rest of the laws changing check out the story over at TCPalm.

Stuart, FL - Bathtub Beach is FINALLY going to be re-opened to the public this coming Monday.  Everyone had been expecting the beach to open for about a week now but delays in hiring life guards for the beach have kept it closed until now.  According to a story I read over at TCPalm, there are still waiting for up to four more lifeguards that haven’t responded to the job offers they made them but are planning to open Monday anyway.

The city has cleaned up the parking lot and the bathrooms in preparation for the re-opening but warns there are still under water dangers that were not there the last time you went!  Be cautious the first time you go remembering there are things there you can’t necessarily see, like tree stumps!

Overall it should be a fun and safe place to go to the beach with the Bathtub Reef still providing a barrier from the waves making it a calm place to enjoy a dip or a cool place to go snorkel.  If you do decide to snorkel or just venture out to the reef itself, PLEASE keep in mind that it’s a living reef and is very fragile to the touch.  Look but don’t touch!  Enjoy!