Management and I were camped for the last fortnight at Boondooma Dam (near Proston QLD). We watched slack jawed as a centre console plate aluminium boat approx 16 ft proceeded out on the dam. We and others were absolutely gobsmacked at the number of people in the boat, mostly adults. A couple of hours later it returned and we counted 11 passengers, including an elderly rather large lady on a walking frame. Surely a disaster waiting to happen. Oh and btw it had a professional fisherman's rego number on the side. I cant imagine that the compliance plate would allow for more than 6 adults.
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If there is such a thing as a tourist season.... why cant we shoot them?
Its a bit of a worry watching such scary behavior... you'd have to be considering how /if you could do a rescue if the likely disaster happened. No doubt they'd blame the rescuer for not doing a good enough job, they dont seem to be the kind of people who take responsibility for themselves.
When I was fishing for a living we often saw people going out fishing in tinnies when we were being blown in with 35 to 40 knot winds. Often overloaded and with the esky so they would not get thirsty.
When we were working and we heard a call over the radio that someone had not returned from a tip we used to tune to a different channel as we could be called to stop work and go and rescue some dummy that did not have the brains to take adequate precautions. Often they ran out of fuel or battery went flat.
Was coning in one night with a gale blowing, it was so rough we were all luckily in the wheel house and I noticed a blip on the radar where it should not be but was not continuous due to the seas. It was right in our course so we kept a watch just in case. When we got close we just caught a glimpse of what we thought was a flicker of a light so turned off a bit just in case.
Later was in the Pub and this fella came up and told me how lucky we were we turned off as he was ready to put a shot through the wheelhouse window. Said he was not displaying lights as he did not want to show his fishing spot. Idiot did not know that with radar you can see for many miles in good weather without light. We had his spot as we had marked it to check if it was moving and could be a possible boat (eg not moving). The light I saw was apparently him lighting a smoke.
Anyhow told him that if a shot had come through the window he would have seen the bow as we would have taken action to show him the highest point to protect us and he would have been match wood as we were 65 ft and a few 100 tonnes and he was in a 15ft wooden boat.
Just shows that there is always someone trying to kill themselves by taking stupid risks and then expect someone to risk their lives to save them.
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11 Mtr house Boat based at Mannum hoping to travel up the Murray as far as I can get then drift back again
