By Max Asayesh-Brown, St. Petersburg High

I’d always been a little  disconcerted by how easy it was to acquire credentials to operate a boat, for which you merely have to go online, take an education course and pay some money. No license is issued, just a Boating Safety Education Card, which proves you’ve completed the educational requirements, and it’s good for life. So obtaining permission to pilot a boat in Florida is arguably about as easy as snagging a medical marijuana card in California.

The difference is, I’d trust a stupefied pothead from Los Angeles behind the helm of a boat far more than a friend of mine  (his boating education card bona fides notwithstanding), based on his skipper behavior at a birthday party for some friends last year.

The twin brother and sister honorees  came from a notoriously outdoorsy family; in addition to both possessing boating cards, they also had hunting permits. And it was their family’s boat that was weaving around manatees and buoys that day in early February, before Florida’s imitation of Jack Frost had said his goodbyes.

 At the sister twin’s suggestion, we decided to go out for one more boat ride at the party. We started out slowly. The boat was lowered into the water not far from where I’d spotted a manatee several hours before, and the scene was eerie under a thin sugaring of fog. Someone, I can’t recall who, gave the wheel to my friend.  With the reckless lack of instinct for which he was infamous, he revved the boat to a dangerous speed, then foolishly turned us right into the boat’s wake.

A man-made wave that would put Hawaii’s swells to shame washed over the bow. Frigid water numbed us up to our knees as we floundered around the boat, worrying about our possessions, our shoes. We managed to stay aboard, two of us weighing the stern of the boat down to help empty it of the icy water.

To this day, the partiers have not let our dimwitted skipper live down his folly. That would be too easy.
Nor will we get in a boat with him again, at least if he’s behind the wheel.