Busted by the FUZZ!

Ahhh Shit ... what did I do wrong?

How do you know if you are on a good road trip? You are busted by the Fuzz!  Yep, that's me being pulled over by the local police.

I did a dinghy run to a fuel place about a half a mile away from our current marina.  On the way back, this officer decided I needed to be checked out.  My tender (dinghy) didn't have a Florida registration number on it.

Here is my registration

It turns out that in the state of Florida a tender (or dinghy) regardless of size must have a registration on it.  Ariel, our main boat, is registered in Georgia and in Georgia main boat tenders less than 12 feet don't need them as long as they are noted as tenders (with a label on the side as T/T Ariel ... which ours is).  So, as the officer explained the law, we were clearly breaking Florida law. (as an aside, Ariel is registered in Georgia and is a US Coast Guard documented vessel)

The officer was very kind and explained the Florida law to us.  Any vessel with a motor must have a registration.  He told me that we will probably get stopped each time we use the dinghy so it is best that we get it registered.

Friendly Guy

While it sucks to get pulled over for anything, the guy was just doing his job and enforcing the law. No biggie.

Just a warning!

In the end, the officer simply issued us a warning.  Fantastic!

It is unlikely that we will register the dinghy here in Florida. We are only passing through, so that means we will be going into Gondola and Oar mode a lot.  I've removed the engine from the tender and mounted it on Ariel.

This is one of those incidents that help make trips memorable.