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Posted by Greg Lawrence
on January 3, 2008, 10:26 pm
70.221.130.128
My girlfriend, her son and I started our new year in Marathon. I stopped by the dingy dock and shore facility New Year’s Eve to see what it was like. I was very favorably impressed and I’m writing this so that you can appreciate what you have. I was checking you out because soon I will be required to abandon the mooring that I own which has been in place for over 30 years and pay over $400 per month rent to Marina Jack’s for one of their moorings.
I’ve been paying Marina Jack’s for Dingy Beaching (there is no dock) while three dinghies were stolen from the front of their restaurant/tiki bar and two worn out from dragging over the oyster shells. A few months ago Jenny, my guide dog for the Deaf, alerted me to someone approaching the boat. I emerged in the cockpit to find a police boat with four officers armed and in full “battle rattle” one and sometimes two or three of them at the same time were yelling at me. I voiced to them and signed at the same time that I am Deaf and I think they yelled a little louder. One of the troops boarded my vessel without permission and another gestured that he would shoot my guide dog if I did not restrain her. The boarder said so that I could read his lips that he wanted to check my toilet. It is very difficult to read lips and almost impossible when you don’t know the context of the conversation. Shambhala has a head and a sanitary system, but does not have a toilet. The boarder looked at some things he had no idea what they were, made note of the fire extinguishers and seemed to be especially impressed with the whistles hanging on hooks put there by a former owner, probably 20 years ago. He walked by an EPIRB with an out of date sticker (since updated) twice and apparently didn’t know what an EPIRB is – thank God. They left with Jenny barking furiously expressing her disapproval of their being in her territory. Shambhala is one of very few places in the world where it is okay to be Deaf and where the primary language is American Sign Language. Armed troops who don’t speak the language invading, threatening and searching is something that you would expect to happen in Iraq or Afghanistan, not Sarasota. Marina Jack’s monthly revenue would be over $1,000 more if I were at a dock in their marina. Not one toilet was checked in there a few yards away.
So, please lighten up on your ADA complaints and be grateful for what you have.
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