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06-01-2006, 06:15 AM
These are the signs summer has come to Lake Havasu City, Ariz.:
Flashy boats in from out of town, the Girls Gone Wild Humvee on the prowl, and beer sales up 1,333 percent at the Superfuels filling station.
"There's not too many stories that are PG 13 up here," says 21-year-old Zac Wheeler, of Rancho Cucamonga, about 9 a.m. Sunday, while two of his friends in the next boat pounded beers through a funnel on the shores of Thompson's Bay on Lake Havasu.
Maintaining order on the lake, a surreal blue strip of water on the California-Arizona border renowned for its blend of scorching heat, lite beer and hedonism, is a serious business. In a strategy to be repeated every summer holiday weekend, law enforcement personnel from and local government agencies team up to patrol the lake San Bernardino County's Sheriff's Department among them.
On a normal weekend, three county deputies will work the lake on the California side. For Memorial Day weekend, the kickoff of the summer boating season, the department imported an extra 50. It's a duty that the imported deputies are glad to draw: Along with the overtime pay, deputies are likely to come home with some good stories, albeit ones that wouldn't be suitable for children.
Each weekend, an average of 250,000 people visit the Colorado River during the summer months. Officials are uncertain how many visited Lake Havasu this Memorial Day weekend.
Most of the serious accidents could be prevented by sobriety and life vests, deputies say. But poor ideas thrive in Havasu's heat.
"They feed off each other," says San Bernardino sheriff's Deputy Troy McComas, who has patrolled the lake for the past three years. He was joined last week by Ron Sindelar, another Needles' deputy, and Keith Bushey, a reserve deputy up for the weekend. "They see something happening and say, "let's try that.' "
Despite the festive atmosphere, the danger for boaters is real. Some have died from flipping a boat at high speed, or by diving into the water after a beer and never coming back up.
A 17-year-old girl on a jet ski who was struck by a boat on Sunday is one of two killed this year on San Bernardino's side of the Colorado River. Two other boaters were hospitalized from injuries sustained on the lake, and six people died last year.
McComas remembers one accident from last season in particular, when a boat on a speed run blew past McComas just after dusk.
"They were going so fast I could never catch them," he said. A few minutes later, two of the boat's occupants were dead, their boat run aground and in pieces. "It gets to you, that kind of stuff."
Such experiences help explain why, despite Havasu's celebrated reputation for all sorts of questionably legal behavior, the deputies on patrol seem to be primarily interested in separating drunks from their vessels.
On Saturday, the Sheriff's Department arrested 14 for boating under the influence.
Around 1 p.m., McComas pulled over three bald men in a boat with a partially deflated blowup doll handcuffed to the back. One of the men had been sitting on the edge of the boat, a safety violation.
Though the boat was awash in cases of beer, the driver was sober, and McComas wished him a good afternoon.
"Thank you, officers. Be safe," the captain shouted as his crew of two men and one inflatable woman motored toward the mouth of Copper Canyon.
"We're not the morality police," sheriff's Cpl. Sam Galbreath explained back on the docks. "You have to pick your battles."
Part of the job is distinguishing between criminally bad judgment and its lawful equivalent.
At the far end of Copper Canyon on Saturday afternoon, a man clung to a rocky spire rising 60 feet above the water, known as Jump Rock. The man steadied himself before diving into the crowded water below.
"We've had people die on that thing," McComas said, shaking his head and aiming his boat away from the spot.
It was McComas' only trip inside the canyon all day. By midafternoon, hundreds of boats filled Copper Canyon, some packed so tightly one could walk from bow to bow. Five Sheriff's Department boats hovered near the mouth of the canyon, scrutinizing arriving and departing vessels for safety violations.
McComas stopped dozens of boats, perfunctorily asking their drivers to follow a pen with their eyes, then asking them to come aboard his boat for a breath test.
As the sun rose to its highest point in the sky, many boaters' blood alcohol levels were just beginning their ascent.
Russell Jefferson's boat had a sober driver, but he took the wheel while his buddy took a picture, he said. After blowing an 0.16, twice the legal blood alcohol limit, Jefferson was cuffed.
"I was driving the boat for five seconds. This is out of control," he said of the sheriff's zero-tolerance policy for the weekend. "I was a passenger on the boat and had a few beers."
On the sheriff's docks, a row of young men in board shorts and waist shackles waited to be driven 40 miles to the Needles jail. Barring any outstanding warrants, they were expected to be released six hours later and given a court date in August.
It doesn't usually take a breath test to tell if a boater has had too much to drink, McComas says.
"Every time they say `I'm good,' I know they're gone," McComas says. "'I'm good' is a 0.23 on my last few stops."
Flashy boats in from out of town, the Girls Gone Wild Humvee on the prowl, and beer sales up 1,333 percent at the Superfuels filling station.
"There's not too many stories that are PG 13 up here," says 21-year-old Zac Wheeler, of Rancho Cucamonga, about 9 a.m. Sunday, while two of his friends in the next boat pounded beers through a funnel on the shores of Thompson's Bay on Lake Havasu.
Maintaining order on the lake, a surreal blue strip of water on the California-Arizona border renowned for its blend of scorching heat, lite beer and hedonism, is a serious business. In a strategy to be repeated every summer holiday weekend, law enforcement personnel from and local government agencies team up to patrol the lake San Bernardino County's Sheriff's Department among them.
On a normal weekend, three county deputies will work the lake on the California side. For Memorial Day weekend, the kickoff of the summer boating season, the department imported an extra 50. It's a duty that the imported deputies are glad to draw: Along with the overtime pay, deputies are likely to come home with some good stories, albeit ones that wouldn't be suitable for children.
Each weekend, an average of 250,000 people visit the Colorado River during the summer months. Officials are uncertain how many visited Lake Havasu this Memorial Day weekend.
Most of the serious accidents could be prevented by sobriety and life vests, deputies say. But poor ideas thrive in Havasu's heat.
"They feed off each other," says San Bernardino sheriff's Deputy Troy McComas, who has patrolled the lake for the past three years. He was joined last week by Ron Sindelar, another Needles' deputy, and Keith Bushey, a reserve deputy up for the weekend. "They see something happening and say, "let's try that.' "
Despite the festive atmosphere, the danger for boaters is real. Some have died from flipping a boat at high speed, or by diving into the water after a beer and never coming back up.
A 17-year-old girl on a jet ski who was struck by a boat on Sunday is one of two killed this year on San Bernardino's side of the Colorado River. Two other boaters were hospitalized from injuries sustained on the lake, and six people died last year.
McComas remembers one accident from last season in particular, when a boat on a speed run blew past McComas just after dusk.
"They were going so fast I could never catch them," he said. A few minutes later, two of the boat's occupants were dead, their boat run aground and in pieces. "It gets to you, that kind of stuff."
Such experiences help explain why, despite Havasu's celebrated reputation for all sorts of questionably legal behavior, the deputies on patrol seem to be primarily interested in separating drunks from their vessels.
On Saturday, the Sheriff's Department arrested 14 for boating under the influence.
Around 1 p.m., McComas pulled over three bald men in a boat with a partially deflated blowup doll handcuffed to the back. One of the men had been sitting on the edge of the boat, a safety violation.
Though the boat was awash in cases of beer, the driver was sober, and McComas wished him a good afternoon.
"Thank you, officers. Be safe," the captain shouted as his crew of two men and one inflatable woman motored toward the mouth of Copper Canyon.
"We're not the morality police," sheriff's Cpl. Sam Galbreath explained back on the docks. "You have to pick your battles."
Part of the job is distinguishing between criminally bad judgment and its lawful equivalent.
At the far end of Copper Canyon on Saturday afternoon, a man clung to a rocky spire rising 60 feet above the water, known as Jump Rock. The man steadied himself before diving into the crowded water below.
"We've had people die on that thing," McComas said, shaking his head and aiming his boat away from the spot.
It was McComas' only trip inside the canyon all day. By midafternoon, hundreds of boats filled Copper Canyon, some packed so tightly one could walk from bow to bow. Five Sheriff's Department boats hovered near the mouth of the canyon, scrutinizing arriving and departing vessels for safety violations.
McComas stopped dozens of boats, perfunctorily asking their drivers to follow a pen with their eyes, then asking them to come aboard his boat for a breath test.
As the sun rose to its highest point in the sky, many boaters' blood alcohol levels were just beginning their ascent.
Russell Jefferson's boat had a sober driver, but he took the wheel while his buddy took a picture, he said. After blowing an 0.16, twice the legal blood alcohol limit, Jefferson was cuffed.
"I was driving the boat for five seconds. This is out of control," he said of the sheriff's zero-tolerance policy for the weekend. "I was a passenger on the boat and had a few beers."
On the sheriff's docks, a row of young men in board shorts and waist shackles waited to be driven 40 miles to the Needles jail. Barring any outstanding warrants, they were expected to be released six hours later and given a court date in August.
It doesn't usually take a breath test to tell if a boater has had too much to drink, McComas says.
"Every time they say `I'm good,' I know they're gone," McComas says. "'I'm good' is a 0.23 on my last few stops."