Airboats—An Abomination

I spent the weekend at Cedar Key, Florida, a village on the Gulf of Mexico. The business district, such as it is, faces the Gulf. The back side of Cedar Key overlooks numerous bayous. That’s where I was—high up on a house of stilts, enjoying the tides going in an out, watching gulls swoop down to catch fish, and listening to the wind blow.

Ah, peace.
Until the waterboats started. These flat-bottom motorboats are built to negotiate the shallow waters of bayous and marshes. They can do this because they use an above-board airplane propeller rather than a standard outboard motor. The propeller is driven by a powerful engine with no mufflers. Air boats are deafening. The noise is an abomination. As the motors roar across the water, the sound carries for miles. Birds scatter. The sound is enough to blight your weekend.

Have these people never heard of noise pollution? Is anybody doing anything?