Miami / S Florida Current Situation

[tkachuk]

For whatever it's worth. Dumb Canadian here who has kited Crandon a few times and also enjoyed a boat ride and epic session out in Stitsville in Miami area. Both locations are epic.
One time in Crandon there were so many rays I couldn't land a jump without landing in a crowd of them.
So much to see a mile or so offshore as far as surf break, coral and tons of great fishing.
Biscayne Bay is magic.

[RickI]

No it was long before the trouble in Huguenot and a bit further south. This was the first ban that I had heard about anyway in Florida.

[deniska]

Miami beach requires a permit. so that rules out the launches around 20 something street and 76th street. also weekends are super busy on the beach.

Last 3 weeks I kited Virginia Key, 87th st, Lauderdale by the Sea multiple times.. no one is asking for permits or enforcing any stupid rules..
no life guards = go have fun.. try not to kill beach goers.. everyone seems to be cool with this setup.. North Florida is same way.. never had issues kiting around Jax, and st Augustine.. even during the lockdown..
here is short video from 2 days ago Lauderdale by the Sea

don't believe the old man BS some locals spreading...
Cheers..

[Topaz]

I'm at Fort Laud, never go to Miami. However, I rode at 75th st a couple of months ago and never asked me anything and the locals were surprisingly friendly.

In Fort Laud, you don't need a permit, but you have to ride at the beaches open to kiting.

[Topaz]

No it was long before the trouble in Huguenot and a bit further south. This was the first ban that I had heard about anyway in Florida.

So..., and the ban was in...???

[Sun]

Thanks all for the info! I will report back!

As for the rumored historic ban, I’m going to guess it was around the Cape Canaveral/Banana River area. Just going on the whole military base thing. Perhaps closure for a shuttle launch.

[RickI]

Fred Howard Park, near Tarpon Springs in 2001.

Guys, access problems are real.

Ignoring rules, where they exist, is guaranteed to cause problems and bans over time.

Just because there isn't a "kite cop" leveling a potato gun at your head saying stop, doesn't mean breaking the rules doesn't lead to complaints which have closed and continue to close off access. It does. Time to act up like standup riders and do what is best for access, even if it is a pain in the butt.

p.s. - we don't have any kite cops in Florida, just us riders at large.

[loco4viento]

My basic issue with bans:

When someone breaks laws driving and endangers others, we support punishing and even restricting the offending driver.

When an individual kiter breaks laws or endangers others, we have allowed authorities to punish all kiters rather than support the punishment and restriction of the offending individual. We seem to support punishment of the whole group for the bad actions of a few.

I think some of our bans could have been averted by supporting the punishment of bad behavior by individuals within our group rather than allowing the entire group to be punished.

[RickI]

We have begged authorities to selectively enforce many times in 20 years in a number of jurisdictions. they may be overworked understaffed don’t want to enter into chasing down kiters on the water even in the case of marine units. What should be and what is are two different things unfortunately. if we had greater numbers in the populace instead of being a very small minority we might have more weight but we don’t. It falls back to us to self enforce in the majority of venues in the US. Avoiding bans is generally not too hard but enough of us have to try to pull it off.

[Sun]

Last 3 weeks I kited Virginia Key, 87th st, Lauderdale by the Sea multiple times..

Bans

What are the “formal” rules at Virginia Key? I don’t mind heading over to figure out, it is just on the way to a Crandon. But from what I can tell they prohibit “Dangerous Activities” and fishing. Not sure that covers kiting.

Hell, Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park looks awesome too.

Want to have fun and respect the locals.