Associated PressDrought has hammered Lake Lanier, leaving boaters high and dry.
Most water-related problems on a boat generally involve too much of the stuff. Too much angry water outside the boat. Too much water coming into the boat. Too much water inside the boat. But the captains who ply Georgia's Lake Lanier have the opposite problem.
They are running out of water.
Lake Lanier, a beautiful twisting patch of fresh water in suburban Atlanta, is drying up so severely that boats are literally being marooned in their slips, hard aground at dockside.
A severe drought has left the lake and others like it at 30-year lows. While most news accounts have rightly focused on the impact this has on the region's supply of drinking water, the situation has left many boaters quite literally high and dry.
The receding lake has already exposed all kinds of odd things, according to stories in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: sunken vessels, a set of bleachers, part of a forgotten highway–even a couple of handguns. More importantly, however, it has rendered boat ramps and cranes inoperable, making it difficult to get boats out of the water. Moreover, in areas where water is deep enough, navigation hazards are popping up regularly.
Check out this post on Sailboatowners.com on Dec. 4: ""¦we are stuck because of blockages from support cables, exposed land masses, fields of tree stumps barely submerged and other dangerous obstacles. Volunteer groups cleaning the exposed shorelines of debris are now finding exposed "sunken" vessels and all kinds of objects as more landmass is exposed. Tens of millions of dollars worth of vessels are literally trapped. For now the hemorrhage continues."
In an effort to call more attention to the situation, I have asked a reporter to do a story for Mad Mariner on the plight of Georgia's lake-bound boaters. Meanwhile, if you want to read up, here are some sources: New York Times Magazine, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sailboatowners.com.
I'd appreciate it if anybody with information could keep us posted. Better yet, send some quality pictures to the site at information@madmariner.com. We'll post them–we all know they are worth 1,000 words.
The situation was brought to my attention after I wrote a post about boating headaches and Mad Mariner reader John Dendy, whose boat is on Lake Lanier, mentioned that he had a few too. He was not kidding–the pictures I have already seen from Lanier are enough to make me stop complaining.
Associated PressThe drought has left docks and boathouses on dry land, and exposed boats left in the water to navigation hazards as the lake hit 30-year lows. Boat ramps and cranes are incapacitated.
Associated Press.
