Is It Time For Our Own New Jersey Residents Only Boating Area?

It's hard enough to drive your car around the Jersey Shore in the summer, and you can forget about the weekends. It's even to get your boat out, don't you think?

When it comes to a holiday weekend here at the Jersey Shore, I'd like to leave both parked right where they are on Friday. It's tougher with the car, but that boat isn't moving an inch away from that slip on a holiday weekend.

The boat is docked not far from where the Metedeconk meets the Barnegat Bay near the Beaver Dam Bridge. It's like the Asbury Circle of the Barnegat Bay.

Fishers heading to the ocean are there. Bay enthusiasts use it all the time, too. If you're looking for a straightaway for your boat or jet ski, you're heading to the river, so you're there, too.

I can live with the local boaters. The percentage of bad local boat operators is probably similar to that of lousy automobile drivers, and we deal with that every day.

When you factor in the bad (really bad sometimes) tourists who don't know the area (or maybe even how they drive the boat right), then that's a recipe for disaster.

Several of my boat neighbors ventured out this weekend while I lounged on my docked boat, beverage and cigar in hand, and they returned with harrowing stories of the floating "$#@t show" they had just experienced.

Don't get me wrong. It all goes with the territory living here at the Jersey Shore. That doesn't make it easier though for hard-working Jersey Shore residents who can't get out on their boats during the week to enjoy themselves as much as they should on their boats.

And don't even try F-Cove on a weekend.

Maybe it's time to get a "Jersey Residents Only" waterway. That is expected to happen the day after we get our own Garden State Parkway Lane and first crack at all parking spots.

Inhale hard. We'll be holding our breath a while on this one. No doubt, we appreciate the tourism business a lot, but we do live here, and we do pay the taxes here, so cut us some slack.