This is not boat related but the other day i was pulling out of a parking lot when i noticed an old man on an electric wheelchair stuck trying to drive up an incline on the sidewalk. Now this guy had chrods hanging off this thing and was very helpless, barely talk, and really didnt have any buisness out there anyway but whatever, i would be cruising around too trying to find a way to make it faster. This is at peak rush hour on a busy street, so as im pulling up i cant help to think, look at all these people stopped dead in traffic 10' from this poor old man just playing on their phones like no big deal. I got out and told him to hold it "WOT" lol not really, just said floor it while i pushed him over the hump. This literally took me less than 5 minutes. I wonder how long he was sitting there, and how long people would drive by! Makes me sick to think this is they way of the world nowadays!

I love boaters . Fact is , except for the newest to the sport , we probably all have helped someone in distress at one time or another . Personally , when offered thanks or money , I always without fail tell them to pay it forward cause next time it may be me in need .

Here in New Zealand we don't have a funded Coast Guard fun by paid professionals. It is all done by volunteers. I have skippered a rescue boat for a number of years and done my share of rescues and body recoveries.

When on my own boat and about to leave the marina at 11.30pm I did a night rescue of three gents whose sport fisher had run up on the rocks. In difficult conditions and in the middle of the night it was a text book rescue and probably rates by me as one of my best.

Generally all boaties help one another. If a boat calls in to the Coast Guard an immediate call is put out to boaties in the proximity to assist till the rescue boat arrives.

It seems to work here.