Patrols happy to see sanity return to waters

With a $60,000 boat, open water and on some days, lots of time, Yuba County sheriff's Sgt. Bill Siler said he often has to convince people his post as head of Marine Patrol isn't a literal fishing expedition.

This past Saturday, in the space of a few hours, Siler and his co-pilot, Deputy Ben Martin, dealt with a drowning at Camp Far West Reservoir's south end, a frightened tuber on the Yuba River, and the normal holiday weekend surge of boaters with plenty of enthusiasm but often slightly less knowledge of the law.

"I can tell a story for every point in the lake," Siler said Sunday, as he and Martin patrolled a Camp Far West that had only about a 10th of the traffic from a day earlier, when Siler estimated 65 to 80 boats cruised the reservoir.

As Yuba County's chief boat patrol officer for the last 14 years, Siler said he splits most of his time between Camp Far West and Lake Englebright, with occasional sojourns on the Bear, Feather and Yuba rivers.

At nearly 2 square miles, Camp Far West has extensive shoreline used for camping, which Siler said means larger groups often go there, and the chance for violations rises in concert.

The reservoir spills between Yuba, Nevada and Placer counties, but the officers who patrol it have jurisdiction anywhere on the water.

Siler said he spends most of his time warning boaters of where they're outside the law, but he hands out actual tickets usually no more than three times a day, and often less, he said.

As he and Martin prepared to leave the boat dock at the reservoir's north end Sunday afternoon, they spotted a man and what appeared to be two young sons preparing to head out in a boat with an inflatable tube on board.

That was problematic, Siler explained, because when someone's being towed on a lake, state law requires the boat operator to be at least 16 years old, and an observer of at least 12 years old to keep an eye on the person being towed.

"Before I catch you out there, I'll let you know ahead of time," he tells the man, who said he didn't know about the law.

"A lot of the violations have to do with towing, and especially with the personal watercraft," Siler said. He and Martin chuckled as they spotted a group huddled on the shore, trying to figure out what was wrong with a personal watercraft tipped on to its side.

As Martin scans along the reservoir for anything noteworthy — and on Sunday, he had to look hard — Siler freely chatted about the wide variety of school subjects one might need to know on the water, from topography to know where Camp Far West's shallowest spots are, to physics and the knowledge of what will happen to a human body that flies off a fast-moving boat.

Grant Ebbitt of Wheatland got a gentle reprimand in his ignorance of the law, when the patrol spotted him using a square flag to signal to other boats there was a person in the water, rather than the bright orange flag that's supposed to be used.

"You're lucky. Normally we charge $50 a flag," Siler said in jest, as Martin handed Ebbitt a regulation flag from the patrol boat's stash.

"Hey, I appreciate it," Ebbitt said, waving as the patrol moved on.

The relative quiet of Sunday, which Siler attributed to most folks going home after some energetic recreating on the Fourth of July, was in contrast to a day earlier.

Siler said he was still unsure what happened to a 45-year-old ethnic Ukrainian who apparently fell to his death Saturday evening from a cliff area on the southwestern part of Camp Far West.

Patrols from both Placer and Yuba counties responded, but neither department's dive rescue team was close at hand. Siler said the man, whose identity had still not been released by Placer County's Sheriff's Department Sunday evening, fell from the cliffs in one of the highest places to do so.

Over his entire career, Siler said he's personally participated in recovery operations for 30 drownings, and commanded responses to over 100 of them.

But those are the memorable days, along with the big holiday weekends like the Fourth of July and Memorial Day. This year, SIler said he estimated a couple of hundred boats invaded Camp Far West over the three-day weekend in late May.

More often, the days can be slow, and during the summer, oppressively warm. Though boat patrol duty used to be highly sought after within the department, Siler said, that's changed.

"The new officers now, they want to be where the action is," he said. "They'd rather be making the big drug bust than be out here."

Martin, who joined the Marine Patrol in March, is an exception. Like Siler, he's a lifetime boating enthusiast.

"Let's face it, this is a great gig," Martin said, making occasional visits to a green and yellow ice chest — he called it a "John Deere" model — for bottled waters and sodas. "You drive around Olivehurst for a few years, and you want something different."

A Yuba City native, Siler said he'd owned a boat before he joined the Sheriff's Department. In about three years, he said, he'll have enough service time to retire from his days of cautioning people about speed, flags and imbibing while boating.

Even registry numbers on the boats often could count as a violation for how they're displayed, he said, but he usually doesn't bother.

On Sunday, Siler said his mind was a bit elsewhere. The next day, he'd be on a flight to Mexico for a vacation.

A fishing vacation.

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Ben van der Meer at 749-4709 or bvandermeer@appealdemocrat.com.