FREE DOCK, VENICE, FL

9 February, 2005. The free dock here is right next to the Venice Yacht Club. There's supposed to be room for 4-5 boats but this huge yacht (that in my opinion, could've afforded to be in a slip at the Yacht Club) took up nearly the entire dock. There was just enough room for us to get in. The Game Warden who patrols the area to insure that the 72 hour limit on free dockage is enforced, asked us about the registration for our boat which we easily produced. We purposely didn't put the stickers on our hull because we knew, by law, that it wasn't required. He recommended that we put the stickers on the hull so we did. He claimed that he was doing us a favor by not writing us a ticket but we were fully aware of the law in this regard and it simply wasn't required. After cutting through all the BS, we came to like him. I even sent him a Civil War CD a few days later because he was a Civil War buff. There were a lot of snooty people in condos there but we enjoyed our stay.