TITUSVILLE, Fla. – Hundreds of thousands will be in Brevard County this weekend to see the historic Artemis launch.
Many will be on the roads, in parks, and on the beach but it’s also going to be a big weekend for boaters with the holiday.
“It’s going to be absolutely packed. There’s going to be a lot of boats on the water, especially towards the central part of the county,” said Deputy Brian Jones with the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office.
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With a launch on a Saturday during a holiday weekend, Jones said all of the sheriff’s office’s marine units will be working across the county looking for speeders, drunk boat drivers and checking for proper safety equipment on board.
“We don’t want to just go out and hammer citations. If it’s something that we can educate people on then that’s what we’re going to try to do. Obviously, if there are repeat offenders, we’ll have zero tolerance for that,” he said.
Jones said the agency has seen an influx of new boaters since the pandemic meaning there will be more on the water and they’ll have a tough time navigating with big crowds if they aren’t educated.
“You don’t have marked lanes in the river so people are going every which way and it’s very easy to get in trouble when there’s that many people,” Jones said.
Working with other agencies like Florida Fish and Wildlife, the U.S. Coast Guard and police, Jones said they’ll be restricting boaters from several areas on the water close to the space center during the launch.
If you’re going to stop to watch the launch, be careful where you anchor.
“Even people who are underway or making way, they’re going to be focused on something else too, and if you’re anchored or stopped in the channel — that could be bad,” he said.
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