Mazo Manor - S1E03 - Now That's a Clean Sea-Doo!

My girlfriend and I took the motorcycle to the beach on the July 4th holiday. Upon arrival, I noticed that the beach was a bit more empty than what I was expecting. Over time, it became much more lively. It was mostly middle-aged people and there was a really good gender balance. That's one thing I love about mazo -- most resorts have mostly old men, but the beach has a much better mix.

The Contenders were around this time, and were engaged in their group for the entire time we were at the beach. A few of them swapped out to watch, but no outsider was invited in (that I noticed). They are beyond the skills of most outsiders anyway. I heard a few reports from other people saying that individually they are great to talk to, but together they are somewhat rude. This attitude is primarily caused by a person who I will call Champ. I never approached this group to hear their side of the story. It's a little intimidating, actually.

Here's another intimidating thing: Couples our age. At home, my girlfriend and I have a problem with making friends. None of our hobbies in town are social (aka, we don't drink), so all the friends we have are from work. In other words, we have kinda boring friends. I used to have other friends in town, but they all have graduated and moved away. Our only big social hobby is Mazo Beach, so we are trying to meet new friends there. We'd prefer people our age, and that are somewhat close to our area. People our age are rare, and hard to approach correctly. (Example in the last episode, who weren't around this time like I hoped they would be.) And it seems that the couple is always more attractive then ourselves, which only makes me feel bad for trying to talk to the "hot girl at the party".

There was one other couple on the beach our age, and they apparently were weekenders (or more) that we just hadn't seen yet. I didn't want to approach them directly, and we missed our opportunity to join in when Smokey was talking to them. As we approached, Smokey was leaving, so instead I joined up with him to go check out a boat that we had discussed previously. It was a 1950's sailboat hull that was remade into an electric boat with a canvas top, and looked awesome!

As luck would have it, the couple went for a dip while we were chatting with the Elders. My girlfriend waved them over to us on their return, and they joined since they knew the Elders. Success! We learned that they were from our area and have some common interests with us. We think they're great, and we're looking forward to seeing them more often either at the beach or at other social activities in our area. They have our contact information, and I really hope they contact us. They energetically invited us over to their spot on the beach to chat more -- and I fully intended to visit!

Another thing the female of the couple mentioned is that she was yelled at. She put on a tanktop to go to the porta-potty. Normally she should wear pants too, since the shirt didn't even begin to cover her butt. (My observation is that every other part of the land is closed right now, so it's only nudies in the mini parking lot -- we shouldn't have to wear clothing since there is no possibility for textilers.) Champ yelled at her, something to the effect of "You need to cover up -- this is our beach and we don't want weekenders getting us in trouble!" The Elders later pointed out that the couple visit the beach more often than the Contenders, again calling them rude. They admitted that if encountered, it would really be a DNR judgement call since she was mostly covered. Mostly though, they didn't like Champ calling it their beach. It belongs to the public, not them.

After the couple left the group conversation, I asked Kingpin a burning question that I had: Were the many people on the island supposed to be over there? I've heard from several people that they aren't supposed to be, because it's in another county and outside of the traditional beach area. Kingpin didn't know about where the county line was exactly, but said that he was never told by the DNR or anyone official that people shouldn't be there. My further investigation (at home) is as follows: (click the image for full view)


The county line is highlighted in yellow, and the source for this is the Wisconsin DNR WebView. It's an odd place to draw the line, but the island in question is indeed in a different county. However, does this really matter? The DNR controls the land on both sides and in between, and it's not like they have to call in a different county's DNR person to investigate something on the other side of the river. It seems that the only people who could answer my question is the DNR -- little did I know, I'd have the answer today.

There was fairly heavy canoe traffic today, and for some reason almost ALL came through near the beach. The beach was rockin', so I guess they wanted to sneak a peek. There was one guy that was dressed kinda flashy who zoomed in on a sea-doo. Upon closer inspection, we discovered that this was a DNR warden.

What do we do now? I know they usually peek in, but normally it's from the mini parking lot and not a sea-doo. This guy stopped by some swimmers, who held his sea-doo in place after he shut it off to talk to them. Kingpin, my girlfriend and I wandered out there as well. Kingpin knew him by name already, and I just couldn't pass this up.

The warden asked Kingpin how things have been going. He knew that the Elders and other regulars do a great job at self-policing. Kingpin reported that there haven't been any problems. The warden seemed content, as-if surrounded by friends even though not a beach-goer, and decided to have lunch while chatting. He asked about how far people have been going down the island, and Kingpin (who patrols this occasionally) gave him about how many were there and how far they are going. The warden didn't mind at all -- strongly indicating that the DNR doesn't mind people being on the island as long as they are close to the traditional beach. In other words, the part you can see from the traditional beach is OK by this warden. He never said that people shouldn't be there, and people were currently there. However, people shouldn't test the limits by wandering further.

Update: On a technical note, the island is beyond the traditional area. The beach-side is probably OK for a quick visit, but don't go on the other side. This is the main river channel, and the people on the river will complain. If there are complaints, the DNR will do something about it. Although the DNR warden didn't seem to mind, he may be giving us enough rope to hang ourselves with.

The people of the beach really appreciate the DNR. They offer us safety (the warden fined a textile canoeist for having glass near our beach just before visiting us), and we help them out by self-policing, pulling invasive weeds, cleaning the roads, and whatever we can. The group noticed that the sea-doo was a bit dirty, so a few of them washed it off with river water during the warden's lunch. (I'm sure he was happy that a naked woman was washing his sea-doo.)

This whole encounter proved several things:

• The DNR really is in good terms with the nudists that use the beach.
• The nudists are in good terms with the DNR.
  
• Kingpin is a primary contact for at least this DNR warden.
• The island isn't off-limits, but can be if we push further.
• The DNR is awesome!

My suggestion is that since they are so awesome, you should buy seasonal state park passes for everyone at Christmas. The money goes to the DNR to support all of the public lands, and the recipients are encouraged to enjoy the state parks without having to buy the passes. This is better than putting money in the cards, or gift certificates to China-outlet big-box stores!

Anyway, during the chat I noticed that the couple we had met earlier were leaving. They invited us over, and I felt really bad that I hadn't made it over there. Oh well, we'll have to catch up another day! Despite how badly I wanted to go back on the 5th or 6th, prior commitments and our current sunburns indicated that we probably shouldn't. I'm sure the beach was rockin' even more over the weekend -- sorry that we had to miss it!

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