Recreational activities at Sugar Dock such as swimming are currently prohibited following recent incidents of drowning and pending assessment of the area for possible development.<\/p>\n
Public Safety commissioner Ed Camacho said during yesterday\u2019s proclamation signing for Boating Safety Week that only certain areas\u2014the hotel areas\u2014can be allowed for use.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s off-limit for swimming because we\u2019re also paying the price. We\u2019re looking at proposals to see how we can change such condition,\u201d said Camacho.<\/p>\n
He said recreational activities could be done at commercial areas such as Grand Hotel and Pacific Gardenia where there are more people to monitor activities, including lifeguards from these establishments. <\/p>\n
Gov. Juan N. Babauta instructed the Boating Safety Division yesterday to closely monitor the Sugar Dock, which has already claimed five lives this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people who drowned there are actually swimmers. So Captain [Pete Muna], take a look at the area. I see it as a very dangerous area. The current is very treacherous. We just lost another life two days ago,\u201d he said, referring to a man who died while snorkeling with his son beyond the reefline across Sugar Dock. The boy, about 10 years old, survived by clinging to his father’s floating body.<\/p>\n
Before this, three Chinese and a male Chamorro also drowned at Sugar Dock. <\/p>\n
Camacho yesterday called on hotel owners to provide lifeguards at their respective beach sites.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe encourage them to do that. We need each other here. It\u2019s not safe if we don\u2019t work together. If there\u2019s a pool or beach in your premises, you\u2019ve got to have a lifeguard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Meantime, Camacho said he hopes that the Marianas Public Lands Authority will give DPS a place at Sugar Dock for jet stations to encourage livelihood while improving safety in the area.<\/p>\n
He also called on the public \u201cto take swimming lessons\u201d for personal safety. \u201cLet\u2019s be water-sport smart from the start. It\u2019s important that we know how to swim because we\u2019re surrounded by a vast ocean.\u201d <\/p>\n
Camacho said the occurrence of several drownings at the Sugar Dock justifies looking at proposed developmental projects for the area.<\/p>\n
“It’s time that we need to look at [the proposal] again,” he said, referring to the proposed commercial development of the dock, which was opposed by many residents for cultural and ecological reasons.<\/p>\n
The project involved dredging that would improve water currents in the area.<\/p>\n
For his part, Muna, who is head of the Boating Safety Division, advised people to stay away from the waters during bad weather and rough sea conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recreational activities at Sugar Dock such as swimming are currently prohibited following recent incidents of drowning and pending assessment of the area for possible development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}