Egret Island partiers ruffle residents’ feathers
Though designated in 1958 as a bird sanctuary, Egret Island in Lake Butler attracts more partiers than pelicans on summer weekends and holidays.
Lakeshore residents in Windermere complain that the wildlife near the 10-acre island usually includes alcohol, loud music and occasionally a pontoon boat with stripper poles.
“You can’t make this stuff up,” said town Mayor Gary Bruhn, who hears regularly about noise, nudity and other nuisances connected to island crowds.
More commonly called Bird Island, it sits about 200 yards away from Windermere’s Fernwood Park, which has a boat ramp but limits parking to town residents only.
It’s expected to be crowded this weekend through Independence Day. A poker run with boats will benefit the One Heart for Women and Children charity and has Bird Island as one of its designated stops Saturday.
Avid boaters who anchor in the island shallows insist the
mayor and lake-siders exaggerate problems they see from shore.
“I’m not saying there aren’t some problems out there,” said Rick Taylor, 57, who calls himself the “mayor” of Bird Island and who organized the charity poker run. “But there are some people who keep their eyes closed during sex because they don’t want to see anyone else having fun.”
He said most people moored near the island on weekends are simply relaxing with friends, enjoying public waters. Most also clean up after themselves, he said.
But Bruhn said partiers regularly ignore “no trespassing” signs posted by Audubon Florida, listed by the Orange County property appraiser’s office as the island’s owner.
Revelers have ferried a barbecue grill and a portable toilet to the shallows, planted pop-up shade canopies in the sand, tied vessels to cypress trees, cracked open cold ones on hot days and left their trash behind, the mayor said. More and more, personal watercraft — Jet Skis and Sea-Doos — join the island crowds.
Paul Gerding, whose Windermere home faces the island, has had a frontrow view of the growing crowds.
“It’s not that we see ’em as much as we hear ’em,” said Gerding, 70, who has lived on the lake for three decades. He said he and his wife, Kaye, are getting worn out with the racket.
“Noise is usually the thing that prompts us to go into our ‘holy-crap-whatare-they-doing-out-therenow’ mode,” Gerding said.
His own kids hung out around the island when they were younger, so he understands its lure.
“I don’t want to stop anybody from enjoying their boats and all; I just wish there was a little more consideration for the people who live here,” he said.
Some boaters express concerns, too.
“On tamer days, it is a paradise,” said Sandi Brubaker, 36, a mother of two who has enjoyed the Butler Chain of Lakes for more than a decade. “Over the years, however, more people come in and don't respect fellow boaters and the island. … People leave trash, throw cigarette butts in the water [and] blare music so loud you can't even have a conversation in your own boat.”
Bruhn said he and a team of Gatorland volunteers collected enough beer cans, liquor bottles, abandoned underwear and other garbage on the island to fill more than 25 large trash bags during an Earth Day cleanup this year.
Social media postings drive crowds to Bird Island, according to Bruhn and law-enforcement agencies that patrol the Butler Chain of Lakes.
“They come out to do one thing: party,” the mayor said.
Orange County sheriff’s Lt. Dennis Ela, who supervises a marine unit that patrols several hundred waterways, described the issues around Egret Island as “a cultural clash” between boaters and landlubbers.
“There are people enjoying the water in ways that might be bothersome and irritating to some, but it’s not generally illegal … although I probably wouldn’t be real happy either if I lived on that shoreline,” Ela said.
Deputies plucked 12 swimmers headed to the island in May, most from a high school’s senior skip day.
Sheriff’s records also show the Marine Unit logged hundreds of patrol hours near the island over the past few months, issuing warnings to 135 boaters but writing just four criminal citations, all for underage possession of alcohol.
Deputies also haven’t encountered nudity around the island but, Ela said, “swimwear attire, being what it is these days, might be borderline nudity. But, again, not illegal.”
Bruhn, Audubon’s Charles Lee and others say state rules handcuff local authorities.
“We have no say out there,” Bruhn said of town police. “Where the water begins, our jurisdiction ends.”
FWC Lt. Jeff Hudson, who has patrolled the Butler chain for 20 years, offered a simple solution for the conflicts.
“If everyone would use just a little common courtesy and think about others around them, it would probably go a long ways toward smoothing things out,” he said.
But boat patrols help tamp down craziness that comes when you mix crowds with alcohol and water.
“Just one officer other there can reduce the risk and the stupidity,” Bruhn said.