Canadians take boat for illegal joy ride on Lake Osceola

In a stroke of humorous linguistic luck, two visiting Canadians were found oat and aboat in a boat.

Eleven minutes after midnight on Saturday August 31st, Officer Castillo was dispatched to Lake Osceola. Apparently two white males had taken the University of Miami’s 13-foot Boston Whaler on a late night joy ride without permission. The boat was last seen at midnight.

When Officer Castillo arrived on the scene, Kevin Robey, 21, and Andrew Bowman, 20, were exiting the boat. They had already taken it for a quick 10-minute spin and had returned it to the same location they had taken it from. No damages were reported on the vessel.

The pair was confused when they were greeted on shore with hostility. According to the incident report, they claimed to be “unaware that taking someone else’s boat was illegal in the U.S.”

The two are from Ontario, Canada and are not enrolled at UM.

The Canucks maintain they were visiting a friend who attends the university even though no one else was present at the time.

Officer Castillo issued a trespass warning and the two were escorted off campus peacefully. ICE agents were not contacted, and the university did not seek deportation.

The boat is usually kept on the loading dock adjacent to the pool. It is used primarily to clean any debris that falls into the lake and to maintain the fountain.

It is unclear how the boat bandits started the watercraft or their motive.

This post was originally published on Oct. 2 on tropicaldisturbanceum.wordpress.com.