Themis Lonis and Joe Sherry patrol Lake Tahoe for the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office. (Image: Kathryn Reed0

With barely a head turn, they already know if life vests are being worn or are attached to the human powered watercraft, if the vessel has its current registration, whether it’s going faster than allowed in certain areas.

If all is good, they motor by. If not, a stop is made.

This is life on Lake Tahoe for the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office’s boat patrol where the primary mission is safety, with education a huge component.

Joe Sherry, a retired sergeant with the local California Highway Patrol office, is in his 10th year with El Dorado County’s boat patrol, while Themis Lonis, a retired patrol officer from Oakland Police Department, is in his third season.

The boat unit has eight people, with the others working primarily at Folsom Lake and Ice House Reservoir.

Memorial Day weekend was the busiest either of these two remember. It was also one of the warmest, which is what draws people to the water in large numbers. A fight at Pope Beach led to a DUI arrest when young people fleeing the area drove off and were stopped leaving the parking lot, there was a boating under the influence arrest, and a guy faces charges for allegedly giving false identification to an officer.

One case involving a woman gunning her personal watercraft well more than 30 mph, going airborne and landing farther up the beach than either of the officers have seen such a vessel beached could land her in a courtroom.

“She rode it like a rodeo queen,” Sherry said, adding that the woman wasn’t injured, but she was clearly going more than the 5 mph speed limit.

While Sherry expects the case will be referred to the District Attorney’s Office, he said an obstacle is finding local witnesses, as most were from out of the country.

Ensuring paddlers are wearing life jackets or have them available is key to patrolling. (Image: Kathryn Reed)

Nothing is ordinary

That’s one of the things the boat guys encounter—a lot of foreigners on the lake.

“They don’t have boating skills. A lot of people don’t respect we’re at 6,000 feet and that the water is 50 to 60 degrees,” Sherry said in early June while leaving the Tahoe Keys Marina, where the boat is docked.

These visitors are often in one of the hundreds of rental boats that could be on the water any given day. Most boat rentals originate on the South Shore. This area is also home to the largest number of private boats.

Add to this that not everyone on a boat or even on a flotation device knows how to swim and the next thing the boat guys are responding to is a drowning or near drowning.

Then there are the propeller cuts and boating under the influence cases.

“Nothing is easy on the water,” Sherry said of policing the waters. The resources aren’t available like they are on land. Assistance may or may not be there. People have a hard time telling dispatch where they are; everything looks the same to someone who doesn’t know the names of landmarks.

Each of the last two years the boat guys have been involved with fatalities at Eagle Falls, where people have fallen. The force of the water propelled one victim all the way to the bottom, not far from Vikingsholm.

Rocky situations are an issue. People get hurt jumping from Fanette Island onto submerged rocks.

Rooster Rock near D.L. Bliss State Park has long been a popular spot for locals and tourists to jump into the water. It’s also a place the boat guys are called to because of injuries.

On the lookout

“People equate Lake Tahoe to any lake and they really should equate it to an ocean,” Sherry said.

This is because it’s possible to have 6-foot waves, especially in the middle of the lake. Afternoon winds often catch out-of-towners, and even locals, off guard. For paddlers and those on floaties near a beach, this is more troubling because often Mother Nature shows her might by pushing people away from shore.

In the 2024 season, which roughly runs Memorial Day weekend to mid-September, the El Dorado County crew recorded 108 water rescues.

“One time we had eight kayaks tied to the back, and we were picking people as we came in,” Lonis said.

Those on human powered devise must have a life jacket that is easily accessible, but they don’t have to wear it. Without a jacket, survival rate in these waters is less than 20 minutes before hypothermia is likely to set in.

On a boat anyone under 13 must be wearing a life vest, with one available for everyone else. Having them locked up or still in the shopping bag, as the boat patrolmen have found, doesn’t do anyone any good and isn’t meeting the letter of the law.

Fourth of July is less disastrous because more people are opting to be on a charter boat where a licensed (and sober) captain is at the controls.

Making sure charters have the requisite permits is another job of the boat guys’. Illegal charters are a growing problem. This includes individuals renting their watercraft online to strangers, which means the mandatory safety talk given at marinas is likely not happening, and life jackets might not be provided.

Plus, all rental boats come with a radio. While many private boats have one, they are not required.

Mostly it’s people in distress or doing something illegal that Sherry on Lonis are concerned about. One recent Saturday they came to the rescue of a white pelican at Camp Richardson.

While it’s uncommon for these birds to fly into the Tahoe basin, sometimes they stop here in the spring. This particular one, Sherry said, was picked up by the U.S. Forest Service.

he El Dorado County boat patrol often rescues people on flotation devices after they drift beyond the swimmers’ boundaries when the wind picks up. (Image: Kathryn Reed)

A better experience?

One issue at Tahoe, especially the South Shore, is the lack of beach area for a boat to pull up on. Only Ski Beach, north of Baldwin Beach, is this permissible. That’s because it is privately owned. The drawback is there is no car access.

Sherry and Lonis often find boats in swim areas where they don’t belong because of legal and safety reasons.

An option Sherry is lobbying for is to have the U.S. Forest Service, which owns most of the beaches, to make part of one beach boat friendly.

More and more scuba divers—private boats, guided tours, and dive schools—are on the lake. In fact, the sheriff’s boat is scuba equipped, with Sherry going in once a week to stay at the top of his game.

While other lakes allow divers to tie up to a buoy, divers here are told to drop anchor because TRPA strictly regulates the number of buoys. The problem is the anchor is destroying some of the wreckage everyone is there to see, according to Sherry.

Boating speed limits

South Lake Tahoe, Douglas County, and Placer County also have boats on Lake Tahoe, with El Dorada having the largest body of water to patrol out of those entities. They all have agreements so they can go where needed, and often are helping each other.

California State Parks added a boat last year, but doesn’t have the staffing to operate it often. It’s home is at the boat-in campground in Emerald Bay.

U.S. Coast Guard operates out of Tahoe City, with jurisdiction of the whole lake, which the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency also has. TRPA’s boat is in the Tahoe Keys.

“In 1997, the agency established a 600-foot no-wake zone from the shoreline of Tahoe to reduce boating impacts including noise, stirring up of sediment in shallow water, and safety. With the adoption of the 2018 Shoreline Plan, additional no-wake zones were added at 100 feet from paddlers and swimmers and 200 feet from structures like piers and buoys,” TRPA spokesperson Jeff Cowen said. “No-wake zones also help minimize shoreline erosion and improve the recreation experience for all.”

He said TRPA’s boat teams mostly deal with no-wake zone violations, with 600 “verbal corrective actions” made most seasons.

A bugaboo of late is how fast should boats be allowed to go in Emerald Bay. The posted sign the El Dorado County crew enforces is 15 mph.

The TRPA Shoreline Plan sets a speed limit of 5 mph for all of Emerald Bay, and the agency wants that enforced. That’s not going to happen.

Some of the bigger boats, like the M.S. Dixie, need to go faster than 5 mph in order not to be blown onto shore.

It would be illegal to have one speed limit for one class of boats and another for everyone else.

Sherry said the 15 mph came into being in the 1980s after a water skier died in Emerald Bay.

“My research did not support going to 5 mph,” Sherry said. “In the last 10 years there have been no crashes in Emerald Bay. There’s not an erosion concern because the wind waves are bigger than a boat’s (in there).”

Note: A version of this story first appeared in the Tahoe Mountain News.