Quote:
Originally Posted by Ron.38 Special
If you read the article in this months "In The Bite", they say 12 miles off any island or bank is legal waters since US and Bahamas do not have an agreement on EEZ.
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Did they give any references to the lack of agreement between the Bahamas and the USA on the extent of the EEZ? To the best of my knowledge both countries do agree on the EEZ. The USA has not ratified the UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) but the disagreement lies with the section on the distribution of profits from seabed mining in waters outside of any countries limits. The USA has expressed agreement with the other sections of the law, including that area concerning EEZs. If they did not recognize the Bahamas EEZ why were the longliners not allowed there?
Practically speaking, I do not think anybody is going to get into trouble for fishing recreationally in the Bahamas EEZ as long as they stay outside Bahamas territorial waters. We were stopped by the CG about 30 nm off Port Everglades on Saturday and they did not have a problem with us fishing there. They did give us a thorough search - keeping us for over 1 hour and even gave the bean bag a cavity search
Ed