Irondequoit, N.Y. —Scott Johns was born in Hawaii and grew up in Florida. He started learning to surf at the age of 4.
Then life brought him to Rochester several years ago.

“It really killed me, being away from the ocean,” Johns recalled.

Then, just last summer, he saw a guy on the beach in Irondequoit’s Sea Breeze area with what looked like a surfboard.

“I didn’t know it (surfing) was possible on the lake,” Johns said. He says now that it was fate.

Johns learned that surfing the lake was not only possible, but also that it can be done year-round and that there’s even a Rochester Surf Club.

One of the most popular spots, locally, for surfing is near the pier in the Sea Breeze area of Irondequoit.
“We’re safe about it and try not to trespass,” Johns said.

IPN poses no threat to human health, so catching, handling and eating a fish with the virus can't hurt you, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

But once the disease is in a fish hatchery, it's tough to get rid of. That's why, when the Service's Allegheny National Fish Hatchery in Warren tested positive for IPN, it was "depopulated." All of the fish there were euthanized, so the facility could be disinfected. It later returned to producing fish.

An outbreak of disease in a Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission hatchery is expected to lead to the euthanizing of some steelhead and brown trout.

IPN, or infectious pancreatic necrosis, a viral disease that can affect all kinds of fish but is particularly common among trout and salmon, was discovered three months ago in fish supplied to cooperative nurseries by the commission's Corry hatchery in Erie. Word of that discovery was made public last week.

   A “SAFE BOATING” course ( Michigan’s DNR “Boat Michigan” course ) will be offered by the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary, Lansing Flotilla (in conjunction with Michigan DNR) , on Saturday, February 11th, 2012, commencing @  8  am to 5 pm at  the American Legion Post 238, 1785 S. Cedar St., Holt, Michigan  48842 (south of Holt Road, west side of Cedar St.).

MUSKEGON — Some would argue that Muskegon County is behind other communities in embracing, promoting and exploiting the “green economy.”

But that shouldn't be the case with the emerging “blue economy,” a national think tank scholar and head of the Michigan State Board of Education said. Blue means water and that should be Muskegon's ace in the hole, community leaders say.

“I'm really bullish on this community and its opportunities,” John Austin told last week's Muskegon Lakeshore Chamber of Commerce's Business for Breakfast. Austin is a non-resident, senior fellow with the Brookings Institution and a senior fellow with the University of Michigan's School of Education.

To continue the conversation started at the Recreational Boating Stakeholders Growth Summit in December, a follow-up meeting is being planned for the first half of March to begin the work needed to start growing the industry.   In an e-mail to summit participants, National Marine Manufacturers Association president Thom Dammrich said the highest-ranked joint action, according to a summary of the summit, was to create a national industrywide coalition of recreat