On Friday, the wife and I were having a gentle paddle down at Safety Beach near Dromana.

We were doing a medium distance paddle parallel to shoreline, and were always within a footy kick of the shore. It was as calm and as clear as swimming pool.

A 'marine patrol' powerboat came up to us, and one of the officers on board asked me if we wear wearing lifejackets. Clearly we weren't (not sure why they needed to ask). He then asked me if I knew it was a compulsory for paddle boarders to wear one. I said “no.” He then told us we better head back in immediately, or a police boat might be along soon and they might be less forgiving (implied a fine).

I said “ok” but after they took off in their boat, we decided “F*k 'em, this is ridiculous!” We continued on our paddle.

I can understand the need for a PFD for offshore paddling, but we were barely further out than the swimmers. Will swimmers soon need to wear life jackets just to enter the water The day before we had been SUP-surfing in Western Port Bay, and no one out there surfing was wearing a PFD. Today we paddled from south of Elwood to St Kilda marina and back (got a head wind both ways!) and we saw plenty of standup paddlers, but none wearing PFDs.

So, what's the deal?