A short-term rental business operating out of Cortez is under scrutiny after multiple rescues of customers raised safety concerns.
U.S. Coast Guard Sector St. Pete confirmed Aug. 27 that over eight months it responded to eight distress calls from people renting vessels from a company known as EbbandFlow Marina LLC.
According to the EbbandFlow Facebook page, the company, owned by Brittany Bull, offers short-term rentals aboard a fleet of sailboats anchored in an area referred to as Sailors Park in the waters of Sarasota Bay near Cortez.
Recent reports suggest the company’s operations may not be as easygoing as the locale where customers are vacationing.
“Coast Guard Station Cortez has had to go out and rescue people from the vessels that are outside of Station Cortez,” public information officer Santiago Gomez told The Islander in an Aug. 29 interview. “We have had to rescue people off of them.”
Santiago also said this was not the only issue the Coast Guard has had with Bull this year.
“U.S. Coast Guard Sector St. Pete is currently investigating a possible violation of a captain of the port order that Brittany Bull was involved in,” Gomez said. He did not elaborate on the open investigation.
One of Bull’s short-term rental tenants, Harry Hibler of Ohio, said he and his wife, Tatyana, made arrangements in January to stay aboard one of the vessels at Sailors Park.
“We booked a week on a sailboat in Sarasota, Florida,” Hibler wrote to The Islander in an Aug. 30 email. “We paid the full amount in advance.”
Hibler said he and his wife drove from Ohio to Florida and arrived at the location at the correct time but no one was there to greet them and take them to a boat.
“I called and texted the host who said she would meet us there,” Hibler said, referring to Bull. “She said that she had to be out of town for an unexpected event. She said someone else would take us out in the water to the boat later. We waited an hour and a half. It was getting dark. My wife was feeling unsafe.”
Hibler said after waiting several hours they never made it out to the vessel and left the area, opting to travel to Orlando and stay in a hotel.
“We found this business through Airbnb,” he said referring to Bull’s rental. “However, when I contacted the host thru Airbnb she asked me to phone her and pay by credit card over the phone. When that did not work, she asked me to pay through PayPal. I did not realize that this transaction was taking place outside of Airbnb. When I reported the situation to Airbnb, they told me that they could not help me because the transaction had not gone through them. When the host requested that I pay through PayPal she insisted that I use the ‘friends and family’ option.”
Hibler later learned that the “friends and family” option on PayPal offers no buyer protection, making a dispute of the charges almost impossible.
Hibler said he reported the incident to the Ohio Attorney General’s office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.
He said the matter is under investigation.
Meanwhile, local captains and business owners who operate in the vicinity of Bull’s vessels, located a few hundred yards from Coast Guard Station Cortez, 4530 124th St. Court W., also are voicing concerns.
Karen Bell, owner of AP Bell Fish & Co. and Star Fish Co. in Cortez, said she contacted the MCSO to prevent Bull from using her business docks to pick up guests and ferry them to the vessels.
“I had her trespassed from the Starfish, Fullford, A.P. Bell and Florida Institute for Saltwater Heritage docks,” Bell said.
Once on the vessels, some people have been left without a way back to shore, Bell added.
“We kept finding these people who couldn’t get back off the boat and so they’d be screaming to our fishermen, asking could someone come help them?” she said.
Capt. Katie Tupin, who runs Captain Katie Scarlet Boat Tours out of Cortez, said she and her mother, Capt. Kathe Fannon, also a tour boat operator, have seen several Coast Guard rescues.
“I’ve seen the Coast Guard out there at least five times,” Tupin said Aug. 29. “Mom has helped at least two individual people back to the dock.”
She said many of the boats in Bull’s fleet were once sunken or derelict vessels that Bull salvaged and cleaned up.
However, many of them still are not seaworthy, said Tupin.
Bradenton Beach police Officer Eric Hill, who heads the city’s derelict vessel removal program, spoke with The Islander Aug. 29 and said law enforcement agencies are scrutinizing Bull’s vessels.
While Hill abides Bradenton Beach’s jurisdiction across the Intracoastal Waterway, he said during interagency meetings, Bull’s business has been discussed.
“We’re all looking at her for the simple fact that she’s doing stuff that’s not lawful,” he said.
Hill recounted observing Bull tow a vessel out of Cortez to a sand flat in the ICW east of the Coquina North Boat Ramp, just outside BBPD’s marine patrol jurisdiction.
When Hill confronted Bull about dumping the vessel she said the boat was hers but that it would not come back as registered to her name. She said she would remove the vessel in a few weeks.
Hill said he informed the MCSO as to the boat’s location and owner for further investigation.
Typically, derelict and abandoned vessel issues are handled by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which works in conjunction with county and municipal law enforcement agencies to remove them.
Florida law defines “derelict vessels” as those left in a wrecked, junked or substantially dismantled condition on public waters. Vessels can become derelict due to neglect, abandonment or because of a natural disaster.
The vessels, whether sinking, aground or lacking vital operational systems, create hazards in the waterways.
Derelict vessels pose risks to boaters, wildlife and natural resources.
The Islander reached out to Bull by email Aug. 29 and by phone Aug. 30 but as of Islander press time Sept. 2 there was no reply.
The Islander reached out the FWC for information related to EbbFlow’s operation in Sarasota Bay but as of Islander press time Sept. 2 there was no reply.