Each Seafair weekend, officers patrol Lake Washington, looking for signs of Boating under the Influence (BUI) and other unsafe activities. The BUI patrols are a combined effort of local and state law enforcement.

If officers believe a boater is drunk, they do field sobriety tests.

If the boater is arrested, and no one else on board is sober or can safely operate the boat, the boat is towed to a dock on Mercer Island and impounded. A BUI ticket is $1,000. If your boat is impounded, it will cost another $800.

When the BUI enforcement began about 10 years ago, 175 people were arrested on Seafair weekend. Last year, 35 boaters were arrested for BUI.

“Our officers, along with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, arrested 16 Boating Under the Influence suspects, [and] one felony assault suspect which stemmed from a fight aboard a private boat,” said MIPD Commander Leslie Burns.

They also assisted in the recovery of the body of the 32-year-old drowning victim in Andrews Bay Sunday night at about 7 p.m

The drowning victim was turned over to Seattle Fire and Harbor Patrol because the incident occurred in their jurisdiction, Burns said.

Witnesses said the man fell off a 20-foot pleasure craft about 150 feet offshore, in the middle of Andrews Bay not far from the Lakewood Moorage, according to local news sources.

They said the man kept popping up to the surface and going under. About an hour and a half later, the man was found by a police robotics unit about 45 feet underwater, hidden in heavy silt.

He had no pulse and wasn’t breathing when he was brought to the surface. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The man’s name was not immediately released. He was not wearing a life jacket.