Opinion ID: 2321422
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Whether Scuba Diving is a Form of Navigation

Text: [¶ 72] Framed in terms of Maine's established common law, the question this case ultimately presents is whether, as the Superior Court determined, scuba diving is an activity within the ambit of the enumerated public right of navigation. McGarvey and Kleintop assert that navigation requires the use of a boat or vessel, the traditionally identified instruments used to navigate through the water. They also argue that scuba diving involves underwater swimming, and because bathing was a facet of the general recreational activity that we considered and rejected in Bell II, our decision in Bell II should control. See Bell II, 557 A.2d at 174-76. [¶ 73] The majority in Bell II explicitly relied on Butler, a 1907 Massachusetts decision, to support the proposition that bathing, an aspect of the asserted right of general recreation, is not within the public's right to use intertidal lands. See Bell II, 557 A.2d at 175 (citing Butler, 80 N.E. 688). The Butler court explained: In the seashore the entire property, under the colonial ordinance, is in the individual, subject to the public rights. Among these is, of course, the right of navigation, with such incidental rights as pertain thereto. We think that there is a right to swim or float in or upon public waters as well as to sail upon them. But we do not think that this includes a right to use for bathing purposes, as these words are commonly understood, [the intertidal areas] of the beach or shore ... whether covered with water or not. It is plain, we think, that under the law of Massachusetts there is no reservation or recognition of bathing on the beach as a separate right of property in individuals or the public under the colonial ordinance. 80 N.E. at 689 (citations omitted). The Butler court concluded that intertidal lands are held in fee subject ... to the easement of the public for the purposes of navigation and free fishing and fowling, and of passing freely over and through the water without any use of the land underneath, wherever the tide ebbs and flows. Id. (emphasis added). [¶ 74] Butler thus distinguished bathing from swimming. See also Bell II, 557 A.2d at 174-76, 177 (addressing bathing, not swimming). Bathing, as it was commonly understood, was not included in the right of navigation, and therefore it was not within the public's right to use intertidal lands. Butler, 80 N.E. at 689; see also Michaelson, 173 N.E.2d at 278 (applying the holding in Butler without discussion). [¶ 75] By the functional definition relied on in Butler, scuba diving is not bathing because it primarily involves passing freely over and through the water without any use of the land underneath. See Butler, 80 N.E. at 689. As a matter of function, scuba diving has qualities of navigation because it is only possible with the use of external apparatus such as breathing gas cylinders, breathing regulators, swim fins, weight belts, and buoyancy compensators. This equipment enables scuba divers to travel and remain submerged in the water for extended periods. See NOAA Diving Manual: Diving for Science and Technology 5-8 to 5-12, 5-26 to 5-30 (James T. Joiner, ed. 4th ed.2001). [18] In particular, dive weights and buoyancy compensators enable scuba divers to achieve neutral buoyancy, facilitating travel over extended distances through the water without touching the bottom. Id. at 5-26, 5-29. Other aspects of scuba diving further equate it with navigation and distinguish it from bathing. Most notably, scuba diving involves the use of underwater navigational aides such as watches, depth gauges, [19] and compasses. Id. at 5-42 to 5-44. [¶ 76] Modern scuba diving did not exist when Butler was decided in 1907, or when we last interpreted navigation in Andrews in 1925. Certainly, it did not exist at the time of the Colonial Ordinance. It is of little moment whether the colonists could have foreseen that there would come a day when it was possible for persons to pass[] freely over and through the water without any use of the land underneath without the use of a boat or vessel. See Butler, 80 N.E. at 689. What matters is that the public's right of navigation includes that usagepassing freely over and through the waterand our common law enables us to recognize newly developed methods of travel associated with such usage. By this approach, we have previously concluded that the public's right of navigation includes the right to travel by skate across intertidal lands covered with ice, see Marshall, 93 Me. at 536, 45 A. at 498, and by horse over navigable rivers when frozen, French, 18 Me. at 434. Neither of these modes of travel involves a boat or a vessel. [¶ 77] For the common law to have the expansive and adaptive force described so many years ago in Woodman, 79 Me. at 458, 10 A. at 322, it must account for the technological advances that continually transform the means by which people navigate over and through water. Accordingly, we may apply a sympathetically generous interpretation to this area of the common law and include scuba diving as an activity that is within the public's right to use intertidal land for purposes of navigation. Furthermore, we have previously recognized that the public has the right to walk upon intertidal land when it is incidental to the right of navigation, see Andrews, 124 Me. at 363-64, 129 A. at 299; Wilson, 42 Me. at 24; therefore, walking across intertidal lands to access the ocean in order to scuba dive is also within the public's right.