Amphib operations in Texas

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Barrett50

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Barrett50
I have a plot of land on the gulf of America, along the TX coast. It's not far from a protected bay. There is a causeway bridge over the channel between the protected bay and the gulf. Both bay and gulf are navigable waters and used by medium size vessels and also plenty of pleasure vessels(mostly fishing boats).

I would like to land in the protected bay(of course), then idle at no wake speed(as per boating regs) under the bridge, and down to my beach, where I would drive the amphib up on the land.

So far, I can't see any prohibition in law that would stop me from this operation. Anyone have any experience in similar?
 
When someone reports an airplane going under the bridge, and the investigation ensues...how will you be protected against an assumption that you were in flight?
maybe get a dash-cam...???

I don't know much about seaplane operations. I was casually looking into a while back, focused on Florida mainly...maybe I have it wrong, but it seems that there are a lot of varied regulations...county by county, city by city. Seems to me that it's really hard to know where you can put it down in water and where you can't....just like "back country" off airport opps.....
 
Plenty of seaplanes landing in all sorts of waters in the Puget Sound area here in Western Washington. While I do not know the law, they operate in busy water with active pleasure, fishing, shipping, and ferries.
 
The Seaplane Pilots Association is a source with lots of answers. Once while on the water had a safety check by marine patrol he did not know on the water the aircraft is a federally registered entity as indicated above. Had to educate him on why I didn't have Florida vessel number and annual stamp. Thought he had me but fire extinguisher, vests, throwable etc were all there. He putted away disappointed. Passed him on the step at 50 knots before lifting off.
 
Lots of useful info to work with. I had not seen that seaplane handbook, I'll review it carefully. Was planning to reach out to the seaplane pilots assoc and see what their take was on my plan.
 
If you are up in Alaska or Canada no problem those people know seaplanes and get along very well with everyone, if your in the lower 48 good luck, lots of people that should know have no idea of what is legal and not. Also lots of States are unfriendly about seaplanes, insurance company rates don't like them, they pay out about 1 in 10 every year for low time pilots that don't know what they don't know.
 
Yes, Texas is very liberal where seaplanes are concerned. My real only beef with the deal is going under the bridge in a plane. The fact that I'm crossing from 'inland waterway' to 'international waterway'(gulf of Amer is considered the same as Pacific or Atlantic) gives me a bit of pause.
 
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