The Knuckleheads of the Day award

Goes to Edward and Bettina Larsen of Cape Coral Florida. They are parents to three children ages 4, 14, and 17. This was the family the Coast Guard had to rescue after their boat got shipwrecked off the South Florida coast.

What parents take their children to sea when a hurricane is approaching. Do these people have any common sense? They endangered not only their lives but their children's. Plus forced the Coast Guard and authorities to have to search for them. This father and mother apparently have zero common sense and therefore Edward and Bettina Larsen are today's Knucklehead award winners.

By Christine Stapleton
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

The U.S. Coast Guard plucked a Cape Coral family from a mangrove island off Everglades City about 2:30 p.m. Friday, a day after the family tried to cross Florida Bay and failed to return home.

Edward and Bettina Larsen and their three children, ages 4, 14 and 17, were in good condition and did not need medical attention after being hoisted, one by one, aboard a Coast Guard HH-60 helicopter, according to a Coast Guard statement. The family's 24-foot Glasstron, single-engine power boat was beached on the island beside the family. The Coast Guard was interviewing the family to determine how they became stranded.

The search for the Larsens began Thursday night after a family friend reported they had not returned home from a trip to Banana Bay resort in Marathon. The family left the resort early Thursday morning and had not been heard from.

"They were concerned about the weather, but they thought they could outrun it," said Dave Boblitt, dockmaster at Banana Bay in Marathon. "They went back and forth about whether to leave Wednesday night or Thursday morning."

The family traveled to Marathon from their home in Cape Coral earlier in the week, the first time they had ever crossed Florida Bay in the boat, said Larsen's mother, Edwina Larsen of Punta Gorda.

"It was just going to be a two-day trip to the Keys, but they were having so much fun snorkeling that they decided to stay another day," she said. "I guess that storm just went down and followed him. Where he went I don't know."

Edwina Larsen said her son had grown up around boats in New York and "knows that Atlantic Ocean." Edward Larsen recently had equipped the boat, named Sea Note, with extra safety equipment before the family trip to the Keys, she said.