By keeping these five dangers in mind, and making it second-nature to avoid them, you'll be far safer on the water and find your time there more enjoyable!

Danger #1: Smoking while putting fuel in the gas tank - It might seem like common sense, but it's worth emphasizing that gasoline is still highly flammable even if your boat is sitting on top of all that glorious water. Don't smoke cigarettes, cigars, pipes, or whatnot around the engine or fuel tanks.

Danger #2: Smoking while near the battery (especially while recharging the battery) - This one is more subtle because most people don't realize that charging marine batteries produces hydrogen. (You've heard of the hydrogen bomb, right?) Hydrogen is highly explosive, and can build up in a closed battery compartment when recharging. So the best rule is to not smoke cigarettes, cigars, pipes, or whatnot around the your battery at all.

Danger #3: Operating the boat while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Most people will agree that drugs (even prescription drugs) and alcohol impair judgement and response times and shouldn't be used when driving a car. On boats drugs and alcohol can be even more deadly because there are fewer protections (no airbags or seatbelts, right?) and the mindset on a boat is usually more relaxed. Why are people usually more relaxed on a boat? Cars may be recreational to some, but to most people their a practical mode of transportation. A pontoon boat, however, is primarily recreational, and when we're in our recreational mindset we often don't think defensively like we do when we're on the road in our cars and trucks. Keep in mind that drugs and alcohol should not be used by pontoon boat skippers and that they cause serious impairments and subject everyone to more danger.

Danger #4: Unfamiliar operators - don't just let anybody skipper your pontoon boat. Inexperienced boaters may not have the maturity or temperment to guide your craft wisely. Use your best judgment before you hand over the well-being of your passengers (and yourself and those folks in other vessels) to someone who isn't a proven and experienced boater.

Danger #5: Piloting in reverse - when someone is in the water, don't back the boat up and injure them with the propellers. Too many bad things can happen when the propellers of your engine start moving your craft backwards closer to the person in the water. Boats don't have brakes - they DON'T stop on a dime.

In the first installment of this two-part series, we highlighted five dangers (aka: Five Stupid Ways to Injure Yourself or Others) you could experience on a pontoon boat. In this second, and final, installment we introduce six additional dangers - that you may or may not have considered. Our intent is to bring these dangers to the forefront of your mind right now, so that when you are out enjoying the waterways - you will have been exposed to concepts that emphasize good precautions to take - so that your focus will be on enjoyment of safe and thoughtful boating.

Let's start with Danger #6 and work our way up to Danger #11:

Danger #6: Passengers riding in dangerous areas - don't let passengers sit in seats or on parts of the deck from which they can easily fall into the water when a your boat makes sudden changes in movement. Sitting on the bow, rail, transom, sun deck, swivel fishing seats, and like areas should not be allowed. Neither should standing during transit. If someone falls from the front of your pontoon boat while you're in transit, there's very little you can do (if anything) to prevent the propellers from hitting them as your boat passes over the top of them.

Danger #7: Boat running while swimmers and skiers enter the water - Shut off the engine before swimmers and skiers are allowed to enter the water. If you must turn the engine on before everyone's back in the boat, make sure that no one is under the boat, or near the engine. Don't let your passengers rush to get into the water. Making people wait until you kill the motors isn't being a grinch, it's being smart.

Danger #8: Unbalanced loads - don't distribute all the weight to one portion of the boat. Let all the passengers know that they all should stand on an particular part of the boat at the same time for safety sake. It's easy to lose sight of this when there's something funny going on in the water and everyone rushes to the port side to see it. Pontoon boats are pretty stable, but don't tempt fate by throwing out common sense and putting physics and pontoon boat engineering to the test. Keep your pontoon boat load evenly distributed.

Danger #9: Too much weight - don't overload your watercraft. Don't take twelve people out on a boat that's designed for six. It's not just a load balancing danger, but you're putting dangerous strain on the structure of your watercraft and it's engine.

Danger #10: Leaving inland waterways - Pontoon boats were designed for inland water