Who
else thinks one needs thousands of watts to be heard on the bowl from
the water? Anyone?

you need thousands of watts on channel 6 NO MATTER where you are if you
actually want to be consistently talking and taking out mud ducks. sure anybody
can sit out there on the water or anywhere else and yell there handle between
keys all day and get heard every once in a while and if your lucky enough
somebody on the other end of dx land may even confuse you for the real deal but
to be the real deal sheer rf power is needed. you sir are not the only one
living by water..........