| @dancastro: Thank you for the considered response. When reading the instructions ("nearest point in the border (land or water)") I immediately thought of coastal towns first, which led me to begin with Honolulu, Juneau, and Boston. It sounds like darcy had the same thought. I've done a bit of memory-jogging, and I now agree that I was incorrect before, though for different reasons. Sorry to invoke Wikipedia, but: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Territorial_waters You're right that simply stepping into the ocean off Honolulu wouldn't put you out of the state's jurisdiction. In fact you'd first be in archipelagic waters, which are, for all intents and purposes, considered to be "inside" the state. Once you cleared archipelagic waters you'd be in territorial waters, and still fully under Hawaiian control. From there, it gets fuzzier. But yes, I agree that my previous angle was incorrect. My *new* question is "How can we steer other folks away from this misunderstanding that snared darcy and me?" Barring bonus answers, maybe an instructional comment like "excluding national oceanic borders" would help. |
U.S. States 
Countries of Europe 
Countries of North America
