People often ask us how long we have been boating. Some are literally in shock, disbelief or just think we are plain crazy when we tell them the number of boats we have had over the twenty-seven years that we have been boating. Honestly, at points, I have even lost count, or maybe just given up counting, how many we have had. Maybe we are crazy. Who knows? But I guess it’s a good thing to be a little over the top.
It’s funny because, in the beginning, I wanted no part of boating. None of it. I had no interest in it at all. It was 1996, and we were getting married on Columbus Day weekend. It’s funny now, all these years later, that this is our favorite weekend of the whole boating season. But that’s for another story down the road.
Anyway, two weeks before we were getting married, my fiancé went and put down a deposit on a 21’ Bayliner Trophy at the Tobay Boat Show. The salesman wrote, “subject to fiancé’s approval”. Because we weren’t busy enough at that time, we went back to the boat show together to see the boat. It was a fishing boat and nothing I saw interested me. We were there for a whole five minutes. We, or I, canceled that really fast.
Fast forward to the winter of 1998. We had moved into our second house and my husband was involved in the Volunteer Fire Department in the town that we lived in. He was always between work and volunteering, and I did not have much to do when I wasn’t working. So, we talked and decided we needed something to do together as a couple. And so, the boat purchase discussion started again. Not that it ever stopped at his end for that year and a half, but I figured I would try it. What’s the worst thing that could happen? If I didn’t like it, we would just sell it. We bought and sold our cars when we wanted something different. I thought to myself, we could do the same with the boat if I didn’t like it. No big deal, right?
So, we looked around at boats during the winter and we found the perfect first boat for us. She was in a marina in Lindenhurst, NY and was a green and white 21’ Rinker cuddy cabin. She was just what we were looking for and we thought it was perfect. There was a little cabin to store our stuff to go out for the day and a porta potty. What else could we need? We found a slip on a little marina in Oceanside, NY on the south shore of Long Island. While we waited for the nice weather to come, we took a boating class. It was once a week for six weeks, a couple of hours a night. We wanted to learn as much as we could before starting out. It was exciting when the weather finally broke and we were able to bring her home.
Turns out I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I was going to. I enjoyed it. A lot. Who wouldn’t? We were out on the water, just relaxing, getting a tan. A day off from work. We went out every chance that we got – especially during the week when there was hardly any boat traffic. We’d spend hours just driving around and learning the waterways. We would go over to the docks at Paddy McGee’s in Island Park and just practice docking. When I say we, I mean my husband. He was always the “Captain”. Looking back now, I probably should have learned how to operate the boat instead of just being the passenger. My job, years later, was to read the paper charts when we started to travel.
So, our little cuddy cabin did us so well and taught us so much that we decided that this was something we enjoyed doing. Together. We didn’t even have time to name her – we only had her six weeks, and we were already on the search for our next vessel. In the interim of shopping, we ran into an old friend from high school. It turns out he had a boat as well. This was very exciting for us. At that time, we were very young, and none of our friends had a boat. We were the first, either we took a few people with us, or we went alone.
Our shopping ended when we found a 24’ Bayliner Ciera. Wow? What a difference from what we had – it had a head, a little kitchenette, V- berth. This was right up my alley – cozy accommodations. I could get used to this type of boating. With our friendship reconnected, our boating lifestyle was about to change drastically. We went from day boating to spending weekends on the hook in Gilgo Cove, or as others know it, Garbage Cove. Why, back then, we never went to Zach’s Bay when we passed by it every weekend, is still an unanswered question in my head.
That first summer on the hook in Gilgo is when the real fun and memories started. It was the start of real passion for boating and the beginning of our boating “family”.
We learned a lot that summer – especially how you need to be aware of your surroundings, especially when the sailboat anchored right in front of you has black smoke coming out of their cabin.