It has been quite a few years (lol) since I was in high school and writing for English class, but I always enjoyed writing projects and thought. How hard could this be? I could sit and draft an article for a minimum of 750 words in no time – it would be a piece of cake! Well, when I started my first article and printed out what I thought was at least 750 words, when I counted it, and I only had about 375 words, I thought, boy, was I in big trouble! But then I sat and thought, and all the memories and adventures of over 27 years of boating started to come back. I knew that this would be something that I would enjoy doing, and now this is my third article! I hope you are enjoying reading about what our boating life has been like so far. Maybe you are even reminiscing about all your own boating experiences over the years. And boy, do I have a lot to share over all these years….
So, back to some of our adventures in Gilgo Cove in the Summer of 1998. At this time, our family consisted of our two golden retrievers – Casey and Dakota. This was our first summer with them and having a boat. When we purchased our Bayliner, we brought them both down to the marina to get them used to the boat. Upon trying to get them aboard, Casey immediately fell in. That was the end of her boating career. She was already a nervous dog since she was a puppy, and this put her right over the edge. She wouldn’t even go anywhere near the boat after that. Casey then spent the summer at my parents’ house, where my mom would make her string bean salad. She was incredibly happy, landlocked there, and being spoiled.
Dakota, on the other hand, absolutely loved the boat. We took him everywhere with us. He just wanted to be with us and loved all the attention that he received from our boating friends. We have had many funny stories about him over the years – we were lucky to have had him until he was almost 15 years old – but there are a few that still make us laugh from our boating days in Gilgo.
Since we were new to boating and bringing our dog with us, there were a lot of unknowns. Like…how do you get your dog to the beach at night to go to the bathroom? Well, at that point, we had no dingy…so you walked him in. Except, sometimes you don’t realize how high the tide is at night, and you jump in to take him, and you are in sweatpants and now chest deep in salt water. Good thing it was hubby and not me. Soaking wet clothes make you realize very quickly you need a dinghy to get your dog to the beach. You can bet by the next weekend we were back in Gilgo with a dinghy (still no motor), but paddling to the beach was way better than soaking wet and freezing.
Dakota loved the dinghy. He would jump right into it and just sit there, even without moving. Guess he thought it was “his” boat. Funny, because after he passed away, our next golden that we named Jake “To fill the place of another,” though he never could, but we missed Dakota so much…and Jake looked so similar to him, did the same thing with the dinghy. If it were in the water, he would jump right into it. He would sit there for hours just hanging out. But Jake’s boating dog stories are an extremely long way down the line…
Anyway, back to Dakota…he just loved jumping off the back of the boat. Another boating thing we learned about dogs was to get him a life preserver, “Aquadog”. It was very difficult to get a wet, smelly, 70-pound golden retriever out of the water (especially when they did not want to get out) without any assistance. The life preserver was a huge help with the handle to assist with this task. If his nails were too long, stay clear of him because you would wind up with scratches all over the front of your body. That was always an added bonus.
Then there was the jet ski Our friend Keith would bring his jet ski out on occasion. I had never been on a jet ski before. He took me for a ride one day, and I can tell you that it took me a long time to get the feeling back in my arms because I was holding on for dear life. Just my reaction to the situation – not that I was ever in any danger, it was that it was just not one of my favorite water toys – and my opinion to this day of them has never changed.
But…Dakota loved the jet ski. He climbed right on and sat on the seat with his paws over the handlebars. He would go for rides on it around the cove, or we would take him to the beach on it. He was like a kid trapped in a dog’s body. We believe that he thought he was human.
When I first started to think about writing this month’s column, I knew that I wanted to write about Dakota because he was just a huge part of our boating life. He was our “child” along with Casey for the first almost seven years of our marriage. When I took out the photo album to figure out what I wanted to write this month, I showed our oldest son all the pictures from when we first started boating. He said, “Wow, there are a lot of pictures of Dakota,” and my response was, “That he was the best boating dog ever”. And he was. And there will be many more stories of him to come in the future. Because he always was with us….
Originally, I thought that I was going to write this month’s column about another day that summer in Gilgo which involved a newly waxed boat, a cleat, and our friends son who slipped on that back of that boat trying to jump into the water on a beautiful Saturday afternoon…but that will have to wait till next month’s column….
Hope you are all enjoying the boating season so far! Stay safe!