The most enjoyable part of boating . . .

As I was scrubbing the grime from my hands this afternoon, I was musing about what I like most about boating. Several things come to mind. The joy of a sundowner after a long day's run down the ICW. Pulling into Georgetown, S.C. and eating the best broiled grouper in the world. Waking in the morning at anchor and finding that my First Mate has made coffee and pancakes. Sitting in the slip and watching newbies try and dock their 50 footer with the tide running 6 knots, the wind blowing 20 knots, and a dark cloud with lightning approaching fast.

All of these things are really great. But nothing, just nothing, beats rooting around in the bilge for a dropped nut from the hydraulic steering unit. A nut that is unique in Nutworld, being a 3/8"-32. The dropped one might be the only remaining one in North America.

Sundowner time, and I am contemplative, as well as exhausted, so hope you do not mind my sharing. Ah, boating, I love you dearly.

John

This go's back to the Why we boat thread.

Is it the voyage or the vessel?

SD

you forgot a few things like taking the dinghy over to a secluded cove to relax and float while soaking a minnow and just as you were about to doze off you noticed your feet are getting wet! You had taken the cork out of the transome so it could drain and it was back on the boat, Since that day i always have lots of corks and one is chained to the transom

jwnall

What else can be more rewarding and breath taking in boating, than re-coating the varnish outside? Then, late in the afternoon, look for the specific nut of yours right before the happy hour rum & coke!
By the way, happy hour in boats can more often be close to 7:00 PM

I looooooooooooooooove it!

skipperdude said:

This go's back to the Why we boat thread.

Is it the voyage or the vessel?

SD

Click to expand...

Both

"Ships are the nearest thing to dreams that hands have ever made."
- Robert N. Rose

skipperdude said:

This go's back to the Why we boat thread.

Is it the voyage or the vessel?

SD

Click to expand...

ok, is it the voyage or the vessel? What is a voyage? Is sitting at the helm studying charts laying out the voyage of a lifetime not in itself a voyage? I think the two are really one, to voyage you must be on a vessel and just being on a vessel is a voyage of sorts.

Why we boat has more to do with peace, freedom, and escape from the mundane world of the masses than anything else. I grew up in the delta and from the time i was a small child i noticed that most people would drive over around and by the delta without really ever seeing it. Always amazed me. I could leave the office bicycle to the marina a short distance away and fifteen minutes later i would be in another world. Gone was the road rage filled hectic world transformed into a world of great blue herons beavers flocks of waterfoul all chatting away as if the world of man didnt exsist. Then the radio ques and you hear" This is Rusty Duck calling Hard Aground over.....hey Britt you out there wer'e over by the meadows and outs beer" ...I make a point to keep well stocked on everything cause when I'm on the water i like to be comfortable and friends have come to rely on my stocks. " Teah Dick, I'm tied to a snag over in lost slough come on over".........

Thats boating. You can't make a voyage without a boat......I guess its a way of life or maybe a very addicting drug

jwnall-boat designer spend hours working on things like that nut knowing that dropping it in the bilge, or behnd the head, or over the side, or stripped when removed, etc. will bring future owners such joy!

THD said:

jwnall-boat designer spend hours working on things like that nut knowing that dropping it in the bilge, or behnd the head, or over the side, or stripped when removed, etc. will bring future owners such joy!

Click to expand...

thats a good un

Portuguese said:

jwnall

What else can be more rewarding and breath taking in boating, than re-coating the varnish outside? Then, late in the afternoon, look for the specific nut of yours right before the happy hour rum & coke!
By the way, happy hour in boats can more often be close to 7:00 PM

I looooooooooooooooove it!

Click to expand...

It is usually wine or Caipirinhas on my boat, We are not big fans of Cachaca so use white rum so technically it is a Caipirissima.
Steve W

Hi Steve

It looks like you have been making your Brazilian homework. Cachaca is good man! Today, after they started to certify Cachaca like they do wine in France, we discover some pretty good treasures. And you are correct, Caipirissima for Rum, Caipirinha for Cachaca, and Caipiroska for vodka

Cheers

Portuguese said:

Hi Steve

It looks like you have been making your Brazilian homework. Cachaca is good man! Today, after they started to certify Cachaca like they do wine in France, we discover some pretty good treasures. And you are correct, Caipirissima for Rum, Caipirinha for Cachaca, and Caipiroska for vodka

Cheers

Click to expand...

thats all greek to me. These things are wine? I thought they were some kind of tropical disease........do you drink them? I like that

For me, boating provides something that, until now, only fllght has provided....a total release from all stressers that are from my world.



All those worries, all those regrets,
All those would-haves and should-haves,
All those I-wish-I-could-haves.

All those wish you were heres,
All those glad I was theres,
All those couldn't have done it without yous.

Now it's all within my reach.
So it's up to me and me alone...
Do I stay or do I go.
I hope you're with me when I'm gone.

why I boat

Moments like this...

HOLLYWOOD

FlyWright said:

For me, boating provides something that, until now, only fllght has provided....a total release from all stressers that are from my world.



All those worries, all those regrets,
All those would-haves and should-haves,
All those I-wish-I-could-haves.

All those wish you were heres,
All those glad I was theres,
All those couldn't have done it without yous.

Now it's all within my reach.
So it's up to me and me alone...
Do I stay or do I go.
I hope you're with me when I'm gone.

Click to expand...

very nice..thanks

Lake Powell with family...

Best Things!

I always remember, once we were tied up at Scipio Creek Marina in Apalachicola, FL
The dock was alongside the marina's restaurant. I was grilling on the back deck with a drink in my hand. I chanced to look up at the reastaurant and I saw people watching me though the window. I thought about all the times I had looked boaters relaxing on their boats, Like I was. Now here were these folks watching me with envy.
Steve W

Steve said:

I always remember, once we were tied up at Scipio Creek Marina in Apalachicola, FL
The dock was alongside the marina's restaurant. I was grilling on the back deck with a drink in my hand. I chanced to look up at the reastaurant and I saw people watching me though the window. I thought about all the times I had looked boaters relaxing on their boats, Like I was. Now here were these folks watching me with envy.
Steve W

Click to expand...

Steve, you have reminded me of one of our great moments in boating. It was Lou's first cruise on the boat. She was naturally nervous having had no boating experience. We pulled into the St. Charles YC for a night. Check out time was about 12 noon which corresponds with the lunch crowd at the restaurant.

The dockmaster had put us in the corner along side of a fixed dock. Pointed the wrong way of course. He put a big flush deck cruiser about 2' off our platform. When we started to leave, I walked out on the bow with Lou. I told her what I was going to do. I took the bow line, and put one turn around a piling then told her to firmly hold the end. When I say to let it go take your time and remove it from the piling. Then just bring it back aboard.

What I hadn't noticed was that the patrons of the restaurant were starting to gather at the windows. It seams watching people get out of that corner was kind of a spectator sport around there. Lou didn't notice them, and that's a good thing. I pivoted the boat around the piling, told her to bring the line back aboard, and backed down the fairway. People were applauding as we pulled out. We spun the boat around, and headed out to the river.

I was very proud of her, and am to this day. She started boating on a week's cruise, and has put thousands of miles under the keel since.

Yes!! While everyone was watching to see the guy in the big boat screw up you calmly planned out your solution and with your fine crew made it look like this sort of thying was an everyday part of boating....I love it

The most enjoyable thing about boating is being out with nobody else around. I'm writing this from a popular bay in the San Juan's. it's a beautiful day and we are the only boat here. This is the way it should be.

I'm in Plumper Cove, across from Gibsons. Not another soul here either.

Geez Marin, from the pictures i see posted of the San Jaun's the water is always flatter than a filled bath tub with no one in it. I see the attraction now, its a Freud thing. Your attracted to the flacid quiet waters because it takes you back to the time when you were a teeny tiny aspiring boater playing in the tub with your toy boat. Remember how you used to make splashes sometimes? Guess that comes out when you open her up.............

bobofthenorth said:

I'm in Plumper Cove, across from Gibsons. Not another soul here either.

View attachment 16329

Click to expand...

this is today?

Everytime I have been up there the water has always been calm. Enticeing isnt it?

bfloyd4445 said:

this is today?
Everytime I have been up there the water has always been calm. Enticeing isnt it?

Click to expand...

I took the photo and made the post - so yes, today. Its usually pretty sheltered here but I've seen the bar at Gibsons so lumpy that you could see the waves on the depth finder. Sometimes you get wakes reflected here in the cove but in that case I'll tie up on one of the inside fingers so the dock takes some of the bump out of the water. I'd be in False Creek now but the mainland was fogged in solid this afternoon and Gibsons was in the clear.

bobofthenorth said:

I took the photo and made the post - so yes, today. Its usually pretty sheltered here but I've seen the bar at Gibsons so lumpy that you could see the waves on the depth finder. Sometimes you get wakes reflected here in the cove but in that case I'll tie up on one of the inside fingers so the dock takes some of the bump out of the water. I'd be in False Creek now but the mainland was fogged in solid this afternoon and Gibsons was in the clear.

Click to expand...

GRRRR..... I'm sitting here doing taxes and your out there in God's world enjoying the day.....waves on the DP while your anchored? Kind of neat, never have noticed that myself but then i never anchor next to a bar<smile>.....
Thank you for sharing. God bless

bfloyd4445 said:

Geez Marin, from the pictures i see posted of the San Jaun's the water is always flatter than a filled bath tub with no one in it.

Click to expand...

When it's rough and windy and raining-- which is most of the time of course-- I'm not usually enticed to take any photos since that's what we experience most of the time. Days like today are rare so I tend to get the camera out.

Like no one bothers to take pictures of the squirrels in their yard because they're a dime a dozen, but if a wolverine wanders through you go for the camera.

Marin said:

When it's rough and windy and raining-- which is most of the time of course-- I'm not usually enticed to take any photos since that's what we experience most of the time. Days like today are rare so I tend to get the camera out.

Like no one bothers to take pictures of the squirrels in their yard because they're a dime a dozen, but if a wolverine wanders through you go for the camera.

Click to expand...

:lol: .....Aint that the truth. We make images of the good things and only accidentally take pictures of the mudane depressing things. But Marin, storms are beautiful and they give us so much. I've been taking videos of breakers over bars lately with none of them realy doing justice to the actual event. I'll keep trying till i get er right

bfloyd4445 said:

But Marin, storms are beautiful and they give us so much.

Click to expand...

I agree. Here is a shot I took last year up the north end of Vancouver Island where we go halibut fishing. Not a terrible day but windy and rainy nevertheless and it kept all of us in the harbor.

Makes one think of aq nice warm cabin and a nice cup of Safari Nandi tea with a touch of honey.........