I got to wondering why each of us got hooked. I'll start.

In 2003, I played 306 rounds of golf (not counting scrambles, and other forms of goofy golf.) A friend, who played nearly as much got a bad shoulder and basically became a hermit--no lunch or beers with the guys--just disappeared. That got me to looking for another hobby--what if I had a similar problem?

Several friends had boats and I had done some day cruising and fishing with them, so I decided to get my toe wet and bought a Rinker 232 bowrider (very good boat BTW)and took delivery in early February 2004. We put 60 hours on it in four months, but decided to move up (admiral did not like being pounded by the wakes and being limited to calm days) so we traded it for a 320 Sea Ray, delivered 5/31/04.

After a very rough return from Key West in April, 2005, we started looking for something bigger for open water cruising. Long story short, we traded the 320 (180 hours) one year to the day (5/31/05)for the 420.

In 2003, I considered a day without golf as a day wasted. Now, I consider a day playing golf as a day wasted--I'd rather be boating.

Spring 1978, my friend got talking about how he missed water skiing, and what a blast it was. He also mentioned that his dad was selling his boat! I asked him why not buy it? He said he didn't want a boat, he only wanted to ski behind one!

Many times before I'd stopped along reservoirs, and thought boating looked like lots of fun--so I bought it! 1963 Hydroswift, 17' runabout with a hardtop and a 1964 Merc 100hp outboard...7 boats later (and the 8th will be coming shortly!), we're actually selling the house to LIVE on a boat!

Not sure if this is what started it.

Summers during the mid 80's I would work on small commercial salmon boat out of bodega bay. This was a one or two man boat with six lines. Boat as around 35 feet and was actually a converted sailboat. Cruised at around 5-6 knots so it took a while to get where we were going.

Saw some awesome things out in the ocean. Fond memories and may be to blame for the B.O.A.T.

I've already mentioned my boating career starting about age 6-7 with an 8' rowboat, then a 7.5hp motor around age 9, then a sailboat at 11.

Then there was a looooooooong break until 1990. One beautiful Sunday I found myself sitting in a park watching people launch their boats. Everyone seemed to be having fun (well, except for the guys screaming at their wives as they launched the boat! :rolleyes: ) and it suddenly dawned on me that I needed a boat to fill a huge void in my life.

I thought an 18' would be about right and after looking at them bumped myself up to a 20' to get the space I wanted. I found my dream boat (pun intended ) at the Seattle boat show in January, 1991. It was a Reinell 20' bowrider with a 5.0L OMC.

I used the heck out of that boat until I got 16-footitis in 2002. I started looking for something I could spend weekends on and after about a year of searching for the perfect boat found it. It was a 1996 Sundancer 330 and I loved it. I put almost 150 hours on it in the first year I owned it until a drunk ran into us on th river one night and totaled it.

I liked the boat so much I found another (within about 45 days) and bought it. Still got it and still love it!

As a kid, a friend and I often went bank fishing at a our local "city pond" and a few other places. Then, I pretty much stopped fishing until around 2000 when I started back with my brother-in-law in his 12' Jon boat with a 7hp OB. My kids started wanting to go and there just ain't room for 2 adults and 2 kids in a 12' jon so I bought a 14' aluminum boat to take kids fishing in. We would take our little boat and my BIL would take his (lots of times my other BIL would partner with him). Then, kids wanted to do more "stuff" on the water than put around in a 14' boat with 10hp OB. So, we moved up to a 17.5' Procraft fish & ski with a 150hp Merc Black Max. We were able to fish and ski (well, tube actually). But, then the kids wanted to bring friends. You guessed it, there just ain't room for 2 adults and 4 kids in a 17.5' fish & ski so we upgraded to a 20' bowrider. Funny thing is, I don't get to do a whole lot of fishing anymore between tubing, wakeboarding, skiing, and letting admiral tan while coving.

Dad bought us a 16' mahogany runabout that we had for one year. He traded it for a 30' cabin cruiser that sat in the yard needing repair for a couple years--never got it wet.

I bought an 11' runabout (25 hp Evinrude) with a buddy when I was 15. Ran that thing all over the north end of Lake Washington until it sank in a storm.

Fast forward--30 years! Early 90s, upstate NY for a wedding that was held lakeside on Keuka lake, one of the westernmost finger lakes. Three days of that atmosphere convinced us we needed one! So I called the office, took the next week off, bought a boat the NEXT DAY, and ran it for seven summers...never regretted a day on the water!

Sounds like a lot of us had that long multi decade break...same for my wife and I. Both boated as kids a lot...me in NC and her in Fla.

So, when we finally decided we had enough cash and the kids were old enough...we bought a used Hurricane we knew we could sell if the kids didn't like it.

They did. Now, three boats later........my golf game is like Chuck Bells....history.

I learned to water ski on a friend's boat back in 1970. But it was a fishing/camping trip to Dale Hollow in 1974 with friends that was the real beginning. I rented a small fishing boat with a 10-hp OB and loved the freedom of navigating anywhere on that big lake. The following spring, while working for Top Value Enterprises (Top Value Stamps), I found a Mirrocraft 14-foot fiberglass tri-hull in Top Value's incentive catalog. It turns out there was a brand new one sitting in the warehouse that had a dented middle bench seat. They sold the boat to me for $188. I took it home, then bought a new Mercury 9.8 hp on sale for $490, found a used trailer and I was a captain! I got into bass fishing big time and bought all the equipment - trolling motor, Humminbird depth sounder, captains chairs, etc. Had a ball for several years. I sold it finally in the late 80s for $1,000... more than I paid for it 14 years earlier!

In '89 I had access to my bro-in-law's Wellcraft Classic 170 bowrider which I eventually bought off him. We traded that boat last Spring for our 20-foot Glastron.

I was with my kids feeding the ducks at the marina near my house in the late summer of 1997. We watched all the people having fun on their boats. I had always thought having a boat would be fun, but didn't know anyone that had one, and didn't know a thing about them.

The marina had a couple of used boats sitting next to the launch ramp that day with for sale signs. One of them was a real nice 1994 Bryant. I got it in my head, and for the next couple months thought about that boat. Late in the fall I went out and looked for the boat - they still had it and we agreed on a price. I test drove it in December in a cold wind and bought it.

The next summer was a real learning experience - but we eventually got the hang of it.

Grew up in western PA. We used to take long weekends up to Erie. I loved going down to the pier and watching the boats, then peruse through the boat dealerships with Dad. I always wanted a boat.
Once I was out of college and moved to Fla, I got a boat with my Dad. Once we moved to the northern land again, it was a few years until we got another.

Was raised in Los Angeles and had friends with boats and always wanted one, but they seemed so far out of reach. Besides, boating in LA is difficult because, other than the ocean, there's very little water and the lakes/reservoirs are very crowded. Fast forward 30 years, and a few relocations and I'm in Amarillo, TX (again, a place with little water). Went out with a friend and decided to buy a "fixer" trihull. Despite all the times I was stranded on the lake, and the frustrating hours working on the motor, we still enjoyed the heck out of it, and learned one heck of a lot. After a move to Southeastern Washington where there's water everywhere, we decided it was time to buy something bigger and more dependable. Now, our summers are centered around the boating.

The year I was born my family purchased property & a house on Bull Shoals lake. The same year they purchased a 38' Sylvan houseboat powered by a 55 horsepower Homelite 4 stroke outboard & a Neptune Traveler 19' ski boat equiped with a 250 cubic inch Buick v6. Guess I was doomed from the start. From that point forward I knew I wanted a boat.

We still have the houseboat - although we had to bid farewell to the 4 stroke Homelite in the late eighties.

I did not think anyone knew where Amarillo was--my home town. It's about 50 miles from the middle of nowhere.

My childhood best buddy's parents had a 18ft runabout when I was about 14 years old. The boat hadn't been run in ages. The boat was kept in a shed, and we used to play on it. We got to talking (my buddy and I), and he convinced his parents to license the boat, and start using it again.

So for the next couple of summers, I went with them quite a bit on that boat. I was even invited in the winter to the Grand Rapids Boat Shows for several years - probably in the 1968 - 1970 time frame. I still remember seeing Carvers and Slickcraft - I really did like those Slickcraft boats. I remember seeing a 26ft Carver cruiser, and man that thing was so big it looked like a cruise ship.

After I turned 18 or 19 I bought my first boat, which was more like a widow maker. It was a home-built wood boat, and was nothing much more than a couple of pieces of plywood glued together with a 2x6 for a transom and rounded off at the bow end. To that we fit a 25HP Scott outboard. It went about 40mph, and it was really dangerous (jet skis were not invented yet).

I did get some experience with engines, as the Scott engine did not work when I bought it. I had to rebuild it to get it to work, and I did this without a manual! I was basically too naive to know better.

My same buddy and I had fun with that boat. This was before I met my future bride and I am sure she would have had second thoughts had she seen that boat.

Anyway, I actually sunk that boat. We did however, retrieve it later that day.

Then my buddy's dad retired and bought a 1957 Chris Craft 30ft wooden cruiser that they kept in South Haven on Lake Michigan. When they bought it, it hadn't been in the water for 7 years. I remember we could look down into the engine room and see shards of daylight poking in through the bottom planks.

It took them about 2 or 3 years to restore it, and I remember helping them occasionally.

I was invited on that boat a couple of times, and that was my first real exposure to the Great Lakes.

I then got married and bought my first "legitimate" boat, a 14ft fiberglass runabout with 40Hp Mercury Outboard. It went about 25mph or so.

When my eldest son was born, he hated the boat and would cry every time I started the engine.

I don't know why he did that, because I remember my wife and I test driving several boats when she was pregnant for him, including the one we eventually bought.

Between my first kid having a conniption fit and the wife being pregnant for our second son, my boating days were over, as I sold the boat and bought my wife a window air conditioner. It was a hot summer and she was miserable. She promised me that one day I could get another boat.

Just before I sold that boat, my dad bought a 16ft runabout, minus the outboard engine. We had this grand scheme to make a bass boat out of it, so one day, we got a sawzsall out and cut the top off it.

But there it lay for several years out in the back yard unfinished. Eventually one day, someone had the same idea and bought the boat from him.

A couple of years after that, I went in with my father and bought a 15ft aluminum runabout with a 30Hp outboard. We had that boat about 4 or 5 years.

The boat and engine was over 30 years old, and we basically wore it out.

It had this nasty problem with the shift dog, being that it was so old that it would bang every once in a while when the drive gear would slip a tooth due to the shift dog being wore out.

One time my dad had the boat, and the "bang" popped the cotter key off and the prop spun off the boat. Luckily he had a trolling motor with him, but it still took him several hours to return to the launch ramp.

We got the drive dog replaced (a story in itself) and sold the boat shortly thereafter (maybe a year).

For the next 8 or 10 years or so, I only owned a veritable 12ft aluminum fishing boat. It was mostly just my dad and I going fishing. But occasionally my boys decided they wanted to go too.

That then brings us to around 1995. My kids started liking fishing, and my dad wanted to go too, so like HotByte's story, I needed a bigger boat, so we bought our first new boat, a 1995 Spectrum/Blue Fin, 16ft fish and ski with a 70Hp Force engine.

Only problem is the wife hated the boat, and the kids decided they would rather ski than fish. The wife refused to step into the boat, because to her, it was a fishing boat.

This strife eventually resulted in getting rid of that boat, and we bought a 1996 Rinker 180 bowrider - in 1997. We could still fish out of it, do watersports, and the wife actually would step into the boat.

In addition to day boating, for the next few years, we rented a cottage on a lake for a week's summer vacation. My mom and dad went with us a few times, and rented a cottage next to us. My dad would usually finagle a way to rent a pontoon boat for the week too. Those were fond memories, because my dad died shortly after this time period.

In 1999 we went to the Inland Waterway in Michigan for a week of boating - man that was fun.

Then in 2000, I got a job promotion, and the kids were off to College, and mostly it was just the wife and I, so we decided to get a Cuddy so that we could have a bit of fun overnighting, going to Lake Michigan, and still have access to the smaller lakes. We bought our first Four Winns, a 1999 Sundowner 225, which even though last year's model, it was a dealer holdover, so it was a new boat.

We never did put that boat into smaller lakes like I figured we would, and just about exclusively boated on the larger lakes, like Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, and the boat was a bit small for that. We did go to the Les Cheneaux Islands, the Inland Waterway, Grand Traverse Bay, and of course Lake Michigan with that boat.

One trip we made that year was a 150 mile round trip in one day, from the Les Cheneaux Islands, along about 25 miles of Lake Huron coastline, up the St. Mary's river dodging 1000ft freighters to Sault Ste. Marie and back. In a 22ft cuddy.

One thing I hated is that after we took our summer vacation - we normally vacationed one week a year on a lake, the boat pretty much sit in the driveway the rest of the season. I darned near sold the boat because of this. I could not see making payments and have the boat sit unused.

We then decided that in 2002 to put the boat in an in-and-out on Lake Michigan so that we would get more use out of the boat.

We started in-and-out in May, and the wife and I decided to spend our first week vacation alone on the boat. We got a transient slip from the marina for the week, and the first weekend was very nice. We put 140 miles on the boat in 3 days, going from port to port.

Then it decided to rain, and rain, and rain. From Tuesday to Friday, it rained. Well, we decided that we liked the cruising life, but in a bigger boat, so we went boat shopping, and bought our current boat used in 2002. Of course, having the house paid off at about that time also helped influence our decision.

We have had the same boat now since 2002, and this will be the 5th season on the water with it.

We have probably logged 1,000 Lake Michigan miles on the boat, and spent at least 250 nights on the boat since we bought it. The most notable was a trip from Grand Haven, MI where we keep the boat, north along the coast of Lake Michigan to Sutton's Bay, about 200 miles one way to the north - which only accounts for about 60% of the length of Lake Michigan.

In 2004, we bought a dinghy to go with our boat. It sits in the slip in the summer, and sometimes we just putter around on the dinghy without taking the big boat out.

So if you count all of the boats I owned, including the small fishing boats and that plywood contraption, I have owned 10 boats, and have been on a boat of some fashion for 38 years, if you count my childhood buddy's boat.

Sorry for this long-winded life's story, but it has been quite an adventure.

I had no childhood connection with boating whatsoever. Other than perhaps a ferry trip here or there on a family vacation, the first time I remember being on any kind of boat was in college. A friend took me out on a lake on her small sailboat. There was no wind and we just sat there. No fun at all. Later, but while still a young adult, an uncle who was big into boating, took me out on the Delaware River & let me try water skiing. I did not get the hang of it at all and while I’m sure his boat was probably big, luxurious and awesome, the whole experience just didn’t grab me at all, for whatever reason.

However, I’d had a lifetime of fond childhood memories of family vacations in Ocean City, NJ. When I married & had children of my own, that’s where we took them for vacations, too.

For my 49th birthday, my parents treated me to a weekend in Ocean City. It was me, them, and my daughter Katie and a girlfriend of hers. I think the girls were about 13, maybe 14. My sons, who were 4 and 5 years older than Katie, did not come along.

We stayed at the most wonderful bed & breakfast place ever. The host family was delightful, and very involved in ensuring that their guests enjoyed themselves. They told us about an available boat ride, scheduled it for us, and joined us on it! I had the time of my life on this boat, and they took the photographs (previously posted on this website) to prove it. It was a gloriously beautiful mid-September day, and I sat out on the bow and enjoyed the ocean spray!

That would have been in the year 2000. My daughter died in June of 2003. That September, I needed to get away, and spent Labor Day weekend at a camping place on the Chesapeake. Included in the weekend package, was all kinds of water activities. I took a motor boat ride which barely registered in my memory for some reason. However, I spent several hours on a sailboat on another glorious day. This time, we MOVED! I sprawled out across the bow of this sailboat and just enjoyed the rocking and bobbing movement while the sun warmed my skin. It was awesome, and, I think that really “cinched” it. I started thinking about boating.

Initially, I was thinking about a sailboat. But, when it got right down to it, I realized that at this point in my life, I just want to be able to get up and go, and enjoy, and, a sailboat would just be way too much work.

For whatever reason, in 2005, I went over to the Delaware River waterfront near my home. I thought how crazy it was that, all these years, I lived so incredibly close to this river, this vast resource of potential recreation and enjoyment, and I had never taken advantage of it. How sad. How much fun it would have been to do stuff with my kids there. I started thinking about getting a boat, started looking at boat ads, etc.

In the summer of 2005, I had a young contractor doing some yard work for me. Somehow we got talking about boating and he told me about his 22 ft. cuddy cabin. Hearing about his boat helped me decide what KIND of boat I wanted – a cuddy cabin. He told me how he’d go out on the river on a Friday night & stay out on his boat all weekend long. That really sounded appealing to me.

Well, I started shopping for a “little” cuddy and, with no experience in owning or operating a boat whatsoever, bought a 19 ft. Bayliner in December of 2005.

So, I guess it may actually remain to be seen whether or not I “get into boating” or not. Because, so far, all I’ve actually done, is put my name and my money on a boat. I’ve yet to get out there and do it, but I sure am hoping I’m going to enjoy it as much as I’m hoping I will. I LOVE being outdoors. I LOVE the warmth of the sun on my skin. I LOVE the sight and the sound of water. I LOVE the bobbing motion of the water. I LOVE the relaxation and tranquility that being out in nature and being near water involves.

I'm really hoping that it will bring me a sense of tranquility and relaxation, such that it will be theraputic in helping me to get on with my live without my daughter. And, I am now starting to lean fairly heavily towards "Miss Katie" as the name for my boat.


So, anybody wanna take bets on whether or not I wind up a confirmed boater, or decide it’s really not for me???