These adventures are in no order or importance. I have been boating for over 40 years, so no such list can be complete. What I considered adventurous as a newbie, is old hat today. Of course, now I have kids and they are catching the boating bug, so I get to relive a lot of things. Anyway, these six anecdotes are way cool in my book. If you agree–or if you don’t–please comment below.
1. Ran a go fast in excess of 120-mph between Miami and Key Largo. Just because.
2. Ran a 24-foot cuddy cabin between Martha’s Vineyard and Long Island New York. The trip out took two hours in flat seas. Three days later we left in similar conditions, but as we passed Gay Head, the wind came out of nowhere at 40 knots and we made slow progress into 8 foot seas for about 8 hours. My girlfriend hated it–but ended up marrying me!
3. Fishing 50-miles off the beach of Long Island in my old 22 footer, and having a pod of finback whales breach and blow all around the boat. We see whales pretty regularly, but some of these came so close we could have touched them. It was scary, but awe-inspiring.
4. My high-school buddy and I “stole” his parents boat and headed out to camp on the beach at Fire Island. Got lost in the fog, ran aground, eventually found the cove. We met some chicks, surfed some tasty waves, and neither of our parents ever caught on.
5. For a story in Boating, I joined the cast of the film The Librarians, with Burt Reynolds and Christopher Atkins, as a stunt boat driver. (This flick went straight to video, but if you watch free TV late at night, mid-week, you might see it between infomercials). I jumped a boat off a ramp, flew 60 feet through the air, and skidded across the pavement of the boatyard we were shooting at. What stopped the skid? I bumped into Ivana Trump’s yacht, which was on the hard for a refit. Hot on my tail was a fire-truck, EMT’s and a crazed producer frantically trying to dial his insurance agent.
6. Pulled a kayaker out of the water at Shinnecock Inlet, New York, after he got caught in the breakers of the ebb current. I hauled him aboard, and seeing he was ok, said” “Lets go get your boat.”
In his sixties, and a Slav immigrant of some sort, he replied with vehemence:
“No more boat. You keep boat. Take me shore.”
I did just that…then went and got my new kayak.
Takeaway: Everyday afloat I learn something new.
