Welcome aboard to my fourth blog!
So yeah, I boat a lot. But how do I boat? In this blog, I’ll dive a little deeper into what exactly goes into boating.
Each of my summers consist of basically the same thing over and over again. And no, no one could every get tired of it. Every Friday, my parents and I grow excited as the time approaches noon. By that time, we all pile our luggage into the car and to head down Maryland.
Our first stop is always Anchor Marina in North East, MD. While we have an apartment in the town, we often are never there since we are dedicated to be around our boats. Our Cigarette (the big one) is kept on a lift at a slip at the marina. The lifts has the capability to lift the 18,000 boat out of the water by filling its tanks with air each time we return from using the boat. On top of the lift is a canopy that protects the boat from sun damage and keeps us cool when hanging out underneath it.
My Donzi (the little one) is kept in a high and dry. If you never heard of this, this means it is kept inside of a building on a rack. A forklift is used each time we want to use it to drop it in the water. At our marina we also have a restaurant/bar, dock spaces, a fuel dock, and a ramp launch.
So even when it rains, it doesn’t keep us from boating. Boating to me means being with the boating community and around the bay. So with this definition, we are constantly boating in Maryland. We normally can ignore the weather man and luck out by outrunning a storm on the boat. For when a storm does catch us, my parents have paintball masks so that we can drive back to the marina without the rain pelting their face. And for the times we make it back while it is down storming, we call for a dock party under the canopy. We can order a pizza delivery, pump up the music, and turn on our blue lights. Even if that doesn’t work out, we resort to going to the nearby restaurant to hang out with all of our friends.
Boating may seem like a leisurely hobby, but to be honest, a lot of hard work and dedication go into our type of boating. For one, speed boats are extremely hard to prevent them from breaking.
It takes a ton of time, labor, and expertise to constantly fix the engines. Sometimes, engines can break on a week to week basis. In addition, most speed boaters highly care about their appearance of their boats. We constantly are washes and waxing our boats. The bay we boat in leaves an awful skum line if you don’t wash it right away.
Overall, boating can be a little complicated, but the benefits definitely outweigh the sacrifices. You can follow up next week in the blog to hear about what our beautiful days on the water consist of.
~The Aquaholic
I appreciate how passionate you are about being a part of the boating community, rain or shine. It’s always nice to be surrounded by those who share the same passion as you do.
During my Thanksgiving break, I was actually given the opportunity while with a friend visiting their family’s home near the South Shore on Long Island to go boating. It immediately made me think about your passion blog and was an overall really fun experience, I could tell why it would become such a big part of someone’s life. I like how you define boating as not only being on the water but with the boating community you have in Maryland, it brings the whole experience together that just the action of boating isn’t what it’s all about but how it brings family and friends together to enjoy time together.
Devyn,
It is really cool to see how when boating gets rained out, your still hanging out with the community. It is so interesting to keep learning about what being a boater really means. If you went boating every weekend, I bet it’s hard being in state college since there isn’t really a body of water near us. Can’t wait to read more!