So You Think You Want a Boat?

Or: why boats are like pets and children

My youngest kid is thinking about buying a boat. I’m not sure how I feel about that. 

Now, I’ve been around small motorized boats all my life. We fished out of them, waterskied, and found Puget Sound beaches to picnic on. And I guess the thing I love most about boats is they allow us access to worlds of fresh water and salt that most will never experience. I’ve been close enough to surfacing grey whales to know the breath that comes out of that blowhole smells like low tide and rotten shrimp. I’ve watched coyotes and bobcats hunting along early morning shorelines at Folsom lake. I was in an 18’ boat on Monterey Bay when we were suddenly surrounded, for no longer than a minute, by a pod of orcas, two of which were nearly as long as our boat. Said son was with me for that one. I’ve seen a black bear sniffing along an empty Tahoe beach and a sea otter off the Sonoma coast reclining in the swells and cracking mussels on - I swear this is true- an old barnacle-encrusted beer bottle. I’ve seen sunrises and sunsets that would make God tear up. Once, on Lake Berryessa, I kept hearing loud cracking sounds coming from some nearby pine trees. It turned out to be a bald eagle, snapping branches off a dead tree with its beak and claws and then flying them to another tree where it was building a nest. Off the north coast of Washington with my dad in fog thick as a sweater, we heard a loud exhale just off our bow. We turned in time to see the massive head of an elephant seal ogling us with its black, softball-sized eye. Two summers back on Bullards Bar reservoir, we had just lost a small kokanee. It was still flipping around near the stern of the boat when suddenly something came streaking down from the sky behind us. Like a feathered meteor, an osprey plunged into the water so hard and close the splash reached our transom. A moment later, the head, then the powerful wings, and finally the rest of this magnificent creature re-emerged and took flight with our recently-lost fish firmly in its talons’ grasp. After one perfect beat, my client deadpanned, “well, you never see that in Rocklin.” 

But I don’t want to totally romanticize boat ownership because boats, like pets and children, come with headaches too. Let’s set aside expenses - taxes, insurance, fuel- and focus on the fun stuff, like engines failing at the worst possible time. Say, at dusk a mile from the ramp with the wind picking up. Hulls get scratched and dented by floating debris or hard dock landings. You can fail to note a receding tide will put you at risk of becoming stuck on a sandbar for the next 10 hours (lowering reservoir levels will do that too, but instead of sandbars, you might hull-thump a nice big boulder hiding just below the surface). Or, you can forget to lock the trailer hitch down and so, when you pull up to the stop sign at the end of your street, the trailer keeps going and its winch smashes into the trunk of your dad’s ‘74 Galaxy 500. Speaking of just trailers, their wheel bearings can freeze up right in the middle of a busy launch ramp. Their axles, if old enough and not cared for, can rust through then suddenly snap in half as you roll down the highway at 55 mph. If you’ve forgotten to put the tie-downs on, making a turn too sharp and nicking a curb on Foothills Blvd can cause your boat to bounce three feet in the air and settle back onto the trailer in an entirely new, rearranged position. And don’t ask me about “putting the plug in”. I have nearly sunk a boat more times than I care to admit after failing to make sure I performed that one simple but crucial pre-launch act. My wife used to write it on my hand because she’s helpful that way.  

There are several old sayings about boats. “You know what ‘BOAT’ stands for? ‘Bout Another Thousand”. “Do you know what the best days are for a boat owner? The day they buy it and the day they sell it”. “Boats are like swimming pools: it’s better to know someone who has one.” 

And, like any old saying, they all contain some truth. But, to bring that kids-and-pets analogy back around…? The reward, in my opinion, is worth the hassle and not by a little. So yes, son. Get that boat, and use it! Make your own wonderful memories with it. Just don’t expect it to all be smooth sailing. And for God’s sake, remember to put the plug in.