Boating
Seems like boating has always been a part of my life. The story even goes that I came to be on the old cabin cruiser my parents owned. TMI as far as I'm concerned but still I have very early memories of that grey and white cabin cruiser with a hugh 75hp Johnson outboard with what looked to me like bull horns on the back. I remember my dad letting me stand on his black tackle box so I could reach the steering wheel when he let me drive the boat. I remember watching my brothers, mom and dad ski behind that boat.
Some years later my folks bought a green 15ft trihull fishing boat with a 55hp Johnson outboard motor. I was in junior high school at the time in North Carolina. I learned to ski behind that boat with some awful red wood training skis that were way to boyant. We moved back to Florida before I started high school and that boat came with us. After I got my driving license my folks would let me take that boat to the chain of lakes in Winter Haven with some of my friends. I taught a number of my friends to ski. We eventually go tubes and a knee board and generally had a blast. Eventually the transom on that boat rotted out and my dad and I built a new one. My folks kept that boat until some time after I graduated high school when it eventually started to rot from the inside out and one day almost sank with my parents in it. My dad bought a new hull, a 16ft center console, and put the 55hp johnson on it. My friends and I would get together and ski behind it during the summers. After college I really didn't see that boat much anymore. My folk eventually moved and I went on doing other things. I considered buying one of the Seadoo jet boats when I was in my late twenties but never did. A divorce, a new wife, a step son and a baby later my current wife and I were sitting and recounting stories of our past when we both told stories of skiing and boating. It occurred to me that getting a boat would be great family fun. So in 2006 after a little looking I bought a 1995 Bayliner Capri 1700 LS.
It's 17ft long and has a 120hp Force outboard motor. We started by taking it out to the Illinois river in Morris. I went for an outboard becuase that is what I had some fimilarity with. Unfortunately, the Force is a bottom of the line motor. But ours was well maintained and has run good so far. It is loud and smokes a lot, so my wife isn't very fond of it. Our youngest at the time was just over a year old when we got it and had just started walking. He quickly got his "sea legs" and has loved boating ever since. Here you can see he's taken command with my step son in the background:
Our next boy came along about a year later. We had him out on the boat when he was just a couple of months old. While he didn't enjoy it as much as his older bothers, by the following year he had adapted and was also soon taking command too:
Our next mate came along in 2009. We had him out on the boat all summer that year. He didn't seem to mind and this year, now that he's walking he seem to like it as much as his brothers. That infant PFD sure has gotten a work out.
As much as possible we try to get out on the boat during the summer. My step son likes to tube and the boys just hang out and just enjoy the ride for now.
When we first got the boat it only had 2 instruments; a speedometer and a gas gauge. After a little research I read that the Force motors were subject to overheating so I started looking for a temperature gaugeafter some looking around I found some surplus gagues that matched the ones in our Capri. My wife also bought me a nice depth gauge. To finsh up I added a GPS modified to show maps of rivers and lakes.
