Saturday, April 9, 2011

Do You Love Your Boat?

by William L. Gills aka Bos'n Bill

Do you love your boat?  Stupid question, right?   Everyone chooses the particular boat they own for a good reason.  I’m sure your current boat meets your sense of marine purpose whether it’s fishing, cruising, water skiing, day tripping, camping, living.  And while it may not be your dream boat, it probably if not surely meets your budget.  The dream boat is usually somewhere in the future unless you already own it.  I have a future dream boat, but I love the one I have. Giving it up would cause separation anxiety and rueful malaise.   It fulfills all our needs quite well for now and I have to say quite unequivocally and unabashedly that… I love it in spite of some shortcomings.  Shortcomings, yes that’s it, the boat is too short.  I could use another six feet.

Every boat I’ve owned got the utmost care.  I kept everyone of them spit and polished, everything put away right where I found it, everything working and running like it should so we’d be ready for the next voyage without delay.  Didn’t always work out, I don’t have to tell you how temperamental boats can be and you already know why they’re referred to as “She”.

But, I’ve loved my girls, every one of them.  I took care of them because I knew how fragile they can be and I wanted to bring in the highest recreation and repose factor they could provide at each level of our boating lives.  They take on an air of being almost human, don’t they?  You want to be with them and care for them because they give back, don’t they?  They put you in your favorite body of water and massage your daily cares away, don’t they?  So, what’s not to love?



William L. Gills aka Bos'n Bill is the author of the book, Lubber's Log published by Llumina Press; a boating primer and adventure story about a couples experiences in moving up to a bigger boat.  You can visit his website here.


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