Early Boating Memories - Awakening of a Passion

by William L. Gills aka Bos'n Bill

What is it about passion, where does it come from and why do most of us have one or more in our lifetime? I had one that started at an early age as I think it does for most of us. When my sister was a wee girl it was the majesty and beauty of horses; she became an equestrian. For one boyhood friend it was taking things apart and putting them together again; he became a mechanical engineer. Ken used to doodle houses and geometric structures on his school notebook; he became an architect. Me? I had an early boating memory that burgeoned into a zeal. The passion is still with me to this day and it's as fresh and clear in my memory as if it had happened moments ago.

In my vivid recollection, Dad rowed me out about a hundred yards offshore onto the Great Sacandaga Lake in the Adirondacks, NY in a fourteen foot heavy wooden rowboat, painted battleship gray with red gunwales. The anchor was concrete, hardened in a rusty paint can.  When we were out of sight of family and other fellow “beachers” on shore, he dropped a would-be anchor over the side and sat down on the rowing seat to show me how to thread a worm on a hook, to catch whatever fish was waiting on the bottom for a drop in meal.  I didn’t like seeing the worm squirm and writhe as he ran the hook the length of the defenseless victim.  I must have turned away several times with a pained look on my face as my father laughed in the knowledge that this was the same way he must have looked to his father the first time he had to endure the lesson of...sometimes life has to be gross to net a prize fish.

When the worm had turned soft, lifeless and pale we returned to shore, fishless to the throngs on the beach. As we were landing the boat, kids ran to our aid crying out expectantly, “Did you catch anything?”   They wanted to see some fish.

Truth be known, I was glad we hadn't caught anything because I wasn’t ready to endure any new lessons in the fishing primer which I would later learn involved the tearing of an embedded snelled fishhook from a pike's swim bladder and the removal of the head of a living fish, gills undulating apart from a severed body, giving me a bad case of the willies.  With time and experience I hardened into a snakes and snails boy and eventually into a fisherman, but in that process I realized it wasn’t the fishing I was so interested in, it was the boat!

Later, when I was a little older, Dad got serious and bought a three horsepower, blue Lightwin Evinrude outboard motor to expand our fishing horizons:

  

I was thrilled.  I couldn’t wait for him to clamp it on, gas it up and take us for a spin. After he had tested all its features, he let me come aft from the rowing seat to “drive the boat”.  Wow, I was the one propelling the boat through the water, moving us through the ½ ft chop with ease, splashing water port to starboard as the bow hit the backside of each wave, stirring up a bubbling, churning eddy behind us creating a white boat-made wave that I later learned is called a wake.  I was in control of a moving vessel with my dad, a veteran yachter in the WWII Picket Patrol.  The drone of the Evinrude, the little outboard motor at all levels of throttle sounded like to latest fifty horsepower engines, the most powerful of the day.

I felt I had arrived. I was exhilarated and hooked like so many fish I had caught.

As summer turned into off-season I solicited all the boating fodder I could muster in the manner of catalogues and manuals.  I was even going to build a wooden boat; they were cheaper, though still not within my budget until I was much older.  I dreamed of boats, I craved them, probably even more because they were out of my reach.  They have never lost their allure and I’m sure they won’t until I’ve departed my wits and find glamour in a wheelchair.  I hope it floats.

So what's so special about boating you wonder, it doesn't excite me! Who cares? Well, I understand how you feel, I don't get your passion either. All I know is this early memory is indelibly etched into my cerebrum and it's impact has been far reaching. I bet yours has too.

On further reflection, as I ponder the power of passion, I realize how consuming it can become to the neglect of other life's demands; it needs to be tamed, honed and leveled. But, you don't have to understand it to know that life is so much richer for having had it, not only for the pleasure derived in pursuing it and engaging in it, but in the way you can share it in a special way most can't comprehend, but can appreciate. For me my spark was an early boating memory, and it awakened a passion. Got a match?

Visit The Great Sacandaga Lake:  

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.

A Boating Video For All Ages

I’ve asked myself why I love boating so much?  I can answer that with words, but can do better with images and music.  We all have a lifetime full of memories, some better than others; some of my fondest were in a boat. Discover Boating has put together a video which portrays how most of us who call ourselves boaters feel about our pastime.  Try and explain this to a landlubber.

Introduction by William L. Gills aka Bos'n Bill

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.

First Storm In A Boat

by William L. Gills aka Bos'n Bill

Dad had given me permission to take a rowboat, a three horse Evinrude and two friends, Doug and Steve out fishing for a few hours.  That summer day we decided to take an afternoon out on the Northeast fork of the Great Sacandaga Lake, angling for large mouth bass.  The air was heavy and damp, the sun breaking through the clouds, enough to make it uncomfortably hot.  We pulled up a makeshift anchor, a ten inch hunk of cinderblock on an anchor line of fraying braided cotton and dropped it into the bow of a fourteen foot wooden rowboat. Expressing confidence we could handle any situation that might come our way, like maybe a sinking boat, we agreed to go beyond the limits set by my dad.

It was pretty easy going, waves following us as we cruised as fast as a three horse power head could carry us. Anchored thirty yards off Placid Point, Doug plucked earthworms from small carton of mulch, one for each of us.  We threaded our worms as quickly as we could, each of us hoping for the first catch of the day and the biggest fish in the lake. We sat there for about two hours without any luck when we heard a faint rumble of thunder somewhere in the valleys of the Adirondack Mountains.  We continued fishing.  The deal was we’d leave as soon as somebody had a nibble. 

Suddenly, the sky turned a deep blue and we could see flashes of light blanching the sky over the steep mountains to starboard.   The storm was bearing down on us fast.  “Steve, pull up the anchor, we gotta get outta here!”

We reeled in our lines without securing hooks which dangled and swirled in the ever increasing wind.  A brilliant flash of light caught us by surprise as the air crackled, followed by a sonic boom which reverberated in the canyon between the surrounding mountains, disturbing the water beneath us.  Nickel sized droplets of rain fell heavy graying the blue water around us; the wind becoming ferocious.

Anchor drawn, I pulled on the starter chord, adrenaline kicking in when I realized it might not start.  I stood there looking to the oars. “We’re going to have to start rowing you guys or we’ll be blown downwind toward the dam!”  Doug didn’t hesitate.  We were losing ground fast in the brisk wind and oncoming short troughed, steep crested waves.

I pulled the chord one more time with a sputter.  It’s got to start.  There’s no reason why it shouldn’t.  Did I forget something?  I choked the motor and made sure the gas fill was getting air and tried again. This time I gave it my best tug and it snapped to attention.

Buckets of water were coming into the boat over the bow and port forward quarter as we pointed home.  Steve shifted to the rowing seat next to Doug to get the weight balanced, bow up.  They were using the bailer we had aboard; one lone paint can passed between them to keep up with the flood of water that was threatening to scuttle us.

I thought about that possibility as I squinted into the wind and blinding rain to get a bead on the next wave, the shoreline and our forward progress.  As I went to glance over Doug’s left shoulder I noticed a torrent of water running down his drenched forehead, off his nose onto the rowing seat and swamped floorboards.   We were moving ahead very slowly, almost as if we were in chains, the boat a third full of water.  We were losing the battle.

By this time, we were in life jackets with the ties still loosened.  There was no time to tend to them; we had waited too long and underestimated the power of a thunderstorm. Explosions of light continued to harass with a dazzling, frightening display of blue lightening. The air turned cold and hail pelted us with BB shot.  We were soaked, shivering and tired from the strain and futility of bailing, but we continued on, lamenting and grousing with occasional bursts of displaced laughter.

As the wind eventually petered to a strong breeze and the waves were no longer capped in white, we felt relief in the knowledge that we were going to make it to home soon and that we collectively endured our first, worst storm ever, vowing never to make the mistake of granting a thunderstorm permission sneak up on us AND granting them, that is each and every one of them from then on, the respect they deserve (emphasis added).

Doug and Steve continued to bail, but their ardor was less as we steered toward the shore and home, the boat resting in the sand in the shallows.  We pulled her up as high as we could, stretching the anchor line as far up the beach as it would reach.

We were soaked and exhausted and related our story to our parents as one voice.  We agreed not to say anything about going to Placid Point or that we delayed in donning our life jackets.  Other than that, everything was fair game for story fodder and still is. We sealed the pact in worm blood.

Visit Sacandage Lake: 

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.