Back Story: Needing a Small Hole in the Water Into Which to Pour Money

I grew up on the south shore of Long Island, NY in Freeport - a town mainly famous for Joey Buttafuco and Guy Lombardo, or maybe for being next door to Roosevelt, where Julius Erving, Eddie Murphy and Howard Stern are from. When I was a kid we would walk by Lombardo's huge water front house on our way to fishing from the docks for snapper and mackerel and blowfish - all that "Auld Lang Syne" stuff paid pretty well.

When I was a kid I always wished for a boat - on every birthday candle, every dandelion wish, you name it and I wished for a boat. I had an entire wall of my bedroom covered with pictures of boats cut from magazines. Lo and behold, when I was 8 years old or so, my father went out and bought us a 17 foot wooden runabout with (what seemed to be at the time) an enormous 64 HP outboard engine. Often cruising around the bay between the south shore of Freeport and Jones Beach, I would see Guy Lombardo out in his beautiful mahogany boat, taking his maids out for a ride.

So, I always loved boats - but college in Connecticut and a career in Maryland got me away from boating, though I did buy a canoe back in the mid 1980's. However, more recently the boating itch began to come back - and it erupted in full bloom when friend of mine bought a house on the water in Calvert County, MD near Drum Point.  I loaned him my canoe, then he bought a tandem kayak that we paddled together from his dock - and I was hooked. My wife had recently gone kayaking on Maryland's Eastern Shore with her girlfriends on a trip with Potomac Paddlesports. It was time to get a kayak. That quickly turned into buying two kayaks, then another and now I'm already thinking about the next boat.

I went 10 years between upgrading bicycles but those holes in the water seem to demand much faster investments. Unfortunately, it also appears that the old bicycling maxim (You will always spend twice as much for your next bike as you did for your last bike) holds true for kayaks as well...

Comments

[Tia Oshields]

So, how was your latest Kayaking experience? Kayaking is one of the best water adventures one can experience. Those huge and fast waves will bring you to different places. Weew! That is awesome. I hope you're enjoying the sport that you once dreamed of. Kudos Bro! :)

[John P.]

Kayak has been at the back of the list this year. I've been out 4 or 5 times and only on Rocky Gorge and Triadelphia Reservoirs this year - no salt water, let alone waves yet!