When did you get your first Boat ?

[RicM]

Colin,

My dad owned Murray's Pharmacy on New Boston Rd in Fall River. After the chains put him out of business he worked at Adam's Drug in Somerset. I grew up on Forest Avenue, across County Street from Pottersville School. Technically, my first boats were rafts that we built in the woods behind my house. There was a brook that ran through the woods, and then through the center of town and through the Somerset Green, then through a series of creepy culverts into the Taunton River where County Street and Riverside avenue meet. It was high adventure to assemble a ramshackle raft and float down through town and reach the river, sort of suburban Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finns. We would abandon the rafts there and let them float out into the river, probably much to the consternation to the authorities who might have assumed we fell off them in the river and drowned. It truly was a world that has disappeared. Can you imagine a kid today left to themselves from morning until dark? Building forts and rafts in huge tracks of forest, riding bikes, playing with matches, drinking brook water that was probably teeming with horrible germs? My mother was born in Somerset, I mean not in the hospital in Fall Riviera, but in a second floor bedroom in Somerset! Her mother who was older and thought she was past child bearing age was told by her doctor that she had a tumor! Somerset was a farm town then, a great place to grow up. It makes me very sad to drive through it now when I go to visit Mom.

[Denis]

I can look back at my childhood and see myself in much the same way and in the same type of life many of you had. My mom would send us out in the morning and tell us to come back at lunch and then again for dinner. In between we were left on our own to play and explore. Thankfully, my wife and I wanted our kids to have the same opportunities to play and learn that we had. We made sure that our kids had as much freedom to play as possible while keeping the do-gooders at bay. We got our first boat when my kids were 2 and 5 so they basically grew up around boats. They got to head off in the dingy to fish, crab and explore without too much parental involvement and guess what, they survived and enjoyed themselves. What horrible parents we were I guess. Consequently, they had a ball and many fond memories to look back on and hopefully pass on to their kids, my son is having his first child this April. I don't know how much longer it will last but we love the freedom boating gives us. I don't know anything that gives me more satisfaction than grabbing a mooring or dropping anchor, sitting out back and having a glass of wine while watching the surroundings or watching the sun set over the water. We get to meet new friends anchored nearby and we get to see new places and revisit old places that have given us many days or years of enjoyment. The marina we are at now, has a mix of ages from very old to fairly young. It gives me pause to look at who is still going out most weekends or enjoying their boat on their vacations. I know it probably happens over many years but I can see the ages of the people who no longer venture out on their boats. They spend more and more days sitting at the dock using various excuses why they are not going out on their boat on such a beautiful day or for the weekend. Some of it is the loss of their physical abilities some of it is they have lost their desire to wrestle a boat in an anchorage or just the loss of energy to prepare or maintain a boat capable of heading out for a day on the water. Whatever the reason, I know those days are coming for me also so I am trying my best to get out on the water as often as possible to enjoy those things that I love.

[Capt Ram1]

I got my first boat at age 9 (I’m standing in the picture) and have had many since then-growing up in Jupiter Fl -, I went thru 3 engines-1 new- by the time I was old enough for the next boat- I’ve had my Albin about 18 years it’s a 1990 - I hold a USCG 100 Ton masters and a Greek Boatmans licence – I operate in Greece mostly www,sailing-charters.org- while in Florida I used the Albin for about 10 years chartering scuba divers out of Palm Beach and it’s been on the hard a number of years now, IM starting work on her next week and going to restore her so I can put her back to work