All that being said, it WAS fun a lot of the time. My last boat was a 23 foot Stingray with a cuddy cabin and a 260 Mercruiser. When my wife and I were married, we planned our reception as a pig-pickin' and reserved a lakeside picnic area (Falls Lake, near Durham NC) The day before the wedding I took the boat to the closest marina, about 2 miles down the lake, and after our wedding ceremony, everybody headed out to the reception, my new bride and I headed to the marina. Here we come, walking along the dock, she still has her gown, veil, and train behind her, I'm still in my tux. The dockmaster waived my slip rental after seeing this. When we got on the boat, I shed my pants, I had put on a pair of teal(the bridesmaids wore teal) swim trunks under my tux. Kept the cummerbund and tails and bowtie. My wife put on a pair of those "oil slick" lensed Oakley sunglasses, and off we went down the lake to the reception. You wouldn't believe the looks we got from other boaters. Several turned around to follow us . We pulled up to the dock at the reception and the photographer got a great shot of us walking up the dock.

We used to go up to Kerr Lake (NC/Va state line) every Memorial Day to see friends who had a place on the lake. My wife and I would stay out on the water 2 nights and a day, pull each ther skiing or just find a quiet cove and just veg out."Camping out" on the water was a real blast,; the water would get absolutely flat, you could hear all the way across the lake, the night sky was engulfing. I DO miss that about boating.