CATransplant
Admiral
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2005
- Messages
- 6,319
The first boat I actually owned was a little 8' El Toro plywood pram dinghy, built for rowing, not sailing. I lived on Morro Bay in California when I went back to college in 1969 after leaving the USAF.
All that water and no boat. Well, I found my little dinghy, complete with a pair of oars, at a garage sale, and gave the nice person $10, then loaded it into the back of a friend's pickup. A coat of green paint and it was ready for the water. It was named the GARCKY.
I launched it in the bay and rowed around like crazy all day. For a tiny boat, it was quite seaworthy, rowed very well, and I fell in love with it. I fished from it for starry flounder and halibut in the bay on a regular basis.
Then one day, I found an ancient Neptune outboard at another garage sale. I think it was just over 1 horsepower. Another $10, and I was on to the next stage. Miraculously, it started right up, using some 24:1 premix drained from the little 50cc two-stroke motorcycle I had at the time.
So, I clamped it on the back of that El Toro and headed out, only to be interrupted by the Coast Guard folks in Morro Bay, who told me that I now had to license my boat since it was motorized.
Well! Off I went to the local DMV office, where I declared my dinghy to be a homemade boat, was believed, and perhaps laughed at a little, since I took the boat with me to the DMV, in the back of a station wagon.
I painted the numbers on the boat by hand and was back on the water by the next morning, speeding through the water at at least 3 mph, blowing vast clouds of blue smoke out of that Neptune. I always carried the oars on board, of course, and had my orange lifejacket stowed in the bow. The same Coast Guard guys from the day before gave me a big thumbs up.
I kept this El Toro for the next three years, caught tons of fish from her, and even participated in the annual Christmas Lighted Boat Parade every year.
There were misadventures aplenty from those days of fishing in a busy small harbor. Once, I failed to notice an extreme tidal change at a full moon. I was fishing near the harbor entrance near some rocks, when I noticed that I had begun moving swiftly out to sea. The little Neptune wasn't up to the job of fighting the current, so I use the oars to supplement its minuscule power and angled off to a beach that was still inside the breakwater and waited the tide out.
Another time, a harbor seal that had to have weighed at least 400 lb decided that it needed to have the three starry flounder I had caught. Over the side came its head and the seal looked at me with its dark eyes, obviously threatening to board the boat, which was already listing heavily to port, just from the weight of the seal's head. I fed him the flounders, and fled the area.
And yet another time, I ventured into the back end of Morro Bay, again not paying much attention to the tide, which left me high and dry on the muddy flats. Oh, well, another long wait for the returning tide. In the meantime, some well-meaning passer-by on the road called the Coast Guard to report my stranding. A couple of Coasties showed up in a pickup truck and hollered to me to see if I needed assistance. "Nope," I yelled back. "The tide'll be in soon enough."
I later got a jon boat to replace the little El Toro, and gave the pram to a 12 year old boy who lived on my block. I kept the Neptune, though.
An El Toro looks a lot like this:
So, let's hear your very first boat stories.
All that water and no boat. Well, I found my little dinghy, complete with a pair of oars, at a garage sale, and gave the nice person $10, then loaded it into the back of a friend's pickup. A coat of green paint and it was ready for the water. It was named the GARCKY.
I launched it in the bay and rowed around like crazy all day. For a tiny boat, it was quite seaworthy, rowed very well, and I fell in love with it. I fished from it for starry flounder and halibut in the bay on a regular basis.
Then one day, I found an ancient Neptune outboard at another garage sale. I think it was just over 1 horsepower. Another $10, and I was on to the next stage. Miraculously, it started right up, using some 24:1 premix drained from the little 50cc two-stroke motorcycle I had at the time.
So, I clamped it on the back of that El Toro and headed out, only to be interrupted by the Coast Guard folks in Morro Bay, who told me that I now had to license my boat since it was motorized.
Well! Off I went to the local DMV office, where I declared my dinghy to be a homemade boat, was believed, and perhaps laughed at a little, since I took the boat with me to the DMV, in the back of a station wagon.
I painted the numbers on the boat by hand and was back on the water by the next morning, speeding through the water at at least 3 mph, blowing vast clouds of blue smoke out of that Neptune. I always carried the oars on board, of course, and had my orange lifejacket stowed in the bow. The same Coast Guard guys from the day before gave me a big thumbs up.
I kept this El Toro for the next three years, caught tons of fish from her, and even participated in the annual Christmas Lighted Boat Parade every year.
There were misadventures aplenty from those days of fishing in a busy small harbor. Once, I failed to notice an extreme tidal change at a full moon. I was fishing near the harbor entrance near some rocks, when I noticed that I had begun moving swiftly out to sea. The little Neptune wasn't up to the job of fighting the current, so I use the oars to supplement its minuscule power and angled off to a beach that was still inside the breakwater and waited the tide out.
Another time, a harbor seal that had to have weighed at least 400 lb decided that it needed to have the three starry flounder I had caught. Over the side came its head and the seal looked at me with its dark eyes, obviously threatening to board the boat, which was already listing heavily to port, just from the weight of the seal's head. I fed him the flounders, and fled the area.
And yet another time, I ventured into the back end of Morro Bay, again not paying much attention to the tide, which left me high and dry on the muddy flats. Oh, well, another long wait for the returning tide. In the meantime, some well-meaning passer-by on the road called the Coast Guard to report my stranding. A couple of Coasties showed up in a pickup truck and hollered to me to see if I needed assistance. "Nope," I yelled back. "The tide'll be in soon enough."
I later got a jon boat to replace the little El Toro, and gave the pram to a 12 year old boy who lived on my block. I kept the Neptune, though.
An El Toro looks a lot like this:
So, let's hear your very first boat stories.
