Another boating video made especially for folks who don’t hang around in boatyards.
I towed my boat from home to its summer home in Bellingham on Friday. It was a stressful, time-consuming non-event. The road over Stevens Pass was wet, but not icy. A landslide closed the northbound lanes of I-5 just south of my destination, so I had to take a detour with an oversized load in tow.
Fun times!
I share some narrated video footage of what’s below the waterline on my boat, which is currently parked inside my garage, waiting for a trip across the mountains.
At the end of the boating season, instead of leaving my boat in the water (in a slip I pay for regardless of occupancy), I bring it home for safekeeping. After all, it is trailerable and I have a trailer and truck to move it. I also have a cavernous garage where the boat fits snugly with whatever other stuff I cram in there. This is infinitely better for the boat than leaving it in the water all winter for stuff to grow on the bottom and moisture to grow mold and mildew on canvases. Honestly, how could they expect me to leave my boat there when I have this option?
Having the boat at home before the season also gives me a chance to do some maintenance, especially on the bottom. This year, I’d planned to do some touch-up paint on the bottom, put PropSpeed on the prop, and wash and wax the red painted part of the hull. To that end, I got to work this weekend. And since I think the bottom of my boat is kind of interesting, I made a video of what it looks like before I scraped off the dead sea life.
Here’s that video, along with the description that appears on YouTube.
I am pleasantly surprised that my boat experience and captain’s license are paying off with some fun, often challenging gigs.
A lot of folks criticize me for (or are in awe of) the number of “irons I keep in the fire.” Simply said, I have a lot of interests and when something really strikes my fancy, I dive in headfirst and do what I need to do to become an “expert.”
That’s how teaching myself how to use computers in the early 1990s paid off with a career as a computer how-to book author, speaker, and educator, freeing me, once and for all (at age 29), from the 9 to 5 grind of corporate America.
That’s how learning to fly helicopters and eventually jumping through the hoops required to get a charter (AKA Part 135) certificate got me a third career as a helicopter pilot, which started climbing to its peak in 2012, right around the time people stopped buying computer how-to books.
That’s how accumulating cabochons at rock shows led to making jewelry which led to getting good silversmith training and setting up my own fully-equipped studio and making/selling sterling silver jewelry at art shows. When I sold the helicopter and my two helicopter businesses, I really thought silversmithing would be my fourth career (and first retirement career) and I suppose I can still count it as that.
But I never expected my boating activities to lead to paying gigs on both coasts, bringing in retirement income just as silver prices skyrocketed and the economy led to people not spending much money on things they didn’t need. After a dismal winter art show season in Seattle and the Phoenix area, I’ve pretty much set my silversmithing activities aside to better explore this fifth career as a boat captain.
I share my less than satisfactory experiences becoming a certified powerboat handling instructor.
I got my OUPV or “six pack” Captains License from the USCG back in 2023. It required me to take a 7-day class, pass four tests, and document 360 days under way on the water. (A day, in case you’re wondering, is at least 4 hours; two 3-hour days does not equal one day and one 9-hour day does not equal two days.)
I think the experience requirement is excellent, although 360 days is quite a bit of time. If you’ve spent 360 days under way on a boat and have been given any responsibilities other than tossing lines to someone on a dock, you probably have what it takes to captain a boat. Or at least that’s the logic behind the requirement.
As a USCG-licensed boat captain, I can do two things that someone without the license can’t legally do:
In other words, I can use my skills, knowledge, and boat to make a little money. My fourth career? (Or fifth? I’m loosing count.) Maybe.
I ease back into writing for hire.
One of the things I’ve been working on part-time for past few years is getting back into writing articles for publication.
Although I thought I had a working relationship with Waterway Guide, that fizzled out pretty quickly. The publisher was initially excited about working with me and made some suggestions about how much money I might earn writing for them. I did my part to help build content on their site with a never-ending stream of marina and anchorage reviews. (I still get the occasional compliment for my reviews.)
But after months on the Loop, I just got one article assignment — and I never got paid for it. I was very interested in helping to update the Skipper Bob books — especially the one for the Erie Canal — but was told other people were doing it. No other work was forthcoming. So I stopped writing reviews. I’m a professional writer, after all, and I’m not going to go out of my way to build content for a for-profit publication without getting compensation for my work.