This is a great topic and I hope more people will chime in. I certainly won't be as eloquent, but I'll try to answer the questions of how and where I boat with some interesting stories. Apologies in advance if this is too long-winded.
My first experience was on the deep lakes of northern Wisconsin on a pontoon with a too little horsepower motor. I was probably only ten or so when my dad let me take the boat by myself. I suppose you can't get into too much trouble with a top speed quite a bit less than my age at the time.
When not on the pontoon, I'd be across the lake on the rowboat next to a patch of grass that I swore would have the big bass in it (it didn't). That rowboat was where I first learned the importance of working bilge dewatering equipment. The rowboat was aluminum with questionable heritage. Time adrift was limited by the need to make sure you could row back across the lake before it filled to questionable levels. The high tech solution to try to stay out as long as possible was a milk jug with the bottom cut off to make a somewhat decent bailing bucket.
That love of boating led me to the Navy, where my next boat was fast, black, and never coming back. After a few years on a submarine I went to a submarine tender. By comparison, the tender was slow, gray, and never underway. Both of those were in Norfolk, Virginia, and some of my friends and I would take advantage of the ability to rent a boat and trailer to take out on Back Bay. While anchored out doing a little fishing one time, one of my friends absent mindedly looked at the anchor line tied around one of the cleats. Without saying anything he untied the line and threw it overboard before the rest of us realized what he was doing. We made him dive in to try to find the anchor, but he didn't have any luck. I'm not really sure what he was thinking.
When my time in the Navy was up, I moved to Florida where I've been ever since. The boating here started with water skiing, wakeboarding, and other water sports on a 2000 Crownline 180BR I bought from my brother-in-law. The family had a great time, but we realized we used it for cruising as much or more than for water sports. My wife would create a makeshift cabin of sorts under the port console where my daughter, who was still a baby at the time, would sleep. We were on the boat most weekends, day and night, all over the lakes and rivers of central Florida. That's what led us to go to the boat show and check out the real cruising boats.
We looked at Regal, Sea Ray, and a few other brands. It came down to Regal and either a single engine 2665 or twin 2860. We were able to sea trial both of them on the same day. I was really leaning towards the 2860 until we had to have a couple friends move forward on the boat to get it to trim out and get on plane. We went back to the office and filled out the spec sheet for our brand new 2665. I remember the top engine was an 8.1 liter Volvo. When I said to put that on the boat, the salesman tried to talk me out of it. "I never heard anyone complain about their boat having too much power," I remember saying. That sentiment would come back to haunt me, but first I was going to get a few years of fun. After a couple months, the Regal 2665, the first Alanna Mo Cree, was delivered to us brand new as a 2005 model in late 2004.
The Regal would run close to 50mph in the right conditions and was pretty much an awesome all around boat. We could still do some water sports and now we had a generator, air conditioning, head with shower, microwave, etc. A typical outing would be to trailer it to the lake, go to dinner on the boat, and then anchor out over night. We would go to the gulf around Tampa, Hudson, and north up to Cedar Key. On the Atlantic, we loved to put in at Halifax Harbor marina in Daytona. Somewhere in the attic is a logbook with all of our adventures. Unfortunately I couldn't find it or any way to load pictures since they are on one of those old fashioned CD-thingies.
Headed north on the St. Johns to Jacksonville aboard the Regal, a trip we would take about three or four times a year, I always remember going around a bend where a beautiful Carver was docked. "Some day," I would tell my wife, "if we could ever afford it, I think it would be awesome to have a Carver like that." I knew about Carvers having gotten my boating start in Wisconsin, and I always liked that they had true stairs rather than ladders while offering a huge amount of space for their size. It was the perfect boat for her, and since it both floated and had a motor it was pretty much perfect for me too.
As gas prices got to $5+/gallon, it turned out we really couldn't afford that big, thirsty 8.1L Regal. I may not have ever heard someone complain about having too much power, but I was certainly complaining about horrible fuel economy. It got to a point where we could afford to have the boat or use the boat, but not both. Sadly, I had to sell her.
Too many years went by with always looking but never buying. We came close on a 44' Gibson houseboat, but the seller and I were too far apart. We were mostly interested in trawler style boats with names like Nordhavn, Kadey Krogen, or Fleming, but I knew those were unrealistic given our budget. We probably weren't going to be crossing oceans anyway. We spent a lot of time dreaming about a Great Harbor, and then we discovered Florida Bay Coasters. These last two had great living space, which really appealed to her. Again, both floated and had motors, so appealing to me too.
In the years that we were between boats, one of our favorite things to do on weekends was to stop by a local sandwich shop on the way to the marina in Sanford, then grab a seat looking at the boats while we ate our lunch. I remember pointing out the Mainship, and a Carver, and some other good looking trawlers under the covered dock. We had no idea at the time that the Carver we kept looking at would be ours in a couple years.
We became the proud owners of our 2003 Carver 360 Sport Sedan in February, 2022. Despite being nineteen years old, the new Alanna Mo Cree was in decent shape. It is a great platform for me to scratch the boating itch while having fun modernizing systems. The people on the Mainship, the good looking trawlers, and another Carver, are our dock neighbors and great friends. While we haven't used her underway as much as we would have liked so far, we are close to having everything where we want it as far as the systems go.
The St. Johns river between Lake Monroe in Sanford and its mouth in Jacksonville provides over 100 miles of mostly wilderness cruising. Some of our favorite destinations are Hontoon Island, Palatka, and Jacksonville. We look forward to visiting them on the Carver and bringing back memories of cruises on the Regal while making new memories on our Carver.
Pulling out of the marina headed for Lake Monroe.
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Underway in the St. Johns. Most of the river south of Lake George is wilderness.
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Headed back to Lake Monroe waiting for the railroad bridge.
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Typical cruise configuration. The current gives us about an extra knot of speed going north.
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