Boston Boating Blog

Okay, I am not a fan of folks that create blog posts that say – “Sorry I haven’t updated in a while…” so I am not going to apologize.  Instead I’ll tell ya about what ‘we’ (the marina folk) have been up to as best I can and tell you we are all upset the season is over and we are all looking forward to the 2010 boating season.  (If you don’t believe me, I was convinced by Ryan to find a ‘count down timer’ widget to put on the blog that is counting down the days until April 16 – the day after tax day – to put the boat back in the water – check it out.)

So the big delay in the blog was after the Labor Day party I took off to Germany for 2 weeks for work.  It was a great trip.  The middle weekend I ran into one of my college roommates I hadn’t seen in 18 years – since college.  He and his family are living in Munich.  Chris took me around Munich and gave me a great tour and we got caught up – it was great.

The other season, come to find out, that a bunch of us are passionate about is the hockey season.

This year my friend Brian and I have a few seats to a bunch of Bruins games.  Ryan is passionate about the B’s and on Halloween Tony, Kathy, Ryan, Paul, Betty, Frank, Dale and bunch of other folks got a box at the Bruins.  They had a blast.

We will be looking forward to the Boston Boat Show this year.  It is always fun to look at new toys.  Rumor has it that Kathy and Tony upgraded already We shall see and are anxious to check it out.

Tony and Kathy held a great party at their house in NH for their daughter who is entering the Navy.  It was great to see them, they have a great pad, and a bunch of folks from the marina showed up and we hung out and had some FANTASTIC food.

Other than that not much is going on. Donna and I frequent our favorite Korean / Japanese Restaurant in Newton called Apgujung.  Jim is the bar tender there and he is super friendly and has become a good friend.  He even helped us celebrate Labor Day at the Marina.  I highly recommend checking out the joint.  Jackie, the owner is a great guy, always makes you fell welcome and does some great experimentation w/ Sushi and other dishes.

Steve and I are also working on Paul’s new web site for Reel Pursuit.  I am psyched to do it and I hope it lives up to Paul’s expectations, we want to make it great.

Donna and I are also redoing our kitchen, well I should say Donna is redoing our kitchen and I am sure it is going to be AWESOME.  If you don’t know, Donna is a kitchen designer by trade – the best in Boston I may add and is the Owner Operator of Venegas and Company.  If you need a kitchen in and around New England, its worth a trip to the Boston Design Center and check it out.

The marina Christmas party is in a couple of weeks and that should be fun.  We have a bunch more hockey to see.  I am planning on having folks over to watch the Olympics this year.  Olympic hockey is always great.

Well, I am sure there will be lots more news between now and the Boat Show – which is usually the start of the Boating Blog for the season, however not sure there will be many updates between now and then.  So, Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday’s and Happy New Year to all.  May it be safe and I look forward to boating and blogging next season.

Captain Steve K

Paul? On a Sail Boat?

I will apologize from the start on the title of this post, for those of you wondering what will follow take your mind out of the gutter.  This past Saturday I accompanied Mike out into the harbor on his sailboat.  On the surface this subject hardly appears to be exciting enough to deserve it’s own blog post.  However when you put a Fishing Charter Captain on board who has the same tolerance for sailboats as he does for being smacked in the face with a brick it makes for an interesting day.  The weather was perfect and Mike was patient with those of us who had no idea what we were doing.  I must admit it is rather enjoyable to be on the water with no engine noise and working as a group in order to sail the boat.  A few high points of the day included Steve loosing one of the valuable tin mugs from his collection, all of us scrambling to hold on when the boat tipped in the wind, Betty Ann’s lunch which is always perfect, and Paul attempting to get Mike to cut off any other sailboat we saw.  At the end of the day when we were sitting at the dock and having a beer laughing about the day, Mike asked Paul what he though of his day under sail.  Paul looked around to make sure no one was around to hear what was about to come out of his mouth and said “you know, it was not that bad”.  I will leave you with this, the amount of days we have left to be on the water this year are slowly leaving us, take advantage of them all on whatever boat is around sail or power.

How many power boaters does it take to furl a sail?

Stardate September 6, 2009

It’s one of the weekends we look most forward to, as well as one of the weekends we look least forward to.  We look most forward to this weekend because it is one of the three weekends we all hang out at the dock or in the harbor for the whole weekend and we are with friends.  This weekend was no exception and this weekend was perfect weather.  We look least forward to this weekend because it means that the summer is winding down (even though I try to keep the boat in the water until mid Oct) there are only a few weekends left.

Friday Donna and I took her niece and their parents for a fun boat ride in Boston Harbor – it was a great way to start the weekend.

On Saturday Donna and I did one of our most favorite things – we anchored out at Peddock Island and just relaxed for a few hours.  Then Paul from Reel Pursuit wanted to have some photos of his boat taken so he brought his boat

out into the harbor and we met up with him and Donna took about 300 pictures with the new camera – here is a great shot of Paul’s boat.

After we took our photos, Paul, Betty, Donna and I along with Steve all went to dinner.  We wanted to get some good rest because Sunday was our big Labor Day party.  This weekend, we decided to forgo all of the hot dogs, hamburgers and sausages and try something a bit more creative than a simple ‘meat fest’.  The thing we tried this weekend was that each boat was to pick a country they wanted to represent.  Then, they needed to bring to the party a food an beverage from that country.  We had a diverse set of countries selected, Germany, USA (ha – Donna and I took the easy way out), Spain, BVI (British Virgin Islands – yeah, the Pussers Rum killed me), Italy, and Cuba.  We had a blast.  Some people even decided to dress up for the occasion.  I made this fun Animoto video from some of the pictures - I hope you enjoy it.  (If the movie below doesn’t play, select the hyperlink above.)

Stay tuned for some updates for the last few weekends and pray for an Indian Summer.

Captain SteveK

Stardate August 21, 2009

The rumor of possible hurricane seas and winds didn’t keep us off the dock on Friday.  Paul, Frank and myself took off at

5am (which I am not sure why, the fish aren’t even up yet) to try again to catch the illusive tuna.  I also have to say I have never felt it that hot or humid that early since when I was in boot camp for the Navy at Great Lakes, Ill.  Wow!  We motored out on the ‘About Time’ (Franks boat) to Stellwagen Bank to see if

we could christen his boat with a tuna.  It was dark when we took off (as you can tell by the ‘fancy’ photo.  I always wanted to try to get this affect, but honestly, this was an accident) and we also watched the sun rise through the fog and it was pretty cool.

We headed to the Bank and as we headed south it really looked like we were headed into the eye of the storm.  As we were making our way south along the edge of the bank, in the fog, we saw two tons of fish – whale (which is small for a whale) jump completely out of the water.  In all my days on the ocean, I have never see this.  Then we saw the larger whales again do things I have never seen before.  They started slapping the surface of the water with their large fin.  We were trying to understand what they were doing.  We thought they were startling the bait fish so they could eat.  This would be a good sign because tuna also eat bait.  As we were looking for the fish and the bait that the tuna eat, we were struggling.  We were tracking no bait fish on the chart.  It was crazy to watch these whales breech and slap the water.  It was amazing.  We fished for another three hours without seeing anything except this whale, behaving exactly like the whale we saw that morning.  Then, out of nowhere, and me without my video camera on, the whale came all the way out of the water, just like you see on National Geographic.  It was awesome.  My dad always said, you’ll only see this a couple of times in life, if ever.  He was right, since I have been on the water from age 15, I have never seen this.

Well, the hurricane will be keeping us on the dock for the rest of this weekend, then the next two weekends we will be back to the water and one of these weekends is our fabulous Labor Day weekend meat fest.  Then I head to Germany for work for 10 days so I’ll miss a great weekend of boating in early September.  I already can’t wait to get back.

See you all on the water.  Captain SteveK

Stardate August 16, 2009

I am one of the luckiest people around.  Last weekend I had the distinct pleasure of taking out what I would call my best friends on a trip to Stellwagen Bank to go see some whales.  These are friends of mine I have had for years and don’t get to see all that often.  They are ALL not only friends by mentors as well.  There is Ed, who was the CEO of my last company and sold it to the company I currently work for EMC. and Ed is local to Boston.  Next there is Bob who is the managing partner at Ridge LLC.  Bob has had every cool job on both coasts there is to have including working for Scott McNealy from Sun Microsytems and has some great stories.  There is John who is a brilliant engineer, partner at Ridge and sold his first company to Nortel for north of $5B, Bob and John are from Reno, NV (or Silicon Valley).  Then there is my friend Brian who is an investor, working for an investment firm and has such a great grasp of technology and business its staggering, another local friend.  Then my good friend Mike.  Mike is a business, technology and M&A guru, from NJ.  When we get together it is one story after another about technology, business, M&A everything and it is fun, exciting, intellectually stimulating and can even be heated at time.

This weekend they were all in Boston and we took a trip to Stellwagen to see some whales.  The trip out was fantastic. It was like a lake on the water all day.  I was a bit nervous as we got out there and floated around for a while we didn’t see any whales.  We made some lunch, had some great conversation and then, as always, Stellwagen didn’t disappoint as witnessed from this video from Ed’s camera and a couple of pictures.

You can see how flat calm the water was.  After we saw the whales we took off and headed back into Boston Harbor.  It was hot on the dock when we left, but being at sea we were at least 10 degrees cooler.  Also, at one point I checked the water temperature while we were out there and it was over 80 degrees.  That is super warm for the ocean.

We got back to the dock around 3:30 and decided to hang out and wait for our other good friend Tom (who went with us and took the great pictures of the sail boats earlier this year.  Tom joined us and we spent some more time, having a few cocktails, having some snacks and just having a great time.

Next weekend doesn’t look so great for boating due to the hurricane (Bill) coming through so perhaps I can get caught up on a bunch of stuff I need to do this summer, like mow my lawn for a change.

I want to say thank you to Ed, Bob, John, Brian, Mike and Tom for making the day a great day.  I want to thank Donna for letting me take off on such a great day and say I can’t want to hang out again, soon.

See you all on the water.  Captain SteveK

Stardate – August 8 / 9 2009

We all try to take care of each other at the marina.  We all have different skills.  Reel Pursuit needs help with its internet

marketing to drive traffic to the site to get more charter fishing.  Paul can lean on Mike and I for that.  The Donna Julie needs help with it’s water pump.  We can lean on Steve for that.  Others need help with fiberglass because they always seem to have a hole in their dingy.  Kevin has been dealing with this all summer and its a good thing he has Mike.  The other day, one of the patches Kevin had put on his dingy to cover a whole came off and his boat had about 20 gallons of water in it.  Needless to say he was having some performance issues with the dingy.  Mike stepped in to help out patch up that hole good as new.  Good luck with the holes for the rest of the season Kev.  We don’t want to have to come rescue you on your way back from the Barking Crab one afternoon.

So later in the day, after (I was going to say helping but more like getting in the way taking pictures) hanging out with Mike and

Kevin, Donna and I decided to go for a ride.  It was just going to be a nice ride in the harbor.  And here is where I noticed a couple of things.  First, since later this summer I will be heading to Germany for work, I did notice an interesting sail boat.  It had is spinnaker raised and it was the color of the German flag.  I thought that was pretty cool.  (Sorry for the picture quality, but that wont happen anymore.  Donna got me a nice new camera for our anniversary so all future pictures will be great!)

I have also been noticing something else, sSomething that has been happening all year but I just haven’t said anything until now.  (And I am putting it down in deep in the blog to stay out of trouble – ha!) “Now I don’t want to get off on a rant…” (line from my favorite comedian – Dennis Miller) but…  I have been noticing a number of issues around boater safety and the enforcement of the ‘rules of the road’ in Boston Harbor lately.  Now, I took the time and actually went and got my captains license so I a bit more of an advantage than some I realize but come on.  If you are going to buy a boat, and take it in the ocean, read some boater safety hand outs at least before you hop in a boat and decide to be a menace to everyone you are boating around.  Learn the rules of the road, know what “no wake” mean, learn where these ‘no wake’ zones are and follow the rules – don’t just make a wake because you are in a hurry – stop being so selfish.  Also, the other bone I have to pick is with the local Boston harbor police and coast guard.  Their stations are right in the harbor and all of this, what I would consider unsafe, boating is going on right in front of their stations and nothing is being done about it.  I know the economy is tight but there is money in the budget to send the Boston Police to the marinas to collect on mooring permits, (on Sunday’s and holidays – for double time pay) so lets start enforcing some of the other rules.  I know there is more money in water fines than there is mooring permits.  (I mean which revenue would the state rather have, parking ticket or speeding ticket revenue?)  Anyway, the area from the Hilton Hotel @ Logan Air Port to the Charles River locks and in the Charles River is a NO WAKE ZONE – 5 MPH.  People LOVE to come through, especially past Constitution Marina pushing tons of water at 12 knots and causing all kinds of havoc to the boaters at the marina.  So I am not sure what I want to do here.  Do I want to enumerate what you should do or keep ranting?  I guess I’ll do both.  So, on the rant – Boston Harbor Patrol, Boston Coast Guard – start pulling some of these freaks over and giving them the business will ya.  Enforce the rules.  The other thing I take issue with is friggen sail boaters (at least the ones who believe they are so entitled they ‘own’ the  harbor).  Not that they are bad people, but who ever the hell decided to use the phrase “Sail boaters ALWAYS have the right of way – regardless” and then had it stick in the minds of everyone who owns a sail boat has caused TREMENDOUS issue and don’t realize that this is not the case at all.  To the point where they are creating unsafe conditions for people on the water who actually know what they are doing.  My advise, rather than list all the ways in which they DON’T have the right of way, is to say – GO READ A BOOK ON SAILING SAFETY!

Anyway – for any of you who know me, I rarely ever do this but I had to get it off my chest.

Until next time – see you on the water in Boston Harbor.

Captain SteveK

Stardate July 31 – August 4, 2009

Okay, I really hate bloggers that apologize for long delay’s between posts – I mean come on, I do have a day job.

So, two Saturday’s ago, friends of ours at the marina Dale, and Frank tell us that at our favorite hangout, the 2009 Aquapolooza (a large boat ‘raft up’ sponsored by SeaRay) is happening at Peddock.  Well, we steamed over to anchor up with the other 200 (that is right 200) other boats.  In the middle of the anchored boats was a very large party boat with 4 bands on board playing to their hearts content.  Everyone in the water was having a great time, even Donna. I got out our tube, blew it up and Donna was hanging out in the H20 having a beverage.  She then took a swim over to our friends boat and hung out.  Frank came and got me on the dingy.  Saturday was a lot of fun.

On Sunday we went home, did some errands and got ready for the next two days on the boat.  Sunday evening we cam back to the boat to sleep over (mainly because our air conditioner at home was on the fritz and we were getting some of the nicest days all summer.  We did what we do best, had a nice dinner, hung out and watched a movie on the boat and then went to sleep.

Monday was FANTASTIC.  We headed to Stellwagen Bank to see some whales.  People ask, why Stellwagen?  The ocean floor at Stellwagen goes from 200+ feet deep to about 90 feet deep.  Along the edge of the under water plateau, the water changes temperature and make it ripe for food to grow for smaller fish.  Big fish eat small fish as you go up the food chain so there are all types of fish on the bank.  (The picture on the left shows the ocean floor and the areas where fish gather.)

The trip out and back was great, the water was nice and calm but we only saw a few baby whales in the distance, nothing really spectacular.  We did follow a school of bait fish for a few minutes and Donna got on the bow of the boat and saw some tuna chasing them but that only lasted for a few minutes.  We floated around for about 2 hours, had some lunch and headed home.

The next day was super special.  We had yet to go to Spectacle Island, the island that evolved from dirt from the ‘Big Dig’ project in Boston.  We went with two of Donna’s favorite people, Uncle Herbie and Adele.  We had a blast.  We walked around the island, we walked in the water, we

took a little swim and we had some lunch.  Miss Adele was all to happy to eat Donna’s hot

dog for lunch.  After lunch we took a tour around the islands and then headed back to the marina so we could meet up with Donna’s colleague from work Meaghan and her friend and go for a little tour around the islands and just get out of the heat.  It was one of the first evening cruises we had taken all summer and it was wonderful.

The next day was ‘back to work’.  A total bummer but all in all we had a great time off.  It was very relaxing and I am very happy we are getting some good boating time in this summer.

See you on the water.

Captain SteveK

Meaghan tour

No Stardate for this post – just 3 simple things:

1) It is my wife’s and my 5th wedding anniversary so Happy Anniversary Donna Julie!
2) Our mooring permit finally came – its about time!
3) Check out the new photos of the boat in the “Boat Photos” tab.

More to come – Captain SteveK

Stardate July 25th 2009

It was a day for fishing, but little did I know we were fishing for charity.  Every year the Data Faber holds a charity fishing tournament out of East Boston Marina.  Some of the sponsors are Sperry Top Sider and Johnny’s Market.  There are raffles for big prizes such as Red Sox and Bruins tickets as well as drawings for prizes that have been donated.  It is a really fun time.

The event actually starts the night before at the marina in East Boston where we have a barb-b-que with hamburgers,

sausages and hot dogs, chips, potato salad and beer.  We review the rules for the next day, chat a bit and then go home to rest for the big day.  We traveled over the the marina in Frank’s boat, About Time.  It was a nice night to be on the water.

We took off at 6 am on Saturday.  The plan was to troll around for some stripers or blues but if there was no bite after an hour or so, we were headed east looking for the illusive tuna.

We found them.  Around 10:15 we saw tuna smashing all around us.  We trolled squid in a circle for the next 5 hours and saw jumpers all over.  We had a few that were jumping just a few feet off the side of the boat but nothing that day wanted our bait.  Paul, captain of Reel Pursuit, and the boat we fished on for the day, Steve, Frank, Scott and myself worked really hard to find and catch the tuna that day but it just wasn’t happening.

It was a great day though.  Reminded me of when I was a kid.  I’ve loved fishing for a long time.  From one of the first times I went fishing at home, to when my dad, his friend Jim and I used to go tuna fishing off of Bailey’s Island in Maine on the Close Enuff.  I would stand in the tower or on the bridge and look for tuna all day – just like I did on the Reel Pursuit.  Makes you feel close to mother nature.  Or the time I spent in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico fishing and call this small tuna.  It is so great to be on the water for the day.

We got back to the marina to see all the fish that had been caught that day in the striper category as well as the ‘blues’ category.  No one caught a blue fish so they gave out prizes for the top 6 blue fish entries.  The largest was a 48 1/2 inch striper – a big fish and then they got smaller from there.  (I’d have pictures but they were all on everyone’s boat on ice.)

After the weigh in, it was time to raffle off the prizes.  I had purchased 2 raffle tickets for the big prizes (which there were 3, Red Sox tickets, Bruins tickets and Gas for the boat).  I also purchased a bunch of tickets for the ‘grab’ table.  When the drawing started they drew for the Red Sox tickets first and I freakin won!  These tickets were so good, it was almost like you were playing first base.  I have to admit however, I was a bit bumbed because if you know me, I am a huge Bruins fan and what would be the chances that I would now win those.   So my strategy was, perhaps the winner of the Bruins tickets would be a bigger Sox fan and we could trade.  They drew the raffel for the gas and then the Bruins tickets and wouldn’t you know it, I won those too.  (Along with a $100 Sperry Top Sider gift certificate w/ each win).  Wow!  Can’t beat a day like that.  During the grab raffle I think Paul’s boat brought in another 10 prizes so all in all we had a fun day.

(Oh, just to mention – again, on a weekend – Boston’s finest showed up to give out mooring violations.  Why it takes three of them to walk around the marina to do that is still beyond me!)

Now in all seriousness I am going to issue a challenge.  This tournament is for charity and a good one at that.  This year they had 23 boats enter the tournament (which was up 10 boats from last year) and raised over $4,000.   Next year I want to help with this event and I would like 35 boats in the tournament.  The entry fee is reasonable – it is $125 for the boat and $45 to bring all your mates to the ‘Captains Meeting’ the night before and have some burgers, hot dogs and beer.  (Even if you don’t eat you have to go to the meeting to learn all the rules.)  So, enter your boat, if you own a charter, donate the 1/2 day and we will fill the boat and cover expenses but let me know – we can make the a fantasitc event and try to raise over $10,000 for next year!

Signing off – Captain SteveK

I am not sure exactly how we decided to take this trip or why we decided to.  We all know Boston is a very popular place for the 4th with the fireworks and the parties on E-Dock which are always are a blast.  However this year we decided to take the boat to Newport, RI for a few days.  Kevin and Kristen on Second Beach had already decided to go so I along with Mike, Annie and Lauren decided to take Life Less Ordinary on a 4 day adventure.  Some high points of the trip included staying at Kingman Yacht Center on a mooring.  This is a great place to stop with a great restaurant right on the property.  The staff was friendly and very helpfull with whatever we needed.  Kev and Kristen get the award for making the entire trip on one engine.  Buzzards Bay lived up to its reputation and slammed us for  hours on the leg into Newport on Saturday Morning.  We had a blast in Newport watching the fireworks, having a party on Second

Beach, hanging out on the lawn at Castle Hill and lobster donuts at the Moorings for lunch.  What makes getting away on a boat different then taking a car is that the voyage is just as enjoyable as the location you end up at.  It is true we could have drove a car and been in Newport in  two hours but we would never have had some funny stories and memory’s from that trip.  Annie, Mike, Lauren and myself will always laugh about funny word games to pass the time, Lauren throwing Annie in the ocean, my famous line “there everywhere” and the boat on the rocks at Castle Hill.  I will leave you with this final thought, when we were heading through the Canal and the weather was perfect and Mike and I were driving the boat and taking in the sights.  He said this and I think it sums up the trip perfectly “It is always better to be the guy on the boat then someone on the shore looking at the boats going by.”