Boston Boating Blog

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