The End of This Year's Boating Season (& Why I'm a Little More Upset than I Let On)

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Six years ago, my dad was off from work for about 3 week and bored out of his mind.  Apparently buying a boat was the best way to cure this boredom.  (Uhh if I went shopping every time I got bored I would be broke.) It was a 23' jet boat and we kept it on the Chain of Lakes in Antioch, Illinois.  It was fun at first.  The Chain seemed so huge and we thought we'd be able to do stuff for a while.  This wasn't the case.  All the lakes were pretty small.  We couldn't even get the boat up to full speed in the short distance across.  There weren't many restaurants and the ones that we did go to were all the same anyways.

This inspired my parents to start looking for larger boats.  Maybe one we could sleep on.  It would be cool to get a boat we could put on Lake Michigan- "the big lake".  They started shopping around and we found one in Michigan they really liked.  So after just 2 short seasons on the Chain of Lakes we were on a new, bigger boat in a new, bigger lake.

It seemed really awesome to have a BOAT we could SLEEP on.  So, since the marina we kept the boat at was only 10 minutes away from our house, we decided to start living out there 3 days a week.  Then 3 turned into 5 and we were out there a lot.  There were only 2 bedrooms and my brother wound up not getting one at all so he slept in the living room area.  We started to get short on space since we were spending so much time out there.  

We really didn't NEED a bigger boat, but the salesman who sold us the 2nd boat was going to sell his personal boat.  He really needed to sell it and was willing to sell it for a lot less than it was worth.  My parents decided that was that, we needed a new boat.

Last year, we would live on the boat Thursday through Tuesday.  Going home Tuesday night and coming out Thursday night.  It got really old really fast to have to pack bags twice a week and drag them back and forth. Around May, just a couple months into the season, we decided it would be easier to move out to the boat.  For the whole summer.

We emptied and unplugged the fridge, shut off everything else and moved out to the boat completely.  It was weird at first.  No one was out there during the week but us.  I thought it was creepy to walk down the dock at night when no one was there, but I've grown to like it.  It's actually almost relaxing now.  I'd maybe go so far as to say I look forward to it.

Last year I started doing online school.  Now my main social interaction comes from dance.  It can be really hard to only get to talk to people at dance.  Especially seeing as we're not even supposed to be talking in class. So when people are out at the marina on the weekends I tend to cherish that too.  There aren't many people my age out there, but I'm not a huge fan of people my age in all honesty anyways.

Now, at the end of our 2nd season doing it, I can admit I am sad that we're moving back to our house in a few weeks.  Sure, during the summer, I complain.  A lot.  It's annoying to have little space.  It's annoying that there aren't always lots of people out.  It's annoying that I can't just go lay in the grass in the backyard.

I think it is worse back at home though.  When the long, cold walk down the quiet walk turns into a few steps through the garage.  When we spend the weekends at home or at rehearsal, without all the people to hang out with- even if they are mostly drunk adults.  When I can no longer sit on the hard top and watch the sunset over sailboat masts.

Thankfully it's only a few months.

-Cassi