What a great summer on the water it has been!!! So much to say! :) The kids have been having a great time on the water. Biggest event for them this summer has been learning how to really wakeboard properly. If you follow our blog a bit you know we bought a nice little 17' Boston Whaler Dauntless this winter. I tried taking them wakeboarding on it once but it did not go well. :) Luckily, my good friend and broker who works with me, Steve, used to be a professional skier and is an excellent teacher. We spent an afternoon with him and WOW what a difference it made. Not only did I learn how to properly pilot the boat to help them get up easier but he used a boom on the side of his ski boat to really walk them through how to get up and ride on the wakeboard. They both graduated to the long rope behind his ski boat and then we tried pulling them behind the whaler...an admittedly less than perfect wakeboarding vessel but the kids hopped right up on it. So- lots of weekday evenings on Lake Allatoona (10 minutes from our house in Woodstock, GA) have been spent wakeboarding with them all over the place. TONS of fun watching them do it and to see how much they love it. Here are some pictures:
And of course every once in a while you have to stop wakeboarding and just go swimming:
This weekend was the perfect weekend for us as a family anchored out. We went to our favorite cove not far from the marina and dropped anchor and enjoyed life. Work has kept me largely up in Chattanooga between brokering boats and doing boat projects after the storm such that Caleb and I spent most of the last month living aboard the pilothouse, with my wife and daughter going back and forth some due to our daughter having horseback riding lesson (she LOVES horses!!). Here we are anchored out in our quiet little cove:
My beautiful bride, Tarne, and my wonderful daughter, Sarah, relaxing in the cockpit:
First order of business was swimming for everyone!
Saturday was a hot but sunny day but then out of the blue a passing storm cloud came over us. The sun was shining and everyone was swimming but it was pouring out for maybe 10 minutes- very fun! Luckily no thunder or lightening so just a nice summer rain.
One of the favorite activities for the kids is jumping off the flybridge into the water. That extra height makes it a lot of fun. Tarne snapped a picture of the 3 of us jumping off together- such good times!
Daisy likes our "new" pilothouse a LOT more than our Monk 36 trawler. That being said, she still does not seem to really like the water all that much. She likes the dinghy ride and doesn't mind being on the dock but she seems to have little to no interest in swimming with us. Usually when we are anchored out and swimming, this is the view we have of her as she does not want to come out on the swim platform with all the splashing going on haha:
And or course, it would not be a weekend anchored out for our family without the kids paddling around the cove exploring. Here Sarah is shuttling Caleb around as he sits in the back of our kayak:
And Saturday night Sarah went for a solo paddle to watch the sun going down and contemplate life it looked like from our vantage point. Our "quiet" anchorage became pretty popular and ended up having 30 boats or so anchored in it during the afternoon. A few stayed the night anchored out but thankfully everyone was nice and quiet and it was extremely peaceful.
In the morning we woke to a perfect blue sky and calm waters:
The boat projects have been coming along nicely. We have 7-8 coats of varnish down on all the brightwork. This, plus the full wax and compound from waterline up before relaunching after the storm all translates into the boat looking MUCH better these days. There is nothing I love on boats more than new varnish!!!
After enjoying most of the day in the sun on Sunday, we decided to pull up anchor and cruise a few miles up to Aris' Restaurant up in Soddy Daisy, TN. Good food and a nice outdoor deck overlooking the water. Here is a picture of "Watermark" tied up to their docks there at the restaurant while we ate an early dinner:
After dinner we went back to the dock to plug in and relax after 2 solid days in the sun. The kids love fishing off the dock, usually catching tons of bluegill, etc. I fished with them and surprise surprise, look what I caught! This bass was HUGE! I should have weighed it but it had to have been in the 8-10 lb range. It was by far the biggest largemouth bass I've ever personally caught. The kids were so excited. Caleb picked the spot we were fishing at, Sarah picked my lure, and poof... I caught the fish. We actually were watching him before I caught him as he was just sitting there 12" below the surface staring at Caleb's hook with bread on it. I grabbed my pole and put the lure I let Sarah pick and dropped the lure in the slip he was in and worked the lure past him and he took off and grabbed it right away! It was very cool and the kids were so thrilled. Caleb REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to cook him and eat him! I was certainly tempted but Tarne and Sarah wanted him to be able to live so we took some pictures and put him back in the water to live another day.
And then a beautiful sunset on the docks....
All in all, it was an excellent weekend on the water. We spent last night on the boat and today (Monday), I worked on some varnish for our trawler that we are selling and spent time with a client, his wife, daughter, and grandson that are staying at one of the cabins at our marina since we sold their boat sooner than they thought and their older grandkids were going to a sailing camp this week. We fished on the docks with them and while their youngest grandson did not catch a huge largemouth bass like I did the night before, he caught one heck of a big catfish and had a great time.
