Like "Water-Bug", when living on the Lake Michigan shore, if you don't have a boat or lots of boats, you just might get kicked out of West Michigan and don't/didn't want to chance it. So we've done our share plus many other peoples shares and love every minute of it! Sweet torture!!!
Our first large cabin Cruiser we had many years ago was a 1964 40' Owens Tahatian double planked mahagony with the 2 very crappy gutless Chrysler Marine flathead 6's. It gave way 4 years later to our wood Chris Craft cruiser which was then replaced with the Sea Ray sedan models. Our first sailboat 22' Catalina was added in 1974 and then replaced by the 25' Catalina which was replaced by the 30' Catalina in 1983 and in 1990 the 34' Catalina replaced it. All purchased new except for the 1964 Owens which was 2 years old when we bought it. Yes, we're "water rats" too!
We are one of the few real boaters who really enjoy gunkholing and/or you name it and it does both "rag hanging" (sailboats) and "stink potting" (power boats) because like with RV's, NO one type or model of boat is the best at everything! Since 1962 have alway also had many smaller boats for fishing, skiing, and trailering behind the RV's so we could explore gobs of inland lakes and waterways around the country. "travelnutz" is both for dry and wet travel on Earth for fun. Older and wiser now, the aluminum thingy that wisks you from continent to continent is no longer part of either of our lives as it was and we are so much happier just exploring North America at OUR pace where it's away from the beggars and 3rd world type filth and dispair as we've done and seen it way too many times already. If we never go thru or from airport to airport again, we'll be very happy!
As for small boats and the Great Lakes, not about to take an 18' or less across the big lake's nearly 100 miles to Milwaukee as the lake can get extremely rough. Only once did we take the 19' Larson tri hull with a 115hp Johnson on the back across to Milwaukee and that curred that as an unforcasted wind storm made ripples into mountains in a short time and there we were 40-50 miles from a harbor and 360 feet of unhappy water under us and coming at us. The electric bilge pump got a real workout and our underwear needed many washings!
Our big sailboats and powerboats have crossed many times or even on an angle NW up to Green Bay/Door County and The long Borth Channel of Lake Huron and simply loved "OTTO" our named autopilot to do the steering while we had fun. Hey, it's approx 22 hours over open water with the sailboat just to get to Sturgeon Bay on the Wisconsin side from our home port and my butt just doesnt like sitting that long!
RV'ing and boating go so well together and never gets tiring. Both have so many sub-catagories to enjoy that how could they ever get boring with there only presently being just 24 hours in a day and only 365-1/4 days in a year?
A superb CC LB 4X4, GM HD Diesel, airbags, Rancho's, lots more
Lance Legend TC 11' 4", loaded including 3400 PP generator and my deluxe 2' X 7' rear porch
29 ft Carriage Carri-lite 5'er - a specially built gem
A like new '07 Sunline Solaris 26' TT
