Three Great Boating Adventures
When you’re a proud boat owner, you want to take your craft out on the water every chance you get. But maybe you’ve grown a bit bored of cruises around the bay or going fishing. You’re looking for a bit of adventure, or you want to make sure the kids have a boating experience that they’ll never forget. Well, the good news is that your boat is perfectly suited to adventuring! You can use it as a means of transport to a lot of fun new activities you may not have even considered.
Not sure where to begin your sojourn? This guide describing three excellent boating adventures comes to you courtesy of your friends here at Hampton Watercraft & Marine, serving Eastern Long Island. Try one or more of the following thrills and come tell us how it went!
1. Watching Sharks
To do this, you’ll need some chum or bait to throw in the water. Sharks will swim around bays and inlets searching for food. Put your anchor in the water and hang the chum bucket over the side on a long line. Once you see that telltale fin, haul the bait back to your boat to encourage the shark to chase it. Get out your camera to film the event! Just make sure you’re not trying to catch them on a hook, since many species are endangered and great white sharks in particular are federally protected.
2. Geocaching
You’ve undoubtedly got a GPS already on your boat, so why not make use of it for a new purpose? Geocaching is a hobby that’s grown in popularity as technology has advanced: it’s basically using coordinates to locate a “cache” of goods that someone has hidden there. Geocaching is a popular activity on land, with people locating the caches in all sorts of places, from forests to public parks to bookstores.
But you can also use your boat to cruise along the coast or out to an island where a cache rests. Inside, you’ll usually find a journal of some kind that you’ll want to sign and date, leaving a comment of some kind. The fun is in finding the cache, but some may have small prizes of some type, or the opportunity to leave something for the next person. Either way, it’s a novel way to make use of your boat!
3. Person Overboard Drill
You’ve undoubtedly educated all your passengers on critical boat safety. They know where the personal flotation devices are, how to navigate with the map or GPS, where the radio is and how to communicate with it in an emergency and plenty of other necessary skills. One way you can put these to practice is to have a surprise drill! Go on a typical cruise, then toss a life preserver or cushion over the side of the boat. Tell everyone that you’ve fallen overboard and ask them what they need to do. This is a great way to help kids put what they’ve learned into practice!
In this case, the oldest child or adult closest to the wheel should take the helm while someone else watches the person overboard to keep tabs on their location in the water. Someone else should toss the throwable personal flotation device into the water.
The helmsperson should start a Williamson turn, where they turn in the direction of the person overboard and swing over in the opposite direction after getting about 60° from the initial course. The turn continues until you’re 180° away from the original course and headed directly for the person overboard. Shift into neutral before other people help to pull in the person who has fallen in.
You can time this rescue to see how long it takes and give everyone an award for meeting a new time, like taking them out for ice cream when you return to the dock!
These are only a few ways to spice up your boating life with more adventure, but there are plenty more things you can try to make your weekend on the water one you won’t soon forget! Still need the boat to do some adventuring in? Visit one of our dealerships in Hampton Bays or Eastport, New York, to check out our available selection of new and used boats and watercraft for sale. Hampton Watercraft & Marine proudly welcomes all of our Eastern Long Island customers.