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Champlain/etc., or, aboard the only cruise ship
I’ve ever been on, the 250-passenger Dalmatica
on the Adriatic—I always gravitate as far forward
as I’m allowed to go.
Back in the day, I did own one power boat—a
14-foot fiberglass Crestliner—and, even though
I enjoyed the hell out of it, I never felt compelled
to upgrade to 16-/20-/24-/36-footers. My boats-
of-choice for the last decade or so have been
two-seater canoes: Royalex, or Kevlar. To me,
they’re one of the simplest, most basic, most
efficient forms of human transportation there
is: all’s you need is, well, water—our current
boats actually need very little of it, with their
2-3-inch drafts—and a couple of paddles.
One of the real beauties of this is you can get
to places that are pretty much impossible to
get to by any other means—walking, driving,
biking, or, power-boating, except maybe small,
shallow draft boats, and even these can’t get
under some of the railroad or road bridges that
we can squeeze under—’way up narrow creeks
and through marshes as far as it’s possible—and
sane—to paddle.