After finally addressing a needed annual tuneup, I busted the powerboat out of landlock last week and got on the water. A separate project to replace the engine on Cerberus, my beloved sailboat, continues but is getting closer to being done, I swear.
Out on Gardiner’s Bay on Friday with my son and nephew, I was struck by how few boats were out compared to the number docked around Three Mile Harbor and wondered why.
The embattled federal Bureau of Labor Statistics provides a clue: television. According to the agency, Americans’ leisure time is dominated by TV. On average, we spend two and a half hours per day watching one thing or another on our screens. Sports, recreation, and exercise together come in at half an hour each day, just about tied with “relaxing and thinking.” Boating, it seems, is a low priority.
Our streets aflock with runners and people on bicycles, the B.L.S. figures surprised me. Indeed, there might be a Hamptons exclusion to account for all the fitness activity, at least in the summer months. Still, the relative absence of boats actually being used clearly means that people are doing something else, though not thinking, apparently.
As we worked our way out of the Three Mile inlet, Ellis, my 15-year-old, several times asked me how much I thought a few passing yachts cost. I told him that my estimates are generally on the lowball side, but that a modest 40-footer probably went for $4 million; a much larger vessel, with what looked like a cocktail party on the wind-protected upper deck, might have been $12 million. Perhaps needless to say, the people aboard the yachts did not wave as they approached us in the channel, though the folks in simple fishing boats, as well as the men and women fishing on the jetty, did.
On Saturday, the weather spectacular, I took my eldest and her boyfriend out for some sun and a swim. We motored over to Gardiner’s Island and drifted along, taking turns jumping from the gunnels. Another boat was anchored about a mile away. Otherwise we were alone. Boating might cost a bit, I thought, but it is worth every penny.