Teenage Boating Antics on the St. Lawrence

If you live in the ‘burg, you’re tied to the water in some fashion. When I was living there, up until the mid-1980s, Shad flies were a modern-day biblical plague. They were everywhere and anywhere. Many a car paint job was ruined, and the car washes would rake in the dough as car owners fought back. ”They don’t last long” some would say; neither do house fires or car crashes, and I’m not sure which of the three is worse.

I recall the great Zebra Mussel controversy when the little critters found rides on foreign ships and invaded the seaway, how that was going to be a nightmare. I guess it did clog up some pipes but they did eat away all that slimey moss, thankfully!

But there was much more to like; ships gently gliding down the river, with the occasional mishap that would cause sensations if one went aground, or became disabled. Swimming and water skiing, partying out on the sand bar. Back in the day, Muskie fishing was a big deal, with Cubby’s Marina often featured in the paper, their large fish scale weighing the latest hapless monster. Remember the “Mighty the Muskie” sign? Then of course, the glorious sunsets.

Sixteen brought me not a car (like my brother got), but a boat. Guess Ma was sick of the hell my brother Mike was raising with his car(s). Yes, the river would be my venue, and my chariot was a used orange Cobra 18’ bowrider with an 85-horse Evinrude on the back. And oh, the trouble and death I risked in that thing.

My friend Jim and I had it out one afternoon; a beautiful summer day on the St. Lawerence is the basis of some of my best teen memories. Anyway, we were cruising at a good speed, and I started doing this maneuver in which I would turn the wheel all the way right, then all the way left, going back and forth quickly several times. I was sitting atop the fold-down seats, commander of my craft, maybe fancying myself as one of the race boat drivers that would be on the river during the Seaway Festival. Jim was hanging out in the back, near the motor. All of sudden the cable that controls the steering of the motor snaps, strained from constant turning back and forth. The boat turns hard on its side, at a good speed, and I’m thrown off my seat, away from the steering wheel, while Jim barely misses flying out of the boat and into the water near the motor. I was able to scramble to the throttle and kill the motor pretty quickly, but for a minute there I thought we were going to be in for a swim and possibly cut to ribbons, our mothers having nothing to bury but body parts. Getting the boat back to the dock involved putting the motor into gear, at a low speed, and Jim and I holding the head of the motor to steer it.

Ah, but I cheated death that day and lived on to make other stupid mistakes with that boat. One was going over to Prescott (Ontario, Canada) to go roller skating….again, looking for love with the Canadian girls. I didn’t call into Customs when I docked my boat at their municipal dock as I was running late, which was mistake number one, and mistake two was letting my kinda/sorta girlfriend at the time see me trying to move in on another girl. You ladies reading this will relish my comeuppance at that romantic infraction when I returned to find the boat locked up, impounded at the dock. I had to pay a $50 fine to get the boat back, begging my brother and a friend or two for the money. The triple play would be if my mother had found out.

Before the Cobia I had a little twelve-foot aluminum runabout with a 15-horse Johnson on it - the type you sit next to and steer with a handle. Had a lot of fun in that, going out to the laker ships, and getting so close, I could practically scrape off the barnacles. I would play chicken by driving in front of them, and surprisingly, they never steered away. And of course, I’d get close to the back of them as they went by, their monstrous prop washes twisting my boat about the surface of the water in a serpentine fashion. Had that motor ever quit during those foolish maneuvers…

Well, one day it did quit, but I wasn’t in the channel; no, I was close to shore…too close. I was bombing around near the camp when all of a sudden the motor jumped out of my hand; I heard a sickening gurgling sound, and my boat was cruising to a stop and all was quiet. What the heck?! Well….I had hit a boulder underneath the surface, which pushed the motor up and off the transom. The safety chains that were supposed to at least keep it attached to the boat in this kind of situation? They were a little more rusty than I thought, and they gave way. The motor lay in about 10 feet of water or so, and Ma donated to the Rescue Squad divers to get the thing. Then off to Wright’s Marina in Morristown for repair. Ugh.

Man, what great times though.