Grandfathered In

There are things you learn from experience, and there are rules you know by letter. It pays to keep both of them sharp.

Itook an online boater safety course the other day. New York state will soon require everyone who operates a boat and was born after 1978 to pass one. They’ve been requiring this of younger boaters for years, but up until now I’ve been grandfathered in.

I may not be that old, but I’ve been boating my whole life. My dad started teaching me back in the early 1980s. My grandparents lived in Syracuse, New York, and rented a small cottage every summer on a big lake in the Adirondack Mountains. They kept a 17-foot aluminum Starcraft powered by a 75 hp Merc parked at the end of the dock among the lily pads. He’d put me on his lap and let me drive it in the mornings when we’d take it out for perch.

Raquette Lake is a maze of islands and rocks, with wide bays and shallow inlets tucked all along its 99 miles of shoreline. It’s big for fresh water, deep enough for lake trout, and cold and foggy every morning when you leave the dock at sunrise. I remember the first time he let me thread the Needles, a narrow gap between two granite reefs on the far side of the lake. “Red, right, returning” takes on a lot of color when you’re running a field of boulders.

I was glad to take this course, though. There are rules you learn from experience, and there are rules you know by letter, and it pays to keep both of them sharp.

We still visit the lake each summer, gathering the family at the cabin my grandparents eventually built that takes a 6-mile boat ride to reach. The trip can get hairy when the wind starts whipping up there. A few years back, we saved a man from drowning after my daughter spotted a capsized sailboat floating in the middle of North Bay.

This guy had done everything wrong: dressing for the air, not the water; renting a boat he didn’t know to go out in conditions he wasn’t prepared to handle; leaving his vessel to try to swim to shore; and wearing a 15-yearold Type II life jacket that was at least two sizes too small for him.

The wind was honking, and it took us a while to even see him, floating motionless on his back about 200 yards from his boat. His eyes and mouth were just barely above the water. We shouted to get his attention as we approached, but our presence didn’t register until we’d nearly put the bow over his head. He was staring blankly up at the clear blue sky, and I can still see that slow comprehension as his eyes finally focused on my face, a muddy realization that this was not the day he was going to die.

The course only takes four hours. It’s also free, and taking it can help lower the cost of insurance. You might not think you need it, but it never hurts to brush up.

This guy had done everything wrong: dressing for the air, not the water; renting a boat he didn’t know; leaving his vessel to try to swim to shore; and wearing a 15-year-old life jacket.