About Me

Ahoy everybody.... I think its time for everybody to learn some more about me other than that I have a blog.

To start out, my name is Michael.  Despite my young age of 18, I do most of the work on our boat. I live in the Dallas area and do most of my boating on Lake Ray Hubbard just east of Dallas.  Next year I plan to move onto the University of North Texas and major in Accounting.  Hopefully I will be able to use my degree and stay in the boating industry.  If I am unable to do that, I will definitely keep it in my life.  After all, I have been doing it my whole life, its in my blood.

This is a picture of my dad and I.  All credit goes to him for putting boating in my blood.  Secretly, I think it ended up being more of a part of my life than he intended it to be, but oh well.

I am originally from the gulf coast around the Houston area where I did most of my boating in the bay. I have been in Dallas for the past 5 years and really enjoy the lake life. As of now, we keep our boat a marina but are thinking about pulling it out. When we moved from Houston, we sold our bigger boat that we used in the bay. That was a Sea Hunt Escape 200. It was a very sturdy boat for the bay, and being a dual console, it was great for family trips and the times when we used it for cruising instead of fishing.
I have both a boat and two jet skis. The boat I have now is a 2002 Chaparral 186 SSi. It may only come in at just under 20 feet, but it feels much bigger weighing in at about 3500 pounds. It is also very fast. The original owner ordered it with an upgraded engine. The stock engine is a 4.3L Mercury but ours has the upgraded 5.0L Mercury with an Alpha 1 out drive. With this engine and drive combination, it can do about 54 on a smooth day. This picture is of it sitting in the marina on its lift.

As for the jet skis, we started out with a 1992 Yamaha VXR 650. This was the first jet ski that we had and wanted to know if we would like it. It was from the era when jet skis were raced. It has an astonishing 50 horsepower :-D and a top speed of 35 on a glassy day. This past summer we bought a 2001 Sea Doo GTX-DI from a family friend at the marina. He rarely used it with only 103 hours when we bought it. We got it late in the summer so I didnt get to ride it that much before the water started to cool down. This one is 150 horse power, still a 2 stroke like the Yamaha but never smokes and just sips oil. On a glassy day, I have had it up to 68 MPH!!