Lake Ontario Googan

If you are a fan of Wicked Tuna you know the term Googan. It is an amateur boater, or weekend boater that doesn't have a clue what they are doing. I freely admit that I'm a Lake Ontario Googan. I just completed my first year as a boater. I captained The Irish Brawler. To say that it was an adventure is an understatement.

We had two incidents of man overboard, one incident of a beer cooler overboard and we lost Bereza's monkey towel to the deep. I hit the cement pillar behind my boat slip at least a dozen times. I banged into the dock on at least as many occasions. My boat was like a bull in China shop, like a pinball in a machine. My biggest error was when I failed to retrieve my anchor before leaving an anchorage. This error damaged the drive in my boat. There is basically a hole in my boat. Luckily the Brawler is now on dry land and that my bilge pump did its job. We had to take the Brawler out of the water a couple of days early before we risked burning out the bilge pump.

I want to thank my new friend Dale who lives at the marina. Dale looked out for my boat all summer. Dale is the youngest boat captain at the marina and we admired the endless stream of ladies that he hosted on his boat.

Despite the rookie mistakes I still made incremental improvements in my boating skills. I think it will take one more full season before I'm fully confident as a boater. It may take several years before I'm a decent captain. It was a great summer. By my rough calculation I had at least 80 different people on the boat. All the members of my family were able to enjoy a cruise, including my Mom & 80 year-old Dad.

During the season we were able to upgrade the sound system, the anchor, GPS and VHF radio. We learnt endless improvements to enhance the boating experience. Next year will be even better.

One interesting fact is that we were never more than a half mile from shore. Almost all of the boating was in the City of Toronto waters. Next year we will venture further. We will also include some fishing.