If you've spent any time around boats, you've seen it happen.The lines are tied off. The engines are finally quiet. Someone walks down the dock carrying a beverage in hand .A conversation starts: "How was the crossing? Any trouble at the lock?"

"Did they ever move that buoy?", "where'd you spend the night?"

For a few minutes, information changes hands. A little local knowledge, a little hard earned experience. If you're lucky - a lesson someone paid to learn so you don't have to. I've always loved these conversations and in many ways - ICW News grew out of them. 

I've spent my life on boats

I was fortunate to be raised by one of Boston's own lifelong boaters. Growing up, each night before bed my dad told me stories of the ocean. These narratives ranged from tales of aircraft carrier catwalks forty feet hight being swept away in front of his eyes as the USS Saratoga steamed back towards the Atlantic coast while taking on 40ft tall waves in 1967 - to stories that revolved around "wind-jammer cruises" during the 80's and sport fishing for Marlin with photographs to back up the wild claims. His favorite yankee tendency was to wait until a morning when it was cold and rainy before sharing that:

"When I was a kid, on days like this - we took two towels to the beach"

The first actual boating license came from a USCG power squadron class at age 11 in rural Alabama. I distinctly remember being both the youngest participant, but also the only one who shot up a hand when a question was asked. Although I was a poor student traditionally, I more than understood the consequences and subsequent freedom a boat license would unlock on this transportation arbitrage some five years before being allowed to legally drive a motor vehicle. While West Point Lake near Valley, AL and West Point, GA was no match for the stories of the Atlantic crossings and tales from the number four catapult captain I grew up hearing - it sure didn't matter to me. Like my dad, I didn't just want to be "at the lake" in summer, but year round! During the off-seasons from 1997-2006, Southern Harbor Marina was akin to a ghost-town. Accept for a few live-a-boards, almost no one was to be found on the docks or out on the lake - most boats having been long winterized for the season. 

That is, except for the harbormaster himself - Doyle Etheridge 

Although I always knew the title was a bit of a joke coming from my dad, no one at the marina treated it as such. It was, after all - Doyle's do anything attitude that earned the title in the first place. One of my earliest memories was watching him pull a 65ft houseboat out with an old Bluebird School Bus while more than a dozen had come to the ramp just to see if the plan would work. Macguver had nothing on Ole' Doyle. As the former service manager at Nally Chevrolet for the bulk of his mechanical career, Doyle and my dad got along for many reasons - but their do anything, solve any problem at the Marina attitude was clearly what drove them both.While the teaching opportunities for me as the ride along observer were not always traditional in nature - I learned more from riding around in the old truck moving from dock to dock fixing little things here and there with Dad and the Harbormaster himself that I'l ever remember. 

Crossing the gulf of Mexi-America on thanksgiving day 2017 was a defining moment in boating life

Although I had no doubt in their ability or skills - I was still immensely proud of my mom and dad becoming Gold Loopers in 2017. Before they crossed their own wakes in my home waters of the TN River and Kentucky Lake, an opportunity to join them on their "big hop" crossing from Apalachicola to Tarpon Springs one evening nearly a decade ago was perhaps the most expensive night of my life. It took me longer than the first radio check from Dog Island to get over the idea that yes, my mother and father did trust our small crew of three just enough to eschew hiring a professional captain for their second gulf crossing in their Mainship 40 - Time Out. By the time the dolphins had seen us out into the gulf and the focus had turned to engine room checks and helm rotations, I was purely hooked. I've spent the last 9 years since working hard enough to have the money and expertise to be here writing these words you read today. Now finally, it's time to return to the water in a more permanent state. 

The Waterways are filled with remarkable knowledge 

But it's scattered - weather in one place, lock notices somewhere else. A bridge schedule buried in a PDF. The best advice of all from locals is usually sitting on a dock in front of someone that happens to know. Somewhere in the middle of all that is a Captain trying to answer a simple question:

"should we move today - and if so, what do we need to know before we do"

ICW News was built to help answer that question. Not by replacing charts, official notices or good judgement. And certainly not by predestined we know everything. The goal is much simpler than that: to create a place where the waterways become easier and more enjoyable to understand. 

That's the philosophy you'll see throughout this publication. Were I to embark on you an ethos of boating, it would have to be the words of my favorite captain: 

"not just the Spanish Main love, the entire ocean, the entire world - wherever we want to go - go. That's what a ship is you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and the sail's, that's what a ship needs - but what a ship is... freedom." - Captain Jack Sparrow 

If you're reading these words, I owe you a sincere thank you. I eagerly await your feedback, tales of the sea and waterways we've grown to call home. It is after all, a privilege to navigate these waters. Something I'm not sure anyone who has ever traveled them would argue. Calm seas and good weather, Western Cap. I hope to see you on the dock or on a hook. - The HarbormasterICW News Editor in ChiefDaniel Houghton