Boaters in no rush to come ashore

MARBLEHEAD – The sun may be setting on the summertime months, but local boaters aren’t pulling up their anchors just yet.”It always goes by fast but this year especially,” said Paul Lynch of Marblehead. “(This) season was a little slower. We had some tough weekend weather.”Lynch doesn’t plan to take his boat, “Debonaire,” out of the water until the end of October, he said.He said he plans to go on a few more excursions this season, including an overnight trip to Provincetown. He said he might also plan trips to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.”It takes a couple of hours to get there,” he said.Lynch also plans to go on a tuna fishing trip with three or four friends in the coming weeks.”We go about 20 miles out,” he said. “We just do it for fun. You can only sell them if they’re over 73 inches, and I haven’t gotten one that big.”Lynch said this season’s drop in gas prices makes it more possible for people to be able to get out on the water.”They’re very good right now,” Lynch said. “Like $1.20 cheaper than last year.”Gas prices on the water typically run higher than what you would see at a gas station on land. It currently costs $3.11 per gallon to fill up at the Boston Yacht Club. Lynch said Debonaire holds 200 gallons of fuel, and he typically only needs to fill up about three times a season.”Fuel is coming down,” said Leo Berendes, who is active with racing at the Corinthian Yacht Club. “Two to three years ago, fuel shops killed everybody. Now a weekend away is $100 or so.”Berendes has attended around 35 to 40 races at various yacht clubs this summer, which is about two thirds of what he expects to do. A boating injury did slow down his season a bit, he said.”We just put the boat in last weekend,” said Joan Daly of Marblehead, who was gassing up her boat, Baltic 55, at the fuel station at Boston Yacht Club. “I usually keep it in. It went in so late this year.”We’ve just been going away on the weekends and doing house projects,” she said. “We are finally getting to putting the boat in the water.”Daly said she is looking forward to sunny days that she can spend at her favorite spot, Brown’s Island.”We swim there,” she said. “A lot of people are there every weekend, all day long. It’s a townie place.”Bob Johnson, launch operator at Boston Yacht Club, said this is something he has seen a lot of this summer.”Boating has been off remarkably,” he said. “I don’t know what the reason is. Maybe it’s the demographics. People have kids who have other things going on during the summer.”You’d think these boats would be putting around, not sitting on moorings,” Johnson said. “People should be flocking down.”Others have been rolling with the tide and taking full advantage of the summer months.”We had a good summer,” said Tom Millett, who was on his way out to his boat, “Salty Fox.” “We’ve been going out more this year. The weather has been pretty good, and we got a new boat this year.”He and his wife, Frances, have been enjoying “harbor burns,” which is what he calls putting around the harbor.”We don’t really go out that far,” Millett said. “We sometimes go out to Kettle Cove and put out an anchor to swim.””It’s been a pretty fun time,” said 10-year-old Luca Ferro of Marblehead, who went to sailing camp this summer and has been sailing with his father and grandfather for a few years.”I’m sad it’s coming to a close, but we do still have some time,” he said. “It’s been really, really fun.”