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Boating is all about journeys and For Avi Rubin, professor emeritus in computer science at Johns Hopkins University, whose self-professed boat obsession dates to childhood, one reminiscence mainly sticks in his mind: “It’s a video of our four-year-old twins wearing life jackets and playing the clapping game of patty-cake with their older sister while we were underway with blue water all around. The next day, we were healed over with the rail in the water with 18-knot winds, the boat doing 8 knots, and all of us shouting for joy.”
“Spending 24 hours a day in close quarters has its challenges — still, it creates life stories you never forget,” says Rubin, a long-time Marinalife reader who keeps the magazine onboard his 70-foot Hampton Endurance, Empty Nest, while cruising with his wife. “It’s the only publication where I find the ads as valuable as the stories. We’ve found several marinas on our snowbird journey that we learned about because they advertised in Marinalife.”
Planning those passages and the stepping-stone marina stops along the way has been an enormous help to many Marinalife readers. Bob Arrington, whose earliest boating memory of fishing with his dad for bass, pike and walleye on Lake Michigan, first became a Cruising Club member for this benefit.
“Years ago, we and our friends lived in and around Baltimore,” says Arrington, a long-time Marinalife magazine contributor. “The seven of us planned our entire summers together. We’d go to St. Michaels, Annapolis and Williamsburg and spend our weekends and vacations together aboard our boats. Back then, Marinalife made all the reservations for us — one phone call and the seven of us had reservations.”
Marinalife’s current Trip Tools include itineraries, destinations, marina finder, articles and marina reservations through Snag-A-Slip. Nowadays, Arrington and his wife, Dori, seasonally cruise between St. Petersburg, Florida, and Maine on their 54-foot Ocean Alexander trawler, Liberdade. This summer, the couple plans to cruise further east in Maine and up to the Canadian Maritimes. “I never tire of watching the sunrise when we’re underway 30 to 40 miles offshore,” says Arrington. “It’s a memory that continues to imprint on my mind because it’s the reward for having made it through the night.”
Lou Sulla, who grew up in a boating family, first took his uncle’s 16-foot Boston Whaler out on Long Island Sound as a teenager to meet girls and today cruises his 61-foot Altima pilot house, Madeline Marie IV, in Singer Island, Florida, in the winter and the Sound in the summers with his wife. Sulla is one of Marinalife’s first members. “I bought all my friends’ memberships so they could make marina bookings too,” he says.
One of Sulla’s favorite recollections arose not from specific plans but from storm-caused serendipity almost 25 years ago. He and his wife were moored with several friends at Center Island off Oyster Bay on their 36-foot Stamos. The following day, the fleet of friends started or Block Island, only to hit such an extreme sea state that they sought refuge. “One of my friends found this place, Spencer’s Marina, in Milford, Connecticut. We headed up Milford Harbor and saw the folks there pulling boats out of the water to accommodate us. We noticed the boats were small compared to our group including a 45-foot Viking, 33-foot Wellcraft Coastal, 31-foot Sea Ray, 33-foot Wellcraft Martinique, plus my Stamos,” says Sulla.
“They couldn’t manage the electrical load when we all docked, so they had to run generators. Then they started cooking for us and bringing trays of food. One person gave us their car to use if we needed it. Another gave us the keys to their house so we could take showers. It was a very surreal experience. Those were some of the kindest, most generous people we ever met, and it was one of the best times we had with all our friends.”
Jay Pollack was an adult when he bought his first boat, a 16-foot Four Winns with a 70 HP engine, and realized it was a great entertaining platform with friends. Pollack discovered Marinalife’s Trip Tools while visiting the company’s booth at the Palm Beach Boat Show in 2021. Pollack had newly purchased his 40-foot Schaefer, Life Afloat, and planned to cruise it from Florida to Chicago.
“For $100, they [Marinalife staff] said, ‘Tell us where you want to go and when, and we’ll take care of it,’” he says. “I had given them my profile, yacht club memberships, Boat U.S. number, everything necessary. Considering that I’m driving the boat singlehanded for about a quarter of the trips we take, watching markers and boat traffic down the intercoastal, I don’t have the time to phone around. This way, all we had to do was pull into the marina each night.”
Pollack has clocked 100,000-plus miles on each hull he’s owned, so boating travel is a way of life. It was his family’s first trip across the Gulf Stream from Florida to the Bahamas, which is among his favorite blasts from the past. The Sea Ray he cruised back then experienced engine problems, and Pollack stopped in Bimini for a fix. “The cool part came when we left Bimini, stopped for lunch at Chub Cay, and headed south,” he says. “The look on my kids’ faces when they saw the water change from that white sand of the Bahama Bank to the deep blue of the tongue of the ocean and then saw Atlantis rise on the horizon was incredible. It’s hard to impress teenagers, but that sure did.”
Marine industry professionals like Capt. Glenn Bregman, who obtained his 200-ton captain’s license after a career as a financial advisor and now runs large private power yachts, says his Captain’s Club membership has saved over $4,000 in fuel discounts and slip fees one season when he worked on a 46-foot Sea Ray.
“I’ve been blessed as a captain to work for some great people,” says Bregman, who also checks out Marinalife’s online itineraries to plan his trips. “Some of my favorite memories are of the trips I took with a family I worked with for several years. I’d take the wife and her four sisters from Virginia Beach to Martha’s Vineyard. I got a slip in front of Nancy’s Restaurant in Oak Bluffs. We were there for three weeks. When the women left, the husband and brothers would come up. We’d go to Boston, then make our way back through Provincetown, Newport, Block Island, Sag Harbor, Old Saybrook, and I’d drop them off at Liberty Landing Marina.”
Capt. Sue Nerud, a Great Lakes native with a 100-ton license who owns and operates Gasparilla Boat Tours in Englewood, Florida, says Marinalife has “opened a world of opportunity for me as a female captain. It’s brought me together with friends and family. I’ve met some of the best people on the water.”
One of Nerud’s favorite flashbacks happened when she stayed overnight on her 22-foot Larson cuddy cabin cruiser, Alpha Mare, off Caladesi Island across from Dunedin, Florida. “I remember waking up to dolphins all around my boat. I sat on the seat of my dive platform, and the dolphins came right up to me. There were no other boats around; it was just me.”
Finally, it’s not just the boating from birth and decades-long cruisers who benefit from Marinalife. Take Wanda and Lisette Bergeron, for example. Both women have fond family boating memories, Wanda on the West River in Maryland and Lisette in the Gulf of Mexico out of Port Fourchon, Grand Isle, and Cocodrie in south Louisiana. However, their boat ownership journey is less than two years underway, says Lisette, who helms their Sundancer 340, Ladies’ Pride, out of Belmont Bay Harbor Marina, in Woodbridge, Virginia.
“As I learn to captain our vessel, with Wanda as first mate, we agree it’s not too late to dust off old skills and learn anew. Our new adventures have just begun. So, Marinalife as a resource of entertainment and insight has just begun.”
For 25 years, Marinalife has been your trusted guide to the boating lifestyle. As we celebrate this milestone, we’re launching revamped Cruising Club memberships — crafted to bring you the best on-the-water experiences!
💻 Become a Digital Subscriber – Access exclusive digital content such as destination guides, cruising itineraries, boating articles and the Marinalife e-newsletter, and join fun contests!
📖 Marinalife Magazine Subscription – Receive seasonal print issues of Marinalife Magazine delivered to your door, plus full digital access.
⚓ Cruising Club Membership – Enjoy all magazine benefits plus exclusive discounts on dockage, fuel, and retail with our partners, plus a free boat show ticket and a digital membership card for easy access to your perks.
⛵ Upgrade with Sea Tow – Add Gold Card towing services for peace of mind on every voyage.
Join today at marinalife.com and elevate every adventure on the water!
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