So what exactly is everyone up to in their non-boating hours?

[ppine]

I have retired from hunting.
I got tired of catching large trout.
So now I go camping at the drop of a hat. Few of my friends want to go. I just head out with my dog.
I can look at forests all day every day and not get tired of them.
Headed to southern Utah in early April. Later Oregon to see the big trees.
Nature is my church.

 

[yknpdlr]

Where my cabin is on a small Adirondack lake, the native aquatic vegetation is growing and expanding wildly. As a lake association board member, I created a lake management committee to investigate vegetation controls. But the state DEC has recently instituted a number of new very restrictive wetlands regulations that need complex permitting and plan approval to comply with. A drone flyover was done a couple of. years ago, but we need another video flight for coverage comparison to submit with our application. Couldn't get any local drone company last summer scheduled at a reasonable cost. So I decided to do it myself and bought my own drone.

Turns out you can't just buy and fly a high quality capable drone, one that is not a cheap toy, without getting a FAA license, requiring a fairly comprehensive exam and weeks of preparation with learning a huge amount of general aviation flight rules, even for a drone. My son started his own drone business during Covid and he is an airline pilot, so he helped me study, although he is far away in TX. Just today I took the exam and did well with a high score, so I can legally fly it now for commercial purposes. But of course, I have to wait for summer to do the job at the lake. I’ll spend the next couple of months learning to actually control it in flight. So that has occupied much of my time for the past few months.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

I lost track of this thread when it took a long carve into skiing, which I've only done once in my life (in Yosemite). But I've sat in lots of ski resorts while I paid through the nose for three kids' rental equipment when we lived in the Catskill Mountains for eight years.

What do I do in non-boating hours? Well, I do something on my computer for hours every day, 365 days a year, but I can't recall exactly what.

My second hobby for many decades since I moved to Connecticut, the "College Basketball Capital of the World" (especially the UConn women), has been following women's basketball—as a fan, as a prolific poster on women's basketball forums, as a scout, and as a press-credentialed reporter, photographer and videographer for internet magazines. I've been hired to cover all levels of women's basketball from high school, to college, to the NCAA women's tournament, and to the Olympic team. I no longer do so because all the eZines I used to work for have gone defunct.

I also have a YouTube channel where I would post some of my high school scouting and interview videos, but that hasn't been active for many years. I loved traveling to tournaments, videoing games, and interviewing players—but I absolutely hated video editing, expecially in the early days of YouTube and its extremely slow uploads. So, I just quit editing and publishing the many videos I have.

MagicBusBasketball

Channel devoted to girl's and women's basketball

www.youtube.com

One reason I'm behind in reading threads here for the past three months is that I've been watching games, attending high school tournaments, and reading and posting a lot on women's basketball forums. The UConn women are undefeated, once again ranked #1 in the country, and are the favorite to win their 13th NCAA championship in April.