I’m pretty sure I need to get a grill for my boat. My boat, the boat, the only boat I really talk about on this blog when I’m not talking about my father’s boat, it isn’t a big boat. It’s a small boat, really. Just 22 feet in length, it’s white, but it’s not a bright white. If you see me from a great distance, perhaps 100 yards or so, it will look bright. Up close, it’s not so white, but all good boats are mean to really only look nice from a distance. It’s the great boats that hold up to close inspection, and this is not a great boat. It might be a great boat, someday, if I were to get a grill for it.
The grills for boats are interesting. They are stainless steel and they can be large or small, but they’re all really quite small when compared to a back yard grill. If I went onto the lake in the early morning, there’s a strong chance that my elevated obesity would direct me to not just order a coffee at the Starbucks but also a pastry. A morning bun is a possibility, as is a blueberry scone, but only because somewhere along the line the idea of a scone sounded like a healthy alternative to yeasty breakfast bites. Who ever tried to convince us that a scone was healthy? Just because some have maple in them? Who said maple syrup was healthy? It’s just sugar, after all. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing healthy about a scone, as even the blueberries are forced to soak with sugar before they are folded into the buttery dough. Next time out, I’ll just get the morning bun. That bun doesn’t pretend to be healthy, not like the turncoat scone anyway.
But we’re getting away from the grill. The morning breakfast will wear off by around 9 am, but there will be no true hunger until later. Even that hunger isn’t a true hunger, as I have never felt true hunger. Except once. And I can’t talk about that on these pages, not today anyway. So the hunger will grow, or at least mount slowly, for some time into the late morning. This is usually when I leave the water, on those cold early mornings when I fish, and when I go to work and leave the boat in its place and go to mine, the hunger wanes and blends into part of a normal day. This is why I need a grill.
If I had a grill, I’d buy the one with the rod-holder mount, so it would fit snug and secure onto the gunwale of this off-white boat. I would buy the medium sized one, not the round one, because the round one only looks at home hanging off the back rail of a fixed keel sailboat, and my boat is not with sail. The large grill is a bit grandiose, and I don’t want people to think I’m cooking for a crowd when my boat is clearly only fit for a crowd of 7, and that’s not much of a crowd at all. The medium stainless steel grill would fit into a rod mount, and the twist on propane tank would hang below. Not a big tank, just a small one, the sort that plumbers use for their torches when they’re working in dark crawl spaces and sweating in summer attics. The thought of all that hard work makes me want the grill even more.
If I had the grill and I spent the morning on the lake, it would be easy to stay out all day. I don’t have a head on the boat, which is sailor speak for a bathroom, but that’s not really a big deal to me since one time at a summer camp I lasted almost a week without needing one. The only problem with a grill is that it needs ingredients, and preparation is not easy on a boat, particularly a small one. Which is why I need to buy a fillet table, the sort that mounts into another rod holder. I have four such holders, so I could conceivably place the grill in one and the fillet table, which would double as a prep kitchen, into the other. I would still have two open for actual fishing poles, so should I wish to cook and prepare and fish all at once, I could. I wouldn’t, but I could. And saying that I wouldn’t makes me think that now I will. I accept the challenge.
Even if I had the prep table, I wouldn’t want to get too involved. Tacos might be nice, as corn tortillas, some marinated meat, and a small container with salsa and some avocado and lime wedges would be easy enough to pack. Tacos are messy, but this is why having an off-white boat instead of a brilliant white boat is a benefit. I can wash my boat down with a few splashes of water from a bucket and return to fishing or preparing with barely any pause at all. I imagine the tacos would taste better under the hot sun of a Lake Geneva summer, in just the same way that food tastes better when you know the chef has been on television.
When the eating is over, I would have to store the grill. I can’t exactly leave it hanging off the side of the boat at all times, though I imagine if I did I would spawn some sort of cult following. Boats would follow me everywhere. There he is! The guy with the grill! This is what everyone would say. I couldn’t leave the grill up though, and storage of the grill on board is a bit tricky but not impossible. I have some large live wells, including one great big one in the back of the boat, behind the plastic seats. I would store the grill there, being careful to let it fully cool before stowing it away. If it didn’t cool completely, I may be first known as the guy with the grill and then later as the idiot with the grill that melted a hole in the bottom of his boat.
Either way, I’m probably going to get one of those grills.