OTTAWA - Robert Montgomery used to power up his aging 100-horsepower outboard and blast out to his island property in mere minutes.
Those days are gone. Water recreation is the latest casualty of high gasoline prices as boaters say they're changing the way they spend time on the lake.
Montgomery, 46, now uses a smaller, 35-horsepower craft and putters to his cottage on eastern Ontario's Rideau River system in a stately 20 minutes.
Sky-high gas prices are making summer cruising trips a thing of the past as boaters and marina owners say more people are dropping anchor for longer to avoid painful visits to dockside pumps.
Bruce Munro, general manager at the Doral Marine Resort on Georgian Bay, Ont., says he's noticed a new trend this summer: big-boat owners are using their vessels more like floating cottages rather than methods of water travel.
At $1,500 a fill-up for many cabin cruisers, that's no surprise.
"Boaters are still boating, but they are not obviously travelling as far and (are) using their boats more like cottages than they have in the past.
"I mean, when the price of fuel goes from 80 cents per litre, as it was last year, to $1.52 per litre where we are now for gasoline, it has to have some impact."
Tara Henderson has worked at Discovery Harbour Marina in Campbell River, B.C., for the last 17 years and says she has definitely noticed people choosing floating over cruising this season.
"A lot of people do that, they will just go out and anchor somewhere and just come back."
Henderson agrees fuel prices are forcing some boaters to change the way they approach their hobby, tethering to a dock rather than cruising the waterways. As a result, she says a lot fewer people have been coming into the marina this year, compared with last.
"It's kind of slow right now."
Boating enthusiast Roger Larouche purchased his 32-foot craft more than 10 years ago and says he's noticed the painful cost of fuel, but is committed to paying the price.
"But I have seen some boat owners, maybe smaller boats, who do feel a crunch."
Floating is still relaxing, says Larouche, who notes this is what some people do at the marina he docks at in Hull, Que.
"Maybe you'll be travelling less distance or rationalizing your travel, but I don't think you will be using your boat less."
But that is the reality for Montgomery and his classic, inland-lake gas-guzzler.
The bigger 18-foot boat sits on a trailer on the shores of Sand Lake for most of the summer in favour of a more economical runabout.
"I am not alone in this as I've seen examples at the marina, people using smaller boats to get to their islands because of the gas," said Montgomery. "It's starting to become an issue."
Montgomery says it now costs $40 to fill up the smaller boat's five-gallon tank - roughly double what it was when he bought the property three years ago - and that tank lasts just three round-trips for the few kilometres to his camp.
"So that's just getting there, never mind fishing or skiing or tubing or anything. ... If you want to take the kids (water) skiing, it gets expensive."
This summer, he'll be rationing his family's fun time on the water.
"Typically, what I think I will do now is I won't put (the boat) in until I am on my vacation, so for the two or three weeks that I am up there I will bite the bullet and do a bit of recreational stuff," says Montgomery.
