All On Board The Saucy Sal!

[Jocap, Cumbria]

When did you first go out on the sea....be it on a Lilo, a canoe, a paddle steamer...?
I must have been around 5 years old, and it was on a fishing cobble converted for passengers in summer, at Bridlington. I was enthralled. I knew that Africa was across the sea, and suddenly I saw it, with people waiting on the beach!
Sadly, the boat had curved round, and I was looking at Bridlington Bay as we returned to the harbour.
After that voyage, we had to go on a boat every time we went to the seaside, either the Yorkshire Belle from Brid, or Coronia from Scarborough.

[jimtheoldsalt, felixstowe]

Had to be sometime in late 1945when the Clyde paddlers started running again and I would go across from Dunoon to Gourock.when I was about ten ai started going down to a Dunoon pier during the long summer hols and spending all day on one of the steamers going up and do on the water all over the Clyde,never used to get home til about 10 pm,
jim

[Old Sea Dog, Stockport]

Hi Jo.
If my memory serves me right it was on a school holiday when I was 10. It was on the Wemyss Bay to Rothesay British Rail ferry. We stayed in wooden huts at the old army barracks near Canada Hill overlooking Rothesay. During the holiday we sailed around the Kyles of Bute on the paddle steamer 'Waverley', which is on my bucket list to sail on her again. She is the last seagoing paddle steamer in the world and surprisingly was only built in 1946. Nearly as old as me then.

Cheers OSD

[dst87, Falkirk]

Sorry to be boring...

October 2012 on Queen Mary 2!

EDIT: Unless you include standing in the water on a beach, in which case this was in Tywyn in Wales in the August of 2009. Still not thrilling, I'm afraid!

[cruisegas, cruisegas]

As a babe in arms over to the Isle of Man....I've loved the Isle, coves, beaches and glen's ever since

[Cooke, Ashby]

The ferry from Fleetwood to Knot End, with my dad. Mum wouldn't come in cast she was seasick! Later, the Isle of Wight ferry.

[drewlin, wigan]

On a large rowing type boat from Blackpool beach to Fleetwood (I think). Was quite small (4-5yrs) as I was carried on and promptly fell asleep for most of the trip.

[Blondie, Oxford]

My first experience of a sea crossing, was a trip on the I.O.W.ferry in the 1950's, when we visited the island for a family caravan holiday. I remember being so excited about the trip I couldn't sleep the night before. I was only about eight and I thought if you travelled on a ship, you must be going to a foreign country. I never went abroad until I was married.

[smtcan, Scarborough]

A short ferry ride across the Menai Straits when I was about six. I was very disappointed because I thought my father had said we were going on a fairy boat!

[Delboy, Essex]

My first experience I can remember was in August 1963 on a ferry to IOW, with Lorraine on our first holiday together at a Warners Holiday Camp, this was before we were married, I would have been 23 at the time. Although vaguely in the back of my mind there was a boat trip as a youngster on which we had to turn back because of bad weather.

My first trip abroad was by ferry from Folkestone to France en route to Switzerland in June 1969, to celebrate our honeymoon, although we actually got married in March 1965,

Have had many sea fishing trips having owned a couple of boats, one with an outboard engine, the other with an inboard, also on friends boats. The worst trip was an overnight fishing trip on a friends speed boat, when the engine packed up, we were about a mile offshore at Frinton On Sea. We had to anchor up over night and wait for the tide to turn towards the shore, we then took the cabin door off and used that to paddle the boat into shore.

[tuggy, warminster]

I come from a long line of deep sea fishermen sailing from Hull & when I was very young I used go aboard the trawlers on Fridays as that was their day of off very superstitious people Trawlermen that's when I got the bug for the sea a & few years later in School Holidays I used to Sail overnight on short trips into the North Sea as a kind of Cabin Boy it could never happen today as the Rules on Health & Safety & Employment laws ,now would never allow it, But I enjoyed it & I learnt a lot of what it meant to work on a Trawler & what it meant to those that depended on it to make a living.

[greenaway, ellesmere port]

On the "Ferry across the Mersey" from Birkenhead to Liverpool when I was about 4, otherwise the ferry from Liverpool to Belfast when I was 16 to meet my future inlaws. Every time we went I was seasick. It was a horrendous journey I hated it. LINDA

[merlin67, Plymouth]

What used to be Sealink from Dover to Oostend for a weeks family holiday staying at the Stella Maris Hote (in Oostend). Would have been around 1974 or 75.

[carol, welwyn garden city]

That made me think. The first time I went on the sea was on my honeymoon aged 19. It was a glass bottomed boat in Ibizia and I have never felt so ill in all my life, I hated it................................................ ...................Carol

[Mitchell Derby, Derby]

Mackerel fishing off the coast of Newquay with my mum and dad on summer holidays. They ran 2 hour trips for visitors and I remember even then the wonderful movement of the little old boat

Cheers,
Lynn