Oh, this was a tough one. Not an easy decision.

When Julie and I bought our boat in the spring of 2000, we had no idea how our lives were about to change. The kids were little — Markie was 3; Jack wasn’t even a year old yet. Looking back, we were young(ish) ourselves. The future was a distant horizon on the far edge of open waters, and we couldn’t yet imagine how quickly the miles and the years would pass. Over calm waters and rough waters, through storms of teenage angst and tears, and lots of sunny days, too. In so many ways, that 20-foot-long center-console Scout 202 Sportfish would become a magic carpet of fiberglass and stainless steel that carried the four of us to parts unknown. We became a boating family.

Which is why deciding to sell that boat was so hard.

This is what you hear when you tell people that you’re thinking about buying a boat:

A boat is nothing but a hole in the water that you fill up with money.

You know, the two best days of your life are the day you buy a boat and the day you sell a boat.

The author and Julie enjoy an afternoon cruise on the Intracoastal Waterway. photograph by John Mauser

I want to say: Have you looked at a map of North Carolina lately? All that blue stuff? That’s water. Rivers and lakes and sounds and bays and 3,375 miles of coastline in our state alone, the sixth- or seventh-highest figure in the country.

A boat is your ticket to all of it. Exploring by boat is wound up in our Tar Heel DNA no less than Cheerwine and Goody’s powder. Add to this the proud fact that North Carolina is a hub of boat manufacturing, from Jarrett Bay and its giant sportfishing yachts to Jones Brothers bateaus to Regulators, Parkers, Grady-Whites, and a passel of others scattered across the state. From where I sit — which is most likely on a boat, I’ll admit — not wanting to spend your free time on the water is almost un-North Carolinian.

It’s definitely un-Nickensian.

And let’s not forget the first thing your friends say when they hear you’ve bought a boat: Hey, man! When are you taking me out on your boat?

• • •

For our first decade as boat nuts, we were happy and content with lake life. From Raleigh, we could trailer that Scout to Jordan, Falls, or Harris lakes, each of which had miles and miles of undeveloped forest shoreline and secluded coves. But soon enough, other vistas beckoned. We started venturing farther afield — er, a-water. We’ve been down the Cape Fear River from Elizabethtown to Southport. Down the New, up the Neuse, across Albemarle Sound. By now, there’s not an inch of the Intracoastal Waterway along the North Carolina coastline that our boat hasn’t explored. Waterway excursions became our specialty, from day trips to overnights to long weekends.

Soon, we started calling the boat the “baby Scout” because it was so much smaller than many of our friends’ boats. And she started to show her age a bit. There were dings where I’d come into the marina a little hot. Dents where I’d smashed Julie’s wrist into a pier piling. Thankfully, that time I hit a surprise wave way too hard and broke Markie’s nose on the hard boat decking didn’t leave a mark. Not on the baby Scout, anyway.

A highlight of the author’s boat-owning days include fly-fishing for false albacore inside the “hook” of Cape Lookout. photograph by John Mauser

A hole in the water that you fill up with money? It never felt like that. More like a hole in the water we filled up with memories.

Like this one: Last October, as Julie and I were coming back through Beaufort Inlet from the open ocean, the inlet was rougher than usual. And it’s usually pretty rough. Julie had to hold on to the console railing so hard, and for so long, that she lost feeling in her hand. For a week.

Suddenly, the baby Scout didn’t seem so young anymore. Or maybe it was us.

“We have got to get a new boat,” she said.

Suddenly, I heard angels singing. Those simply aren’t words you think you’ll ever hear.

As we worked through the details, though — how much to ask, how much to negotiate — an early case of seller’s remorse settled in. “Are we really going to do this?” Julie asked. “It’s like one of our children leaving the nest. I talked Markie through middle school on that boat.”

“I know,” I said. “Remember how I would have to clean up the entire boat every time Jack ate his boat snack?”

Then I remembered. “Wait a minute,” I said. “That was just last week.”

So she’s for sale.

• • •

But don’t feel too sorry for us. We’re out with the old boat because we’re in with a new boat. Or new to us, at least. Something about the Scout build and brand appeals to us, so we stuck with it. I found a two-year-old 23½-foot Scout center console for sale in South Carolina and snapped it up. The big sister to our baby Scout. She’s just large enough to deserve a name: Rough Draft.

Oh, the places she’ll go.

I never named the baby Scout. She was just “our boat.” I think she always will be, although I don’t know whom she’ll wind up with, or what port or dock she’ll now call home.

But I do know where she’ll go: to that place out on the edge of the blue horizon, where dreams and memories meld together.

Because she knows the way there, without fail. She’s taken us a million unforgettable times. Fare thee well, my friend.