My dad came into town yesterday, and whenever we have guests I enjoy planning our meals. As I prepared for his visit I began thinking of different restaurants we might try. I knew I wanted something local, maybe on the water, and definitely with seafood.

At some point it occurred to me – why not take out a boat? For us, boating has been almost exclusively a weekend activity. But one of the bonuses of the boat club is that we don’t have to spend any time prepping a boat or putting it in the water, so why not scoot on over to the marina and sail away for dinner on a Tuesday night?

So we packed up some steamed shrimp and ignored the brief rain shower as we pulled away from the dock. Pretty soon we were under blue skies, the only boat zipping up a quiet Skidaway River.

I hadn’t really considered how different it could be, taking out a boat in the evening. Rather than roasting us, the sun was low in the sky, casting a golden glow on the surrounding marshes. The breeze was warm but pleasant, and we had plenty of birds and even a dolphin for company.

I don’t think any restaurant in Savannah could have done it better.