John Salafia and Briana “Bri” Smith got into boating almost a decade ago while they were living together in Essex, Connecticut. They were renting an apartment on Main Street, and, just a few blocks away, the Connecticut River was beckoning.
“We were so close to the boat launch, we just wanted a way to get on the water,” says Bri, who was introduced to boating 10 years ago, when she started working at Active Interest Media. She is now the design director for Soundings magazine.
John didn’t have boating experience either. He worked up the street from the river at the local inn and wanted to get on the water too. “It was hard not to have a boat, being so close to the water,” John says. That desire was fed by his boss, who took him offshore and got him started with the fishing bug.
The couple’s first boat was a 1989 Boston Whaler 13 with a 25-hp outboard that they kept on a trailer. They’d roll it down Main Street and use it on the Connecticut River. John would fish, and the couple would poke around on the weekends. Eventually, they put a 40-hp Black Max Mercury outboard on it after John hit a rockpile with the 25.
The Whaler got them out on the water, but it quickly became clear that a small boat could
