"Welcome aboard the Cheeseburger in Paradise at Lake Tahoe! Come on aboard!" Says Terry Wasik, the owner and captain of "Another Cheeseburger in Paradise."
We met with Captain Wasik to ask him about how this summer's boating season was. But of course, we have to ask him where the name of his boat came from first.
He told us his first boat was Jimmy Buffett-inspired and named "Cheeseburger in Paradise," but he has since sold that boat and got a new one, hence the name "Another Cheeseburger in Paradise."
If he gets another boat, it will be named "The Last Cheeseburger in Paradise."
He says he's from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which is where his sailing story began.
"When I was a kid, we made a little sailboat and started sailing up in Hawaii, running charter boats, sailing over there and then over here," he said. "Anyways, it's a long story."
He also told us why sailing has a special place in his heart.
"It's the freedom of getting away from everything and getting on the water, and it's being one-on-one with the water and the wind, and it just feels so comfortable," he said.
Captain Wasik says this summer has presented perfect sailing conditions, with a lot of wind to fill their sails.
"The wind gods have been here in the afternoons," he said. "We always get the 2:30 zephyr that builds up when the sun's shining across the lake. It heats up, and the cold air comes down off the mountain, and BINGO, you can set your clock at 2:30 and have wind."
He says the end of the season is always nostalgic for him. His season is ending in October.
"It has been a good season, but come September and October, you don't get too much wind unless there's a storm coming through," he said.
As we ventured out on the boat, he forecasted there wouldn't be much wind until later in the afternoon, because the winds tend to die off for sailboats as the fall weather comes around.
If you ask how the weather is, you'll get different answers depending on which boat owner you talk to.
Captain Wasik says, "It's very nice if you're a power boater and a skier; it's not real good for sailing, but we always go out, motor around, and have fun. We go swimming and so forth."
But when storms do roll in, he says you have to be extremely cautious because the boat could start to keel over, but that's why the bottom of sailboats are thousands of pounds.
"This is one of the larger boats on the lake, so we're not too bad, but some of the smaller boats that are here, they don't want to be out in the heavy winds," he said. "But we've been out in some 30-knot winds, and this boat can handle it."
To stay safe, the captain recommends keeping people in the cockpit at all times and having life jackets handy.
He says going into the fall season, the lake is very quiet, like a ghost town.
"The biggest thing is there are no people here," he said. "Everyone has gone home for the season, the kids are back to school, and the lake is just so much more calm."
Even though the lack of wind during the fall affects sailboats, for boats with motors, it's a different experience.
"For power boaters, it's great. Like this morning, we came up and it was like a mirror out here. The lake was so flat," he said.
Every boat has to come off the lake by November because of the incoming winter storms. You can get five or six-foot waves hitting your boat that could capsize it.
"Just like a month ago, when those people died on that boat, it tipped their boat over, and they hit some six-to-eight-foot waves that weren't here, but they got their boat sideways in the waves, and the waves rolled the boat over, and that's how those folks died," he said.
But different boats can handle a variety of waves.
"For this boat, everything up to 35 knots I'm comfortable with," Captain Wasik said. "The smaller boats, if they're into the 20s, they're starting to maybe reef their sails."
By the end of the season, come November, all of the boats will be out of the water and getting stored for the winter.
Captain Wasik tells us, "We go up to the marina area on the hard or in the parking lot, and all the boats get stored over there. We get a cover over it, then you wait for it to snow and come up and shovel the snow off, and you do that all winter long if it's a good winter, and come spring, you wax it and put it back together again."
