Finger Lakes Marine Service celebrated its 65th anniversary a week ago last Wednesday (click here to see accompanying picture feature).  Owners Barry and Carrie Ford went before the Town Planning Board Monday to get permission to add small bathrooms to a couple of cabins that are part of an ongoing project to upgrade the marina, improve its already environmental-friendly footprint, plus respond to the changing boating business.  Ford told the Planning Board that boats are getting bigger because people are using them as lake-side cabins, and the economics make staying on a boat more affordable than cabins.

"The boat sizes in this marina are starting to get bigger because they're using them as cottages," Barry Ford said in an interview Tuesday. "They're not using them as boats.  You take a small cottage on the lake, it's 12 to 20 thousand dollars of taxes.  You can have a boat here for $3,500 a year.  The economics are stay here.  It won't be just tenants of the marina.  It will be potential buyers.  It will be people just like (next-door neighbor's lake shore cabin) -- he runs his cottage continuously down there, and it will be an income for the marina."