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Dan and Jenna Haligas keep a ski boat at their place on Lake Lanier, but they wanted something more.

"We've got three kids and a golden retriever, and we need a big playpen," said Jenna, strolling through the ranks of watercraft at the Atlanta Boat Show Wednesday. Among the vessels big and small they found just the thing: a 40-mph living room perched on hollow aluminum tubes.

JOEY IVANSCO/Staff (ENLARGE)
Brothers Bill and Paul VanderHorst of Conyers walk past the helm of a luxury houseboat by Sumerset that costs $899,000. With 500,000 square feet of display space, the Atlanta Boat Show sails on through the weekend.
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IF YOU GO 45th Annual Atlanta Boat Show. Through Sunday. $8 adults; $4 ages 13-15; 45 cents for age 45 (in honor of anniversary; proof of age required); free ages 12 and younger. 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Jan. 11-12; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Jan 13; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Jan 14. Georgia World Congress Center, Hall C, 285 Andrew Young International Blvd. N.W., Atlanta. 770-951-2500, www.atlantaboatshow.com. UP FOR SAIL Atlanta Boat Show facts: • 500,000 square feet of display, including about 800 boats • More than 300 exhibitors, 40,000 visitors expected • Biggest craft on view: 110-foot houseboat • Smallest: 4-foot paddleboat • Most eye-catching: Five fully furnished houseboats priced from $250,000 to $1 million

"A pontoon boat," explained Jenna. "It's like the minivan of boats."

Buoyant family fun beckons from the Georgia World Congress Center this week, in a 500,000-square-foot display of maritime choices.

Visitors to the show's opening day Wednesday were in search of leisure, some more successfully than others. Lawson Geiger, 69, of Dublin, has retired three times from careers in juvenile justice, corrections and human resources, believing he's ready for the easy, lakeside life. But his wife, Merle, prefers that he stay busy.

"Every time I retired she'd pray that I'd find something to do," said Geiger, a quick-moving fellow in a tan ballcap. "After the third time, I told her, 'Please quit praying.' "

Third time's the charm. The Lake Blackshear couple were shopping for a deck-boat, or a pontoon craft, something with some elbowroom, so that Geiger can finally count on relaxing.

There was plenty of elbowroom on the tricked-out, 106-foot Sumerset houseboat that JR Schwan, a dealer from Buford, was showing off. As he led tours, he gestured to maple cabinets, granite countertops, Jenn-Air appliances, chandeliers and coffered ceilings. JR's father Peter fingered a remote device and revealed the big boat's showstopping centerpiece: A 50-inch plasma television that rises from a kitchen console and rotates, viewable from the captain's chair or the wine cooler.

"This is nicer than my own house, that's for darn sure," said one viewer.

Top speed? Twelve miles an hour. "But it feels like 30," said Schwan.

While waterskiers, fishing enthusiasts and party-boaters seemed to predominate at the show, a quieter crew could be found checking out the sailboats whose masts barely cleared the Congress Center's 30-foot ceilings. No need for a wind machine to demonstrate the jibs and spinnakers, said Ron Frisosky of Catalina Yachts. "There are plenty of dealers in here, and so much hot air you don't have to worry about that."

Jeff Holland, a skilled angler from Griffin, wanted a nice open-backed craft for fishing, an activity that interests his daughter only slightly. "I'm a city girl," said Pat Holland. "He puts the worm on for me."

There are contemplative boaters, who tend to fish. Then there are the leisure timers who find their relaxation at top speed. Scott and Dawn Morgan were in search of a cruiser for their family of six (three children plus a Chesapeake Bay retriever named Herschel) to extend their boating trips to the Bahamas and beyond. The Lake Hartwell residents don't sit still when they're having fun, preferring to ride in their motor home, or to boat down to Jacksonville for the Georgia-Florida game.

"To me, it is stress-relief from my work," said Scott, a ready-mix concrete man with a fleet of 110 trucks.

The only creatures working harder than the dealers Wednesday were the large-mouth bass swimming in the aquarium at the Honda Marine fishing demonstration area.

After being caught and thrown back numerous times by fishing pro Hans Saunders and his colleagues, the bass will, at the end of the week, be trucked back to the farm where they live.

Said Saunders "It's a working vacation for them."

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• Photos: Rows, rows and rows of boats