It's a beautiful weekend for some fun in the sun.

Boaters on Cayuga Lake in Ithaca plan to soak up the rays despite the burn of rising gas prices.

These boaters say they're going up to the other end of the lake.

"We come up every weekend. We're here now for two full weeks, but we drive up every weekend. A lot of times we use the boat as a cottage, but normally we go up five miles on the lake, anchor out, and have a twelve boat raft off," says Mel Butler from New Jersey.

It's about fifty cents more expensive to fill your boat up on the water than on land.

These boaters are saying if you want to play, you have to pay and all their worried about this holiday weekend is having fun.

The average fill up is about 500 dollars.

But boaters say they travel fewer miles on the lake than land.

And some conserve fuel by anchoring and floating.

"We're probably going to go out three or four hours today then come back and go out tomorrow all day," says Melissa Scotti from Freeville.

"I might go swimming, maybe put my feet in," says AllyScottie.

The Coast Guard has to patrol no matter what the cost.

" Well, there should be more traffic out there today, the weather is supposed to be pretty good, so we're not anticipating any real problems relating to weather. But we're mainly looking for boaters that are in distress or need assistance," says Tom Every from the U.S. Coast Guard Auxilary.

Despite the nations distress over gas prices, these boaters just want to relax.

"We're kind of on a time limit for today, so we'll be driving less today, but I don't think it would have affected us any less. It's the 4th of July, you have to have fun." says Daryl Lee from Endicott.