#12 What do you do with a big boat?

Take it on a trip! Last year a friend of ours, David, took us to the Monroe County Hot Air Balloon Festival at the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum near Vonore, TN. Sequoyah was the creator of the Cherokee written syllabary, allowing the Cherokee to read and write their spoken language. Sequoyah was an polymath as well, one of histories almost-forgotten geniuses. He was born in Tuskegee, a town near modern-day Vonore, submerged in 1979 by the Tellico Dam, a TVA project. It was investigated by archaeologists in the 70’s where they found the remains of structures going back to 7500 BC. That’s right, there were people living in these valleys, building homes and farms, living their lives out, five thousand years before the pyramids were built. When the Little Tennessee was dammed up and became a lake, innumerable sites were flooded out. Now the whole river is lined with massive homes. Wonder what the original natives would think of that? Progress is inevitable, I know, it’s just that thinking about the history that lies a few dozen feet below your boat as you cruise over it fascinates me. Now all that’s left is a number of historical markers along the highways and in parks commemorating what was once here and of course the Sequoyah Museum, a fascinating stop. One of the cool things about living here is the deep history in every direction. So back to the story: Last year was on David’s boat, the balloons were spectacular against the night sky, we had a great time, so this year we thought we’d take our own boat. We loaded up with groceries and checked the systems and took off. First stop was near Cheryl’s house at Ft Loudon Marina to fuel up. (Which, by the way, is misspelled. It’s historically “Loudoun”, as in, Ft Loudoun Historic Site. I didn’t point that out to them.) This is where boat ownership hits your pocketbook, we were down to about 1/4 tank and I filled her up to the tune of 150 gallons, or just over $600. Fortunately not something we have to do every time out! In fact, on this trip, I experimented with different cruising speeds to see how that changed my fuel burn. I know what going fast burns, that’s how we made most of the trip home from Florida, and that averaged out to about 1.2 miles per gallon. I haven’t run enough at more moderate speeds to know what we get for mpg then. Once we had fueled up we headed into new territory when we entered Tellico Lake, or the Little Tennessee River, one and the same. As I mentioned above, this was created when the dam went up in 1979. It is a gorgeous lake with the Smokies in view off the east side and rich hills and green forests on both banks. (More on this later.) This lake runs all the way to Chilhowee dam, and one of these days I want to take the boat up there, into the Smokies, as far as we can. Will make for a nice excursion. We motored up the lake until we got to the Tellico Yacht Club where we picked up a free guest dock for the night.

We went inside for a nice dinner, then to the dance floor where we met friends Dave and Janet and Phil and Phyllis, and met some new people who of course now I can’t remember.

Cheryl did some line dancing with her friends.

The next morning these guys paddled by and wanted to know if we had donuts. We did, but not enough for that crew!

We then cruised on down, sight-seeing. As I said earlier, the lake is gorgeous, but. Development is burying it. All along the river, from Knoxville on down, the banks are lined with McMansions like this.

I’m not going to get too socially or morally outraged, but come on. Many of these belong to a couple, kids long gone, or a small family, and they often also have a house in Florida. Two, four or even six people do not need 7000 square feet. But am I being fair? If they can afford it, isn’t it their prerogative? I’m not going to try to answer that here, just want to point out a contradiction I think I see here. I saw two houses on the entire journey with solar panels. Can you imagine the monthly utility costs for one of these homes? And I’ve heard something about some kind of global warming that’s supposed to be happening? And people are worried about the economy? From the river banks, it sure looks like the economy is doing just fine and that no one gives a damn about the climate. These folks can afford a lake side lot and a house like this and yet they can’t afford solar? Humans have enjoyed flaunting wealth and luxury since the days of the Egyptians with their gold-filled tombs and I’m aware that’s normal human behavior, but I think I see some kind of parallel here with the Egyptians. These homes reminded me of the pyramids; massive monuments to wealth, but maybe not all that practical. I’m not picking on anyone. If I had been around in Egyptian days I’d have pointed out that waste too. (To be fair to the those wealthy folks, we’ve eliminated most solar incentives through political lobbying, so they have no financial motivation to use solar. That’s the fault of our politicians. But it still seems wasteful to see these hotel-size homes with just a few people living in them.)

Back to the trip: As I said, local history is one of the cool aspects of living here. As we motored up Tellico Lake we passed the Fort Loudoun State Historic Park. (Notice that spelling?) I mean, where else in the country can you take your boat and visit a historic Civil War era fort? (Ok, now that I think about it, there are other places. But not many.)

Saw a few other sights along the way as well, like this fixer-upper. I’m sure you could have it free if you’d go get it. A few weekends of work and you could have your own houseboat!

And these stairs. I guess the advantage would be you’d stay in shape!

An old railroad bridge from the bottom up.

The views along the way are spectacular. In person these mountains look close, but of course a photo doesn’t do it justice.

One of the most useful modifications I’ve done to the boat was to add a rear-view mirror. That’s one of my bicycle handlebar mounts repurposed.

So we get to our anchorage near the Sequoyah Museum and see all the action on shore. We don’t have a dingy yet, so we both got on the paddleboard and made our way to shore. For some reason Cheryl thought this was hilarious and about fell off laughing. We had a lemonade and a giant corndog, walked around looking at the vendors, then paddled back to the boat. I thought we looked perfectly dignified.

Around five o’clock a squall line moved through, bringing wind and rain and sending most of the gathered boats back to the marina. We had the anchor down securely so we just got blown around a lot, back and forth, although I did start the engines just in case I needed to move. After the storm cleared we moved the boat a little further away from shore just in case one of those blew through again in the middle of the night. Because of the clouds we didn’t get a sunset, and the wind kept the hot air balloons from flying, and our friend Max didn’t make it out due to the weather, so that part was a bust, but it was still a great evening. The clouds were spectacular and our friend David came out on his boat for a visit later that evening. I did get a nice glamour shot of the boat.

We even had a nice rainbow after the storm.

After a night on the anchor we had some breakfast and coffee and headed for home. We debated staying another night but the forecast was the same, squalls and rain in the evening which would mean no hot air balloons so we pulled anchor and headed back. Along the way we stopped in a cove near the sailboat yacht club and had lunch and a swim.

Then the afternoon squalls began to build up and we were chased back to our marina by rain. I do like having a fast boat, we hit the gas and outran this cloud, getting into our slip before it rained.

Thus ended our weekend adventure. The boat ran well, we were still speaking to each other when we got back, and a good time was had by all so I think it was a success. Now to tinker on the boat a few more days and think about what might be coming next.

“Only those who will risk going too far can find out how far one can go.” T.S. Elliot