We have not written a blog in three years! A lot has happened!
Moving our Residence to Tennessee
During the time on the rivers of Tennessee we decided that we ought to move from the Towson, Maryland area to either Oak Ridge, TN or Florida.
Jeff was born in Oak Ridge and graduated from Oak Ridge High School, Barbie's parents had lived in Oak Ridge during World War II. Our son, Eric and family had moved to Oak Ridge, TN in 2018.
Barbie did NOT want to move to Florida since they have hurricanes. Our daughter, Emily and family, live in the Ft. Lauderdale area and we worry about her during hurricane season. Jeff said we'd live in north Florida near Jacksonville and the St. John's River where we would be safe from hurricanes. Barbie did not want to live there and start a new life not being near either of our kids and family.
As of our last blog reporting, we cruised up the Tennessee River. By the middle of October, 2019, we were on Watts Bar Lake and rented a slip at Long Island Marina in Kingston, TN, not far from Oak Ridge.
Our marina in Kingston, TN
We decided to look for a house in Oak Ridge, TN. After several weeks of house shopping we found a house that met our needs. It was built in 1960. The previous owners were Harold Schmitt (spelled the same as we spell our name), they had three daughters (Barbie is the middle of three girls), Dr. Schmitt was involved with ORTEC (Jeff's Mom had been a secretary at ORTEC). The house was on the market for only 1 day when we saw the listing. We had gone back to Maryland but Barbie flew down to see it and we put a bid on the house without Jeff seeing it. We settled on the house the end of December, 2019.
COVID Pandemic
Our plan was to move into the house, sell the Maryland house and continue on the Great American Loop. However, both of our puppy dogs, Hans and Greta, were getting older. Also, by January, 2020 the COVID pandemic was starting. We did not want to be on a boat and get sick. Therefore, we kept the boat at Long Island Marina and stayed in Oak Ridge. During the summer of 2020 we moved our things from Maryland, sold our house in Maryland and began our life in Oak Ridge, TN.
Selling Aisling Gheal
Hans and Greta both died in the winter of 2021. However, Covid was still a problem. We were settling into living in Oak Ridge. We had planted a garden the summer of 2020. The summer of 2021 we increased the size of our garden and canned tomatoes, okra, pickles, beets. The summer of 2022, Jeff had a complete left hip replacement. We had not done very much boating in the summers of 2020 - 2022. By August of 2022 we decided to sell Aisling Gheal, the 38 foot catamaran. We were considering not owning a boat for a while, but we decided to buy a smaller cruising boat for our Tennessee lakes. We liked the idea of an outboard-powered boat that could go fast when needed.
Buying Aisling Nua
Jeff started looking at Rosborough boats. They are "Pocket Trawler" 25 foot, and designed to be trailerable. They are built in Nova Scotia, Canada and are very well made and safe. We found our next boat in Myrtle Beach, SC and bought her the first part of August. We named her Aisling Nua (Irish for "New Vision").
Outfitting Aisling Nua
We moved her 30 miles from Little River, NC where we bought her to Osprey Marina in Myrtle Beach, SC. We waited there about three months (Aug, Sept, October) to avoid being in Florida for the hurricane season. Meanwhile, we made several trips from Oak Ridge to work on outfitting her. Some of the projects we accomplished were:
- Replace the anchor
- Install 500 watt solar panels
- Replace the marine head
- Re-route the galley sink drain to overboard
- Install 3000 watt inverter with a battery bank of lithium batteries
- Install a portable Engel freezer
Jeff working on solar panels
Barbie on check-out cruise on the river
Cruising Plans
We are renting a one way U-Haul Truck on Monday, Oct. 24 to take our last trip from Oak Ridge to Myrtle Beach. We plan to continue the Great American Loop, by completing the part we had not finished when we stopped in Kingston, TN. Travelling down to Florida, we will pass Cocoa FL where we had started the loop in March of 2018. We plan to continue around Florida and up the Gulf Coast and panhandle of Florida to Mobile, AL. There we will take the Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway up to the Tennessee River -- thus "crossing our wake" to complete Americas Great Loop. We will take the Tennessee River to Long Island Marina in Kingston, TN. about 30 miles from our home in Oak Ridge.
