" When Pigs Fly"

It all starts with a dream…..

Start with a dream and the tenacity to see it through, add a paid up AMX card and almost anything can happen. Doing the Great Loop has been my dream since 1991 when we did a trip to Key West on our 357 Formula. Then in 1999 I first read Honey Let’s Buy a Boat and it’s been in my mind’s eye ever since. I have stocked the boat, and traveled the rivers and bays making this trip for the past 20 years... and never left the house.

As I got closer to retirement, the research and preparations began in earnest. We’re ready to start the trip and thought it would be fun to share it all with family and friends.  So, we learned another new skill…blogging. This first entry reflects activities over the last couple of years and will bring any reader up to date. After this I expect entries will be shorter. So, if you like, come along with us as we make my dream come true. 

“When Pigs Fly”, a 1986, 4207 Aft Cabin Carver Motor Yacht will become our home away from home while on our trip. The Pig, as we lovingly refer to her, is a great boat for two, but she needed a few additional items for this sort of venture. We looked at it as kind of a tummy tuck or face lift for a boat. I’m sure the costs are similar.

During the last couple of years she has had her bottom scraped, blisters repaired, new anti fouling paint applied, and a great shiny wax and buff. The waste hoses on both heads have been replaced. A new Garmin chart plotter was installed along with 24 mile radar, new batteries (four of them!), and a new house size refrigerator w/ power inverter to keep it running without the generator. A washer/dryer combination unit and new 16,000 BTU A/C units in both the salon and master suite were added. Charts, both hard copy and software for the GPS were purchased. In addition, because comfort is as important as the reliability of the boat, we purchased a new leather settee for the salon which also folds into a bed. (Why? I don’t know. We only sleep two. The Pig can party twelve but she only sleeps two.) Not to be the final items I’m sure, two very comfortable chairs were purchased for my sweetie and me to watch our sunsets in paradise. 

For the last seven years or so The Pig has been moored at Miller’s Landing at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. Anna and I hooked up five years ago. She was warned from the very start about my love affair with The Pig and the dream for which she was named, along with the desire to travel the Great Loop. Anna’s boating experience at that point was limited to a little kayaking that was done years earlier. She has enjoyed the weekends at the lake and listened relatively attentively as I talked of the dream. Anna’s always been game for a great adventure and though she still has some reservations about being gone from home for so long, she is willing to give the Loop a try. So with her commitment to the adventure our preparations began in earnest.

 

Our time at Miller’s Landing was a great experience. Bob and Lynne Miller are terrific people and their marina is top notch. Being real boaties themselves shows in all aspects of their marina. I just hope they haven’t set our marina bar too high. Leaving our “home base” was a big step in more ways than one. We’ll miss the great neighbors, our end slip with its big open dock space and marvelous sunsets.

Over the years we had accumulated a lot of “permanent” furnishings on our dock that all had to find new homes. We also needed to do something with our jet skis. We first thought we could use the jet skis for one last summer in Kentucky, but finally decided it didn’t make much sense in terms of the time we would be there. So we made arrangements with our very capable friends and Miller’s Landing dock mates Rudi and Nancy who will care for the skis as their own the next couple of years. A much better plan than placing them in storage!

 

Break Out Another Thousand (BOAT)

I once read an article about boating in which the interviewer asked, “How much does a boating trip cost?” The reply was quick and honest, “All you got”. This was emphasized for us as we prepared for this trip and worked through the list of upgrades. I felt with the ever increasing cost of gas installing an inverter would be a money-wise decision in the long run. The installation turned into its own fiasco, but that’s a story for a later time.

Garmin has also finally made a fix to their marine GPS system to get the fuel flow readings to work with our old boat harness. This was not the case when we originally had the Garmin installed; so what were a few more bucks, let’s do it! The additions of the inverter and the Garmin fuel flow indicators will show to be wise decisions later on I hope. How can life get any better knowing you have the fuel to get there, there’s cold ice cream waiting in the freezer and you can have a clean shirt in the morning? I left the lake with all my new boat bills paid, departing with a very empty wallet and a smoking AMX card. 

Whenever I thought about The Loop I knew the first part of the journey for The Pig would have to be by truck. We had to get the boat from the Lake of the Ozarks to a spot on the river system. She required disassembly from her current 19’-0” down to 12’-6” for her 500 mile journey on the back of a tractor trailer to Lake Barkley. As always we did research and networking and found a carrier to take on this daunting task. He was just what I was looking for. I wanted someone to do the disassembly/trucking/and reassembly as a total package. The last thing I wanted was a $100/hour mechanic telling me how I was screwed back in Missouri and it would cost a boat load of money to fix. It all made good since to me. Once hired we needed to wait for a spot on his schedule which included good weather, approval of the route from the three states through which she would be transported (bridge clearance was a big deal), and coordination with the certified escorts that would be needed in front of and behind our precious Pig.

Finally the big day came and I delivered The Pig to be hauled out and loaded on the trailer. All day I watched the transformation from being my single most prized possession to being striped into a pile of white fiberglass and red and yellow wires. The Pig is getting up in age, she’ll be 26 in boat years this June. So while newer boats are blessed with plug and play connections for the electronics, we aren’t. Each wire had to be traced and located on each end, marked, and disconnected by hand; a tedious endeavor at best. Then each of these same marked and coded wires were reconnected on the proper terminal at the other end of the journey just as they started three days earlier. It was hard to turn her over to a captain of a different sort but all went well. She was reassembled and currently floating in a nice covered slip at Buzzard Rock Marina in Kuttawa, KY.

 Final Preparations

So, it’s spring; down to the short hairs of our planning now. Anna and I, these past several months, have spent innumerable hours with our heads together reviewing the Active Captain site, studying charts: plotting travel distances, and locating marinas with fuel stops. During this same time we discussed what we “must” see along the way while creating a mental wish list for the “nice to see” places. I don’t think I could have a better partner in all of this; she really has earned her title as Admiral.

Our first full week this spring on the boat was in May. We spent a lot of the time getting organized for the storage of supplies that will come aboard. I don’t think either of us has ever arranged so much stuff into such a small space. Then when we were done, we rearranged our arrangement.

Since The Pig is a boat it was normal that this trip too had its share of repairs requiring attention. Our first day there the main head switch stuck in the “on” position. This required two trips to “Ace is the Place”. Next day our genius Garmin copped an attitude. After what seemed like hours on hold with the Garmin tech, our fix was accomplished. All we needed was a download, which required a 20 mile one way trip to Wal-Mart to get a SanDisk. Then the genius copped another attitude the very next day. More hold time with the Garmin tech but the issue was resolved. Garmin tech line has now been added to my favorites list on my cell phone. I’m sure there will be more intimate conversations with them.

Each day was spent cleaning, we cleaned, and cleaned some more, inside and out. I hate spiders and their little black dots!! There will be lots more cleaning when we return but you have to start somewhere.

Shakedown Cruise

Finally we have boating plans to report for June. We plan to take a slow and very leisurely shakedown cruise to Nashville, about a 400 mile round trip. This will allow us to pass through two locks and see the beauty of the Cumberland River, returning to Buzzard Rock towards the end of June. After the July Fourth holiday you will find us home in KC. Anna has one more trip to Alaska and then she’s retired officially. We plan to return to Buzzard Rock in late July. We’ll have a visit from some family as our time at Buzzard Rock draws to an end.  And, undoubtedly some last minute work on the boat as we prepare to start The Loop. 

  

Early August will find us moving South. We’re looking forward to taking some of those great pictures of sunsets and the two of us enjoying steaks and cocktails on the back deck. We’re also looking forward to the challenges of navigating waters unknown to us, provisioning the boat without land transportation, and keeping our darling Pig operating through all of it. We hope our family and friends will join us when possible for all the fun of boating…I’ll pump out the heads tomorrow… 

See you on the water.