One More Time Around: Lake Kerr September 2013

Folks on the Houseboat Forum were excited when someone proposed a gathering in Florida in November. There was talk of exploring many of the Chain of Lakes and exciting shore side activities, but when it came to commitments, there were only two boats -- Big Duck and Ugly Duckling, both ’72 28’ Land N Sea houseboats.

Jerry and Terry with Ugly Duckling would need to tow almost 1,000 miles to get to Lake Harris from Pennsylvania. Suzy and I would need to tow Big Duck over 500 miles to get there. My brother-in-law Doug said he and his wife Elaine would like to join us, a 1,200-mile tow for him from Chicago. Since it was just the three of us, we decided to get together sooner and closer. We looked for lakes somewhere between PA and SC and decided go give Lake Kerr, on the NC/VA boarder just off I85, a try. I posted our intentions along with an invite, but the only one on the board that replied was Lee. He’d like to stop by even though his boat wasn’t yet water ready.

Ugly Duckling had been recently purchased/retrieved from California and had not yet been in the water after years of storage. Jerry said her systems checked out OK and he believed she would be ready in time. He’d be there "if she floated and would move under her own power". I told Jerry that Doug and I would be there either way and he should just come if/when he could.

Doug, Elaine and their Parker 2120 arrived at our place in Spartanburg on Wednesday. We’d caravan up to the lake to arrive sometime on Saturday 9/21. We’d spend the night aboard in the parking lot in case Ugly Duckling was late arriving. It’s a rather pleasant drive for us – 5 miles to I85 from the house and it’s about 5 miles off I85 to the Flemingtown ramp at the other end of the 250 drive. Before we left, we got word from Jerry that he wouldn’t make it on Saturday…it could be Sunday or more likely Monday, but that didn’t deter us from our plan of a Saturday arrival at the ramp.

Rest Area stop to check tires and hubs.

On our way up, I got a text from Lee. He and his wife would like to meet us at the ramp to have a look at Big Duck. They would also like to talk to us because we had been doing the kind of boating that they planned to do now that Lee had retired. Lee is restoring a Yukon Delta houseboat and hopes to have it ready for a 2014 gathering.

Doug/Elaine and Suzy/I planned to sleep aboard our boats in the Flemingtown lot on Saturday night in case anyone else showed up Saturday and wanted a tour. As it turned out, Lee and his wife caught up with us on I85 for the last 10 miles to the ramp and we had a nice meeting in the lot. I was encouraged that we could be an inspiration for Lee to get his boat finished.

Lee and his charming wife.

From the looks of the beautifully detailed work Lee has done so far, it’s hard for me to imagine how he can get it finished in only a year…but you never know.

We did stay in the lot overnight.

Mokee Dugway and Big Duck made day trips on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, tying up at a ramp dock each night in hopes of finding Jerry there when we arrived or when we woke up. Cell coverage on the lake wasn’t reliable and we didn’t know when they would arrive. Normally we’d anchor out but we were anxious to meet up with Jerry and didn’t want to have to tie up our boat(s) in the dark. There was no activity at any of the 6 ramps during our stay there, and the dock we used didn’t even have a ramp. Jerry, Terry and Ugly Duckling finally arrived late Tuesday night.

Ugly Duckling in the morning.

I can’t remenber a more pleasant time aboard than we had on Kerr. The mornings were just a tad crisp, the days were very comfortable with blue skies and the nights were great sleeping. To top it off there were no bugs, and I mean none – well except for an occasional stinkbug.

I love you Merlin. I love you Suzy.

Pure comfort - get me a beer will ya?

Am I doing this right?

This is the life.

Hey Cap' - you left the fenders out!

We did have a little bit of excitement when Jerry came on the VHF to say he was dead in the water. His propeller shear pin let loose so his prop wouldn’t turn even though the engine was running fine. I towed him to the beach and we hunted for something that could be used as a shear pin. This was far from an emergency because Doug’s Parker can go 40 mph and he would have gladly run us back to the ramp for a shore run for parts...there was really no urgency.

I had made a couple tools on the lathe for removing/replacing my propeller and one of them was almost the right size to be used for a shear pin…we could cut it to the right length but the diameter was a few thousandths too big to fit in the shear pin holes. Jerry asked if I had a file and a drill – I had both. We chucked the pin in the drill and ran the file back and forth against it as we spun the pin in the drill. We turned down one end, then the other for an exact fit.

Making a shear pin.

We spent 6 nights aboard and put over 100 miles on the boats with one run up to Clarksville exploring the dam,

Mokee Dugway at the dam

beaches and ramps along the way. The Virginia end of the lake has many, many boating and swimming facilities – more than I’ve seen anywhere else on the water. We especially enjoyed rafting overnight in the waters of Occoneechee State Park. We tied Big Duck up to the ramp/dock there the next morning and found the grounds immaculate.

Because the trip was so inspiringly perfect, everyone, Jerry, Terry, Doug, Elaine, Suzy, Jeff and Merlin are anxious to get out on the water again soon.