Tir Na Nog

It has been a very interesting and exciting week.  Friday a week ago, we decided to adopt a little tug boat from our new friends Brian and Jennifer in Wilmington, NC.  So Saturday morning we load the truck and strike out for the East Coast.  Our plan was to arrive in Wilmington on Monday, see the boat on Tuesday, load it up Wednesday and start back.  Well, we arrived on Monday around noon, checked into our motel, and went directly over to see the tug.  We found it exactly as advertised, a very nicely maintained and equipped 1997 Ranger Tug model R21.

Brian and Jennifer invited us to dinner Monday evening.  Their daughter Megan was a little upset that her parents were letting HER boat go to a new home.  Jake visited with Truman in their nice back yard, while we tried to convince Megan that we would treat Tir Na Nog well.

So Tuesday morning we hitched up and headed South because the weather was predicting snow for later in the day at Wilmington.  We felt that we wanted to avoid the hilly North Georgia route we traveled on to North Carolina.  Jennifer sheds a tear as we leave. 

Along the way back, we attracted much interest in our little tug.  We had to answer questions at the hardware store even before we got out of Brian and Jennifer's neighborhood. We had two offers of outright trades as we traveled.  One was a dealer hauling two new bass boats and the other was a guy with a Zodiac type jet boat....no thanks one SeaDoo is enough.

We arrived back in Port Isabel shortly after noon on Friday.  After unpacking, we headed over to the city boat launch in Modern Venice and floated our little Tug.  Our friends Sam and Dave came in from fishing (no small sacrifice) to assist.  We idled around to our house and docked it outside the slip.  After a thorough checkout of all systems, we went for a short turn out into the bay.

Then it was back to see if she would fit into her new home. We have decided to name our boathouse the "Tug House"  Here we are threading the needle.

Yes it fits, hooray!!

We have looked at many boats over the past year, but this one seems to fit us at this time.  We were able to afford this one as we only spent just a little more than what we got for our SeaDoo.  If we decide to do more extensive cruising in the future, we may need a larger boat.  But as a wiser person than me once said, "Buy it smaller, buy it cheaper, but buy it now so you can enjoy it now."  Walldog, Willie and Jake went out for a longer ride Saturday.  The Coast Guard checked us out and gave us a free pass for a year.  The dolphins really welcomed a new hull as they played all around us near the causeway bridge.  It seemed like they were glad to see us in their waters.

Walldog, Willie and Jake