We Have a New Boat!!

Big news from the crew of Mara Beel- On May 16 in Deltaville, VA, we sold our well-loved trawler, a 42 foot Ocean Alexander. It happened a lot faster than we expected- we were thinking August would be a reasonable time to part with our large trawler and downsize to a trailerable trawler to explore new waterways. As luck would have it, however, Mara Beel’s new owners appeared within days of listing her back in February. The deal took some time to close, which gave us time to formulate our plans.

Saying good-bye to Mara Beel I- photo by John Short

On May 25 we took possession of Mara Beel II, a 2014 Ranger Tug R27, in Georgetown, MD. We decided to keep the same name for the sake of continuity. In order to keep our Loop intact, we traveled with our AGLCA burgee on Short Vacation with our great friends Pam and John, from Deltaville to Georgetown.

Mara Beel II- a Ranger Tug R27

It's compact!

The cockpit has a full enclosure.

With Mark painting the big picture, I formulated a 15-step plan to make this huge transition work. It is not easy to move from a 42x15 boat to a 27x8.5 boat! We rented a storage unit for the shifting of things form one boat to the other. We hauled a van load of belongings home in February when we went back for the birth of our fifth grandchild. On May 27 we again loaded our mini-van, plus a rented mini-van with more excess belongings. We drove both vans back to Iowa on May 28-29 with Mark also pulling the now empty trailer. The trip was nearly 1,000 miles and took around 17 hours. At least we could both choose our own radio stations!

We have unloaded, cleaned/washed and sorted our boat things and will soon head back to our new to us tug. We have about ¼ the space on the new boat, so we will be taking the bare minimum of stuff. We will then head north through New Jersey and New York, the Hudson River and Lake Champlain into Canada. We intend to finish our Loop in Leland, MI, in August after attending the Lake Michigan Rendezvous for Ranger Tugs. We have plenty of ideas for cruising all over the country since we will be able to trailer this boat on the highway and then cruise. The Pacific NW is on our bucket list. So stay tuned for the further adventures of Mara Beel!