Staying at Pickwick while your boat is out of the water

We're eight minutes from Safe Harbor Aqua Yacht, with a whole house to stay in while your boat's in the yard.

If you are coming down the Tennessee toward the Tenn-Tom, Pickwick is where a lot of Loopers stop for a while, and it is not always planned.

You cannot really live aboard when the boat is on the hard. You are up a ladder with no water and no head, and the yard starts early whether you slept or not. Most people find that out the first morning.

This is a three-bedroom house on a wooded acre in Counce, eight minutes from Safe Harbor Aqua Yacht and eleven from Grand Harbor. It has a screened porch and a deck. It sleeps eight, which is more room than most crews need. After a season aboard, the extra space is nice.

People book it for four reasons:

• The boat is in the yard. It might be bottom paint, running gear, a survey, or a repair that turned into three. You need a bed and a kitchen within a few minutes of the boat, for longer than you planned.
• Crew is changing over. Someone flies in, someone flies out, and for a couple of days there are more people than berths.
• You are waiting on weather, a part, a lock or the yard.
• Family is joining you for a leg, and they would like a real shower and a room with a door before they get on the boat.

Two things here matter more than they would at most rentals. There is a washer and dryer, and after a season aboard that may be the most useful thing in the house. And you can have parts shipped here. Anyone who has tried to get a package delivered to a marina knows why that is on the list.

There is a full kitchen, which after months of cooking in a galley underway is not a small thing. It is quiet, on a wooded acre. And it is close enough that you can be at the boat in the morning without planning your day around getting there.

Who you are renting from

I am not a management company. My name is Jesse. I am a pilot, and I am buying a boat to do the Loop myself, which is how I know what the yard-time problem feels like before I have had it.

I also built Can I Loop?, a tool that checks whether a specific boat clears the Loop's hard limits on air draft, water draft and length. I mention it because I would rather tell you I own both than have you find out on your own.

If something about the house does not work for how you are actually traveling, email me and ask. I answer my own email.

Practical

• Safe Harbor Aqua Yacht Marina: 8 minutes
• Grand Harbor Marina: 11 minutes
• TWRA boat ramp: 7 minutes
• 3 bedrooms · 2 baths · sleeps 8 · full kitchen · screened porch · deck · free Wi-Fi
• Private wooded acre in Counce, Tennessee
• Washer / Dryer
• Pet Friendly (with approval)