Nautical Voyage: Difficult conditions don't stop plans for new tour boat at Moraine
MORAINE STATE PARK — They didn't know it at the time, but passengers on the Nautical Nature's Halloween cruise last October were the final tour boarders in the vessel's 25-year history.
The 37-passenger enclosed pontoon boat and Moraine State Park attraction was sold by its owner, the Moraine Preservation Fund, without one last farewell voyage around Lake Arthur.
“We never got to take any passengers out,” said Carol Bickel, a Moraine Preservation Fund member and office manager at the fund's Owlet Gift Shop at the McDaniels Boat Launch, after the COVID-19 curtailed all activities.
The fund has ordered a custom-built replacement from Sailabration Houseboats in Powell, Tenn., said Cassandra Dixon, vice president of the Moraine Preservation Fund's board.The voyage to a new excursion boat has not been a smooth one, Dixon said.The group was fundraising for a long time to buy a new boat, she said, “and finally late last year we told them, 'Go full throttle.'”Then, the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, Dixon said, and the group lost some funding for the new craft. Sailabration Houseboats shut down as did some of its suppliers.But now, things are back on track for the new Nautical Nature.<i>This is an excerpt from a larger article that appears in Friday's Butler Eagle. Subscribe online or in print to read the full article. </i>
