Editorial
Front Page - Friday, March 26, 2010
Blue Moon offers ‘birds-eye’ view of wildlife
Erica Tuggle
Brenda and Arnie Hoyle stand on the front of the Blue Moon ship as it cuts through the cold waters
- Erica Tuggle
Once in a blue moon, there comes along a little-known jewel that turns out to be a diamond in the rough; Blue Moon Cruises is a similar experience. Casting off from Chattanooga’s Southside pier near Ross’s Landing, the passengers aboard the Blue Moon cruise on a rainy Saturday couldn’t have imagined that during the three and a half hour boat tour they would see wildlife ranging from possums and crows to kingfishers, ospreys, vultures and even a high flying bald eagle.
Blue Moon Cruises offers a unique Chattanooga experience, with tours centered on wildlife viewing and the individual experience, says the captain of the Blue Moon, Dave Anderson.
“The biggest difference between us and others is that everyone on board The Blue Moon wants to treat each passenger as an individual,” he says.
Five years ago, Anderson became the captain of the newly established Blue Moon Cruises, owned by the Ocoee Adventure Company. The idea began when the Ocoee team-building parties rented a houseboat, traveled down the Hiawassee Wildlife refuge, saw the abundance of wildlife on their trips and knew it needed to be shared with the public.
“It was like being in a national wildlife special when I took the first tour,” Anderson says.
He says they found a deal of a boat, namely because it had lost its certification and was rusted out so badly that 80 percent of the ship had to be replaced piece by piece to form the beautiful, sleek vessel used for the tours today.
The Blue Moon offers the Hiawassee tours in the winter when the wildlife are at their peak visibility. The current tours explore the Tennessee River Gorge, a 27,000-acre canyon carved out by 26 miles of the Tennessee River over thousands of years. A Blue Moon cruise of “Tennessee’s Grand Canyon,” as it is nicknamed, offers passengers seldom viewed scenes of life along the riverbank (home to over 200 species of birds), a casual and creative history lesson narrated by Captain Dave and a barbeque buffet dinner complete with fresh potato salad, coleslaw and gooey brownies.
Passengers, Wanda and Keith Peters from Carrolton, Ga., said the meal sealed the deal in their decision to cruise with Blue Moon.
Wanda says the couple had visited some of the Chattanooga attractions on their honeymoon, but for their present return visit for their 13th anniversary, they wanted something unique.
“I like history, and I also thought it might be fun to cruise on the Tennessee River. We wanted to try something different,” she says.
Anderson said the River Gorge tour is chock full of history. The gorge itself has been littered with artifacts found along the riverbank dating back to the Paleo-Indian period, he says. These artifacts mean that for 14,000 years, people have been living on the Tennessee River. This has prompted the founding of the only archeological national park in the nation to be established here, Anderson says.
“This is one of the few places you can go in Chattanooga to get the stories of the Cherokee,” Anderson says before rushing back to the microphone to point out to the passengers a bald eagle rising into the clear, blue sky with a fish flipping in his talons.
Anderson says he can’t imagine doing anything else for a living.
“I tried working in an office, but you just see the same thing all the time,” he says. “Here, you get to see nature change day by day through the seasons.”
This year has brought a change in the look of the riverbank, Anderson says. The record rainfall has resulted in the most water coming through the floodgates since they were built in the ’40s. This, coupled with other boats creating a large wake in speeding past, have washed away sizable portions of the riverbank, sending the uprooted trees into the water.
Another noticeable change, Anderson says, is the effect of the economy on business.
“We do private charters for weddings, companies and schools, and used to have quite a few, but in this economy we have only two or three a month,” he says. “We can’t wait for the economy to pick back up.”
Captain Dave says he loves people, but likes to spend his free time in the quiet and peaceful atmosphere of his log cabin near Cloudland Canyon, Ga., where he hikes and works on his home-based company of “Spirit Creatures,” hand-made ceramic beads representing 99 different animals.
When the passengers and crew of the Blue Moon returned to the pier that afternoon, it was with full bellies, a slew of snapshots of wildlife straight from the pages of National Geographic magazine and with a little more knowledge of Chattanooga’s robust history as Captain Dave gave each a personal farewell call.
“I like sharing things that people don’t know,” he says. “Most of it is simple, but unknown. These are things that people who have lived here their entire life didn’t know about their home.”
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