Busy Boating Season For Local Marinas

Labor Day weekend is considered the end of the summer season, but with Upper Cumberland residents enjoying warn weather into October, is that the case at local marinas?

Cedar Hill Boat Dock Master Ned Jones said business usually declines after July Fourth weekend.

“People from the northern states they come down and have homes on the lake, and normally after Fourth of July they go home because school starts back, normally around the First of August,” Jones said. “So we are custom to that, but we have our local customers but school starts for them [too].”

Jones said this summer was one of the best seasons the dock has seen. He said this year was the first time the Fourth of July weekend was not the most profitable-it was two weeks after.

“TWRA came out early in the year and said that if you’re going to get out, one of the best social distancing activities you could do would be out in the water with your family on the boat because nobody else was around you,” Jones said. “I think people took that to heart and they really used their boats this year.”

East Port Marina and Resort Owner Wendy Devries said her marina is unusually busy for this time of year.

“What we have found is typically in past years at Labor Day we drop quite a bit as far as reservations,” Devries said. “However this year since COVID, we’ve actually done more business and have more business already scheduled through the end of October.”

Devries said there is usually a decline in houseboat rentals after Labor Day. This year, there are reservations booked solid through September and part of October. She said this is never normal.

During March and April, most of the reservations the marina had in the books were cancelled. After the first week in May, the staff struggled to keep up with the number of reservations pouring in.

“It was people looking for a way to get away,” Devries said. “Kids weren’t going to summer camps, there were no sports so they weren’t going on these big ticket vacations-Disney World, things like that. The lake became the place to be.”