How it all got started

The birth of the dream

It never crossed Linda’s mind on that morning in 1973, that the trip in the small plane that she, her husband Terry and son Terry Jr., was about to make from Florida to Pennsylvania would spark a dream which would take nearly forty years to come to fruition. 

Normally the flight would have paralleled the eastern slopes of the Appellations, crossing the Savannah lands of Georgia and the Piedmont of the Carolinas. Bad weather moving in from the west caused the flight path of the single engine Cessna to follow a more easterly route.  This route paralleled the Atlantic Intracostal Waterway.   Linda sat in silence watching the never ending “river” as her husband piloted the small plane and her son slept in the back seat.  She questioned her husband as to what “river” they were following.  He tried to explain, to the best of his knowledge, about the how’s and why’s of the ICW; how you could travel up and down the eastern coast and never have to go out into the ocean.  Then she returned in silence with her forehead against the window… watching, and imagining what it would be like to travel the ICW on a boat.  Thus the dream was born. A seed was planted.

But seeds can lie dormant for a long period. Over time the seed was quietly nourished by several events.  In 1980, a move to Somerset, Kentucky germinated the seed. Linda found herself living near Lake Cumberland.  Driving to the lake and watching the boats became a Sunday afternoon ritual. Plus the road to town passed the Somerset Houseboat Company’s manufacturing plant.  Each passing found her longing eyes looking at the models on display.  But having a boat on her husband’s salary was out of the question. 

The first boat in the family was a canoe purchased around 1982, after they relocated to Virginia.  Next, in 1987, a 15 foot jon boat with an electric trolling motor was bought to use on the lakes near their new home in Pennsylvania.  The seed was further nourished in the early 1990’s when three years in a row they rented a houseboat, for a week, on Raystown Lake in Huntington County.  It was during this time Linda shared the story of her dream with her husband.  Now he was hooked on the idea too.  They could do this.  The seed had taken root.

Around 1994, being empty nesters, the two were discussing their dream. Terry suggested a name for the boat.  “TwoGether”.  After all it seemed whatever one got involved with the other was right there too. It was always the “two” of them. Such was the case when they both took the US Coast Guard boating safety course in 1990.  With a tight hug and a quick kiss it was decided, TwoGether would be the name.  Although it would be five years until the right boat would be found and the name displayed on a transom, the seed continued to grow.

Memorial Day weekend 1999, the seed started to sprout.  Linda and Terry took ownership of a 1987, 38 foot Holiday Mansion, Coastal Barracuda houseboat.  Their first voyage was from Two Rivers Marina on the Bohemia River to her new home at Duffy Creek Marina on the Sassafras River on Chesapeake Bay’s upper eastern shore.  There her old name Sun Chaser was removed and her new name TwoGether along with the hailing port of Georgetown MD. was lovingly placed on her transom.  After eleven years, and numerous modifications to better suit her for cruising, she is ready to make the dream come true.