It’s so easy to make a splash around Chattanooga. Most residents live within 15 minutes of a creek, pond or lake – all perfect summer destinations for revving up and cooling down.
From June through October, tens of thousands of us will back flip into a cove, scull around an island, ropeswing into a blue hole, do a child’s pose on a paddleboard, cannonball off a runabout or bask in a hot tub on a yacht moored in a languid slough.
Doug BeVille and his niece, Barbara, watch as BeVille’s nephew, John, jumps into the Tennessee River from BeVille’s yacht, the DougOut.Most people – the unfortunate Nashvillians, Atlantans and Birminghamites for example – have to drive for an hour, or two, just to jump a wake. Here, the water beckons nearly everywhere we look. “We’re fortunate,” says Patrick Deal, vice president of sales and marketing for Erwin Marine Sales. “But a lot of people still take the access for granted.”
Recently, the city has “done a turnaround” in the way it views its rivers, says Outdoor Chattanooga spokeswoman Ruth Thompson. “Chattanooga now looks at the business of playing in the water.”
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[http://www.chatterc…“>Go Ahead…Jump!]“A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature,” wrote Henry David Thoreau. “It is Earth’s eye …” Miles of shoreline etched with peaceful coves await you around the Scenic City for waterskiing, inner tubing, diving, bird watching and fishing. Motorboats bring families together, boaters say. “Unlike, say, motorcycling, you can get everyone in the family onboard,” says Deal.