We spent 2 plus weeks at Turner Marine Supply in Mobile, AL. The marina is on Dog River and very low key. The staff will facilitate owner self maintenance projects or do the work for you. We had the Diesel Mechanic, Brent go over the engine one more time and he said that the engine mounts were loose and the engine was badly out of allignment. He fixed this and looked at the generator which had been acting up. He found a leak in the head gasket and we decided it needed to be fixed. He uninstalled the generator took it to his shop and replaced the head gasket, reground the valve seats, replaced the valve cover and exhaust gaskets, cleaned the heat exchanger and did an oil and filter change. Meanwhile Liz and I removed all the deteriorated sound proofing on the inside of the enclosure and replaced it. After it all went back together it was quieter, smoother and no more diesel exhaust found its way into the boat. The main engine also sounded and felt better.
We enjoyed the other boaters we met at Turner. Most of them were headed south and east to FL and the Bahamas, some sooner than others. We developed a pattern of sundowners and snacks with the othe boaters which sometimes took the place of dinner.
Ida was in the Carribean and threatening to become a Hurricane, and so we delayed our projected crossing. Eventually it came up the Gulf and passed just east of us in Mobile Bay. The winds in the Bay were in the 40 knt range but in the harbor it was limited to about 25 knts.
We got lots of advice about how to get from Mobile to Isla Mujeres, mostly that you did not want to be in the middle of the Gulf when bad weather came up. Most people suggested port hopping down the FL coast and then jumping off from the Keys accross to Mexico. Others said that we should just go for it and cross directly. After Ida things in the Gulf were very settled so we elected to take the direct route.
Patrick Moore joined us for the crossing after changing his flight arrangements a couple of times do to Ida. Also there was another boat leaving the same day for Rio Dulce in Guatemala which is just south of Belize. We felt better about going straight accross the Gulf because the other boat would be there if we got into trouble. In reality, the next time we saw them was in Isla Mujeres the morning after we arrived as they were leaving.
As far as the crossing went, the winds were generally light, in fact, were motored for 2 days. There were an amazing number of Oil Drilling Rigs on the way and a fair number of ships. The drill rigs were pretty widely dispersed throughout the Gulf, the ships were mostly near Mobile and New Orleans and then as we got to Mexico. It was harder than I thought it would be to ID the targets, what we thought was a rig turned into a ship and vice versa.
We did 3 on and 6 off shifts from Sundown to Sunup and mostly shared the duties during the day. IT was enjoyable to be up in the pitch black hurtling through the night watching the stars, except when an unidentified object was being approached.
It seemed like Liz was always at the helm when things went light and the wind shifted so that the sails were slatting and needed to be furled or tended to. We had one night with a following sea and strong winds where we surfed the waves in the 6.5 to 7.5 knot range for hours. It was great fun for the helmsman but nobody slept very well due to the motion. For most of 2 days there was almost no wind and the Gulf was almost mirror smooth. Liz has some pictures which she will post.
I got concerned that we were running out of fuel after so much motoring and our fuel guage is a little suspect, so we decided that we would have to sail the rest of the way. Winds were light but we managed to keep going and arived in Isla Mujeres at 10 pm, 4.5 days after leaving Mobile.
Since arriving we have been enjoying the tropical weather and swimming and snorkeling we have anchored out a couple of nights and stayed in marinas a few nights also. A cold front with strong north winds, know as a Norte here, is due on Thanksgiving and we are staying in a marina and having Thanksgiving Potluck with the cruisers here.
We have had many discussions about where to go from here, several of the boats are headed for Belize. We will probably start moving south along the Mexican coast next week and reach Belize the second week of December.
Communications are not as freely available as I expected and probably will get worse so if you are trying to get ahold of us be patient we will try to update the blog as often as we can.
Later.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
No problems with Ida
The storm is pretty much through our area and we had no problems at all. In fact, we were able to sleep through much of it. Strong winds, but nothing we could not handle. Also a couple of inches of rain, but we experienced few leaks. Doesn't seem to have been any damage to the marina or to other boats in the marina. Now we are just waiting for the winds to die down enough that we can motor and sail down to Pensacola to await Patrick's arrival next week.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Waiting for Ida
It is about 5 p.m. and Ida is due to make landfall around midnight here in Mobile. Winds are picking up but we seem to be well secured. We plan to stay up late because the high tide is due shortly after Ida makes landfall and that means we'll have to check the lines carefully and adjust to compensate for the rising tide. We're happy of course that Ida has been downgraded from hurricane to tropical storm, but we're also somewhat miffed that up until yesterday the meteorologists were all predicting that it would peter out in the gulf and turn east before getting close to Mobile.... oh well. There isn't much of anywhere we could have gone. Most folks at the marina are riding it out here but a few left early this morning for the Tenn-Tom.
Other than the hurricane things have been going smoothly and we were basically just waiting on Patrick's arrival (he was due in tomorrow but he has postponed for a few days due to the weather). We got the head gasket on the generator repaired and we re-insulated its case. I've been trying to finish up the sewing projects and am almost done. Last weekend we rented a car and drove down to Pensacola Beach. Had a fabulous seafood lunch and then went to an isolated stretch of the beach to let Max play off-leash. The beach east of Mobile is gorgeous - turquoise water and white sugar sand. Max loved rolling the the sand and swimming in the water. Unfortunately, he consumed to much of both water and sand so threw up in the car several times on the way back to the marina. We're hoping he will eventually make the connection between drinking salt water and getting sick to his stomach, but it looks like it will take several experiences.
We'll write tomorrow with an update on what happened with the storm.
Other than the hurricane things have been going smoothly and we were basically just waiting on Patrick's arrival (he was due in tomorrow but he has postponed for a few days due to the weather). We got the head gasket on the generator repaired and we re-insulated its case. I've been trying to finish up the sewing projects and am almost done. Last weekend we rented a car and drove down to Pensacola Beach. Had a fabulous seafood lunch and then went to an isolated stretch of the beach to let Max play off-leash. The beach east of Mobile is gorgeous - turquoise water and white sugar sand. Max loved rolling the the sand and swimming in the water. Unfortunately, he consumed to much of both water and sand so threw up in the car several times on the way back to the marina. We're hoping he will eventually make the connection between drinking salt water and getting sick to his stomach, but it looks like it will take several experiences.
We'll write tomorrow with an update on what happened with the storm.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
We make it to Mobile
For the last week we have been running down the Tenn Tom and Lower Black Warrior waterways. This has taken us through deep backwoods Mississippi and Alabama. The nice thing is that the current was with us again and we were making good time, 7 plus knots and even up to 8.5 knots folr the last couple of days.
There were not a whole lot of Marina's to stay at and some of them were marginal. We anchored out most nights including one night where we were in the outflow from the Heflin lock and logs and other debris was flowing by all night, it rained several times and we kept hoping they were not going to open the dam up any further and flood us out. In the morning we got up at down and got moving and made a good distance. We anchored several nights outside the channel line but still in the current flow, this made it difficult to get Max to shore. Since the entire TennTom has been seriously flooded the shore areas were very muddy. One night we took him to the beach and both Liz and he got pretty muddy. Liz said that she would not take him again until she was sure that the area wasn't muddy. The next night we were anchored along the channel again and it did not look so bad. Liz took him to shore and everything seemed to be going fine but as they came back to the dinghy, he took off and ended up rolling in the mud so that he was completely covered, even his face.
The engine troubles seem to have subsided, and we have not had any breakdowns, we are going to have the Marina here in Mobile do a once over just to make sure there isn't anything else about to rattle loose.
Running the engine 9 hours a day at high rpm for 6 weeks would stress any engine so I hope that now that thats over we won't have more problems.
I must say that I would not choose to do this kind of cruising for fun, it was really mostly a necessary evil to get us to the Gulf. The trip just seemed to go on and on forever. Traveling with the rig tied to the boat and without a fixed radio or dining table has been a pain. The rig did not cause as much problem as I thought getting in and out of places, our 39 ft boat became a 55 ft boat. We no longer had to worry about bridge clearances, but water depth still was an issue. There was one night where we tried to get into 4 different anchorages, running aground at each, before finally tying up to a lock.
I will write more and post some pictures about this section of the trip soon but just wanted everybody to know that we had reached Mobile and were safe.
There were not a whole lot of Marina's to stay at and some of them were marginal. We anchored out most nights including one night where we were in the outflow from the Heflin lock and logs and other debris was flowing by all night, it rained several times and we kept hoping they were not going to open the dam up any further and flood us out. In the morning we got up at down and got moving and made a good distance. We anchored several nights outside the channel line but still in the current flow, this made it difficult to get Max to shore. Since the entire TennTom has been seriously flooded the shore areas were very muddy. One night we took him to the beach and both Liz and he got pretty muddy. Liz said that she would not take him again until she was sure that the area wasn't muddy. The next night we were anchored along the channel again and it did not look so bad. Liz took him to shore and everything seemed to be going fine but as they came back to the dinghy, he took off and ended up rolling in the mud so that he was completely covered, even his face.
The engine troubles seem to have subsided, and we have not had any breakdowns, we are going to have the Marina here in Mobile do a once over just to make sure there isn't anything else about to rattle loose.
Running the engine 9 hours a day at high rpm for 6 weeks would stress any engine so I hope that now that thats over we won't have more problems.
I must say that I would not choose to do this kind of cruising for fun, it was really mostly a necessary evil to get us to the Gulf. The trip just seemed to go on and on forever. Traveling with the rig tied to the boat and without a fixed radio or dining table has been a pain. The rig did not cause as much problem as I thought getting in and out of places, our 39 ft boat became a 55 ft boat. We no longer had to worry about bridge clearances, but water depth still was an issue. There was one night where we tried to get into 4 different anchorages, running aground at each, before finally tying up to a lock.
I will write more and post some pictures about this section of the trip soon but just wanted everybody to know that we had reached Mobile and were safe.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Stray Observations Whle We've Got Internet
Had a great trip to the Walmart. In our cruising thus far we've been almost exclusively in very rural, backwoods areas and I've come to realize the tremendous and mostly positive, impact Walmart has had on rural America. Cant' say we ever visited it when we lived in the Twin Cities, in fact we sort of turned up our nose at it. If we went discount at all, it was always to Target. On this trip, however, Walmart has been a lifesaver -- the most exciting shopping we've had! The only place I've been able to get decent produce, and the range of supplies we are accustomed to. I am disappointed that they don't carry any caviar at all (not even the inexpensive lumpfish caviar), but they've had just about everything else we've needed, including canvas fabric. In the small towns we've visited, having a Walmart is pretty much a sign that the town is thriving and is worth putting on the map.
Many of you have asked about cooking. It has mostly been just great. We have a good oven and a three burner stove in addition to the little propane bbq. We make many of the same dishes that we've always made at home but try to keep it simple in terms of number of pots required and length of cooking time. We brought all of our spices and condiments as well as 5 of our favorite cookbooks (wish we could have brought all 40). Also, we've got all the main accoutrements: microwave, Cuisinart, pasta machine, magic bullet, espresso maker, pizza stone, mortar and pestle).
We have a large freezer compartment that has been great for storing meat. We brought a lot of meat with us and have had not difficult replenishing our supplies. Our biggest challenge has been fresh produce -- either we haven't been able to find good produce (the local stores sell 10 different kinds of biscuit mixes and 20 brands for frying catfish, but their produce is old and tired) or we haven't been able to store it properly because the refrigerator section is already so full of other things. The lettuces always seem to go bad too quickly. Lately I've been able to buy "green" (unripe and unrefrigerated) produce from Walmart and store it in bins around the boat. This has worked well for peppers, tomatoes, avocados as well as sweet potatoes and Fall squashes.
When we get to Belize we anticipate that we'll be able to shop at outdoor markets for fresh fruits, vegetables and fish, but we've heard it will be hard to get meat and staples. When packing up the house before we left, I vacuum packaged all kinds of staples. I suspect it will take us a year or two to run out of beans, rice, flour and sugar. I also bought two dozen cans of "roast beef" from Trader Joe's and through some experimentation, think we'll be able to make perfectly good dishes using them (e.g., Cornish Pasties, Indonesian beef stew).
Last summer we bought a pressure cooker in anticipation of this trip. With it we can cut the time for cooking most things from hours to minutes (e.g. rice, potatoes, stew, etc.) which will be helpful if we become concerned about refilling the propane tank. Using it, we made a terrific ratatouille just before we left that took less than 10 minutes.
One of the nicest things about cooking on the boat is that we are not rushed or tired. Until we left Minnesota we tended to eat out 3-4 times per week just because we were too bushed to cook. Now it is more a pleasurable end to the day than a chore and I've personally cooked more than I have for the past 30 years.
Last observation: the further South the travel the more confederate flags we see. Lots of good old boys drinking beer and talking trash. On the other hand, most people are very friendly, helpful and polite. The Kentucky Dam Marina, run by the State of Kentucky was top notch in terms of both facilities and management. Pickwick Landing, run by the State of Tennessee and bordering Mississippi and Alabama was run down to the point that its transient docks had been condemned two years ago and they have no money or plans for repairs.
Many of you have asked about cooking. It has mostly been just great. We have a good oven and a three burner stove in addition to the little propane bbq. We make many of the same dishes that we've always made at home but try to keep it simple in terms of number of pots required and length of cooking time. We brought all of our spices and condiments as well as 5 of our favorite cookbooks (wish we could have brought all 40). Also, we've got all the main accoutrements: microwave, Cuisinart, pasta machine, magic bullet, espresso maker, pizza stone, mortar and pestle).
We have a large freezer compartment that has been great for storing meat. We brought a lot of meat with us and have had not difficult replenishing our supplies. Our biggest challenge has been fresh produce -- either we haven't been able to find good produce (the local stores sell 10 different kinds of biscuit mixes and 20 brands for frying catfish, but their produce is old and tired) or we haven't been able to store it properly because the refrigerator section is already so full of other things. The lettuces always seem to go bad too quickly. Lately I've been able to buy "green" (unripe and unrefrigerated) produce from Walmart and store it in bins around the boat. This has worked well for peppers, tomatoes, avocados as well as sweet potatoes and Fall squashes.
When we get to Belize we anticipate that we'll be able to shop at outdoor markets for fresh fruits, vegetables and fish, but we've heard it will be hard to get meat and staples. When packing up the house before we left, I vacuum packaged all kinds of staples. I suspect it will take us a year or two to run out of beans, rice, flour and sugar. I also bought two dozen cans of "roast beef" from Trader Joe's and through some experimentation, think we'll be able to make perfectly good dishes using them (e.g., Cornish Pasties, Indonesian beef stew).
Last summer we bought a pressure cooker in anticipation of this trip. With it we can cut the time for cooking most things from hours to minutes (e.g. rice, potatoes, stew, etc.) which will be helpful if we become concerned about refilling the propane tank. Using it, we made a terrific ratatouille just before we left that took less than 10 minutes.
One of the nicest things about cooking on the boat is that we are not rushed or tired. Until we left Minnesota we tended to eat out 3-4 times per week just because we were too bushed to cook. Now it is more a pleasurable end to the day than a chore and I've personally cooked more than I have for the past 30 years.
Last observation: the further South the travel the more confederate flags we see. Lots of good old boys drinking beer and talking trash. On the other hand, most people are very friendly, helpful and polite. The Kentucky Dam Marina, run by the State of Kentucky was top notch in terms of both facilities and management. Pickwick Landing, run by the State of Tennessee and bordering Mississippi and Alabama was run down to the point that its transient docks had been condemned two years ago and they have no money or plans for repairs.
We've reached the Tenn-Tom Waterway
We have entered the Tenn-Tom Waterway, the last 450 miles of our trip to the Gulf, and have just passed through the third lock. We are making a quick (hopefully) stop at the Midway Marina to have the alternator belt replaced. The pulley for the alternator was bent when the water pump broke last week. We thought we had straightened it out enough to make it usable, but early this morning, just as we got underway, it burned up and then broke. Fortunately the batteries were fully charged up so having the belt break is an annoyance that needs attention, not a disaster. Oops, Mark just discovered that one of the attachment bolts for the alternator bracket is missing so we may have a bigger problem than just the pulley and the belt. A mechanic says he is on his way and hopefully we will get the problem fixed today. Meanwhile, we've decided we will have to spend the night here so I will try to make arrangements to go to the nearby Walmart SuperCenter for restocking supplies.
We anchored out near Pickwick Landing Friday night through Sunday morning. The weather turned quite cold and rainy with a vicious wind that made just being outside unappealing and neither of us wanted to consider motoring on Saturday. Sunday dawned clear and sunny . Though the temp was close to freezing, it was so calm and so bright that we didn’t feel the cold. We motored the last few miles on the Tennessee and turned into the Tenn-Tom waterway. The first stretch of the waterway after Yellow Creek is called the divide cut and is a 25 mile canal that connects Yellow Creek to Bay Springs Lake. It apparently is the largest canal in North America in terms of sheer digging. Finished in 1985, it is one of the prettiest stretches we’ve seen with lots of varied trees and shrubs along both banks. We stopped for the night in a beautiful little cove in Bay Springs Lake and Max had a great outing for swimming, exploring and chasing sticks. We hiked to a lovely little family cemetery (Davis and Armitage), well kept up, that is now within the Core of Engineers property. Some of the headstones are too old to read but seem to date back to pre-Civil war days.
Immediately after Bay Springs Lake is the first lock on the Tenn-Tom, called Jamie Whitten Lock. It is a drop of 84 feet – the deepest we will have on our trip. Fortunately the wind was completely calm so we had no trouble keeping the boat still. We loosely tied to a floating bollard that lowered along with us as the water dropped. The floating bollards are hollow drums and as the water lowers they all make a singing/groaning that sounds much like a pod of whales. The second lock, five miles later was only a 33 foot drop and uneventful. The third lock was another 6 miles downstream . Ten minutes or so after we arrived, two boats from Minnesota pulled in (one was Summer Song, one of Hubbard’s boats from St. Mary’s Point; the other was Tommy Girl from Wabasha). Both are headed for Florida. So the first two boats we’ve seen from Minnesota since leaving Iowa we meet up with in Mississippi!
More later. Pictures attached!
We anchored out near Pickwick Landing Friday night through Sunday morning. The weather turned quite cold and rainy with a vicious wind that made just being outside unappealing and neither of us wanted to consider motoring on Saturday. Sunday dawned clear and sunny . Though the temp was close to freezing, it was so calm and so bright that we didn’t feel the cold. We motored the last few miles on the Tennessee and turned into the Tenn-Tom waterway. The first stretch of the waterway after Yellow Creek is called the divide cut and is a 25 mile canal that connects Yellow Creek to Bay Springs Lake. It apparently is the largest canal in North America in terms of sheer digging. Finished in 1985, it is one of the prettiest stretches we’ve seen with lots of varied trees and shrubs along both banks. We stopped for the night in a beautiful little cove in Bay Springs Lake and Max had a great outing for swimming, exploring and chasing sticks. We hiked to a lovely little family cemetery (Davis and Armitage), well kept up, that is now within the Core of Engineers property. Some of the headstones are too old to read but seem to date back to pre-Civil war days.
Immediately after Bay Springs Lake is the first lock on the Tenn-Tom, called Jamie Whitten Lock. It is a drop of 84 feet – the deepest we will have on our trip. Fortunately the wind was completely calm so we had no trouble keeping the boat still. We loosely tied to a floating bollard that lowered along with us as the water dropped. The floating bollards are hollow drums and as the water lowers they all make a singing/groaning that sounds much like a pod of whales. The second lock, five miles later was only a 33 foot drop and uneventful. The third lock was another 6 miles downstream . Ten minutes or so after we arrived, two boats from Minnesota pulled in (one was Summer Song, one of Hubbard’s boats from St. Mary’s Point; the other was Tommy Girl from Wabasha). Both are headed for Florida. So the first two boats we’ve seen from Minnesota since leaving Iowa we meet up with in Mississippi!
More later. Pictures attached!
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Images of Water Pump and Alternator
Here are some images of the water pump and Alternator after we installed the pump for the second time. If you look closely we fabricated an extra retaining bracket from the engine to the water pump which the manufacturer said was required. This was done even though the previous water pump which lasted for several years did not have one, but since the distributor and manufacturer did not want to honor a warranty without it we added it.
Here is an image of the water pump after it shattered.
Still not out of the woods yet
Still not out of the woods. We got the water pump installed and tested the alternator. It tested shot and a new rebuilt one was only 80 bucks since it was a Volkswagen/Bosch part from VW Diesel Truck engines. We got that installed and everything seemed good to go. We started motoring south which was actually NW and upriver against the current. Cranking @ 2900 rpm we were making 6.6 knts through the water but only 4.2-4.4 over the ground. About an hour later all hell broke loose. Liz said something did not sound right and yelled at me to stop the engine. At just that moment the new water pump blew apart.
We were in a narrow section of the river with limestone cliffs on one shore and a rocky levee on the other in 2.5 knt current and 1/4 mile from a bridge. The depth was in the 50 ft range and I did not have much option. I looked for shallower water but pretty soon I had no steerage and the current was dragging us who knows where so we dropped anchor. Even with almost all the chain out the anchor was bouncing off rock and we were moving at nearly the speed of the current. Liz wanted to drop the dinghy in the water and use it to guide the boat. We did that and she jumped in the dinghy and yelled for a life jacket "just in case." Just then the anchor caught and we came to a stop in the middle of the channel.
We made numerous calls to the Marina and the mechanic (Randy) on the radio, since we had no cell phone coverage and eventually the Randy and the marina owner (also named Mark) came out to help get us to the Marina to see what was up. When we tried to bring up the anchor it was nearly impossible to crank it in even with two of us working on the windlass. Finally it came to the surface and there was a towboat cable caught on the anchor. 4 loops of 1 inch steel cable were draped over the flukes of the anchor. We used the boat hook to drag them off the anchor with difficulty. When we pulled the final loop off, the anchor was freed up but we could not get the cable off the boat hook and had to let it go.
Then they towed us a mile or so to the marina. It was still hard to get us stopped and moved to the dock. When we looked at the water pump, the shaft had backed out of the pump body and then the mounting plate had bent and shattered in two because the motion was erratic. We called the distributor and asked for a warranty replacement but they said that this pump needed an external retaining bracket to keep it from failing in this way and since we had not had one installed it was our fault.
I am talking to the Swedish manufacturer to verify whether this is true and whether they will cover the replacement, especially since the existing pump had no retaining bracket and ran properly for hundreds of hours. Stefan from Johnson Sweden was very nice and said he would look into it if I sent him some more info so we will take pictures of the installation and the failed pump and send them to him today.
Meantime more delays and more costs and more rain but happily we are staying at a nice marina with good internet connectivity.
I'll let you know what happens.
At least its not snowing.
We were in a narrow section of the river with limestone cliffs on one shore and a rocky levee on the other in 2.5 knt current and 1/4 mile from a bridge. The depth was in the 50 ft range and I did not have much option. I looked for shallower water but pretty soon I had no steerage and the current was dragging us who knows where so we dropped anchor. Even with almost all the chain out the anchor was bouncing off rock and we were moving at nearly the speed of the current. Liz wanted to drop the dinghy in the water and use it to guide the boat. We did that and she jumped in the dinghy and yelled for a life jacket "just in case." Just then the anchor caught and we came to a stop in the middle of the channel.
We made numerous calls to the Marina and the mechanic (Randy) on the radio, since we had no cell phone coverage and eventually the Randy and the marina owner (also named Mark) came out to help get us to the Marina to see what was up. When we tried to bring up the anchor it was nearly impossible to crank it in even with two of us working on the windlass. Finally it came to the surface and there was a towboat cable caught on the anchor. 4 loops of 1 inch steel cable were draped over the flukes of the anchor. We used the boat hook to drag them off the anchor with difficulty. When we pulled the final loop off, the anchor was freed up but we could not get the cable off the boat hook and had to let it go.
Then they towed us a mile or so to the marina. It was still hard to get us stopped and moved to the dock. When we looked at the water pump, the shaft had backed out of the pump body and then the mounting plate had bent and shattered in two because the motion was erratic. We called the distributor and asked for a warranty replacement but they said that this pump needed an external retaining bracket to keep it from failing in this way and since we had not had one installed it was our fault.
I am talking to the Swedish manufacturer to verify whether this is true and whether they will cover the replacement, especially since the existing pump had no retaining bracket and ran properly for hundreds of hours. Stefan from Johnson Sweden was very nice and said he would look into it if I sent him some more info so we will take pictures of the installation and the failed pump and send them to him today.
Meantime more delays and more costs and more rain but happily we are staying at a nice marina with good internet connectivity.
I'll let you know what happens.
At least its not snowing.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
More Challenges
Hello from Clifton TN. Yesterday morning we were anchored behind an Island on the TN River at mile 143, about 113 miles south of where we had been resting in KY Lake. The trip down was mostly uneventful. As you get further down the lake it gradually becomes narrower and more river like. This includes more current in this case against us, building from 1/2 knot near the dam to almost 2 knots. Therefore we are only making 5 knots or less over the ground although we are making 6.5 through the water. Liz made a comment that something sounded different with the engine, I should have thought more of it. After we got going for the day, I noticed that the battery voltage seemed low on the engine panel, and checked the volt meter on the power distribution panel. It looked like we weren't getting any charge from the alternator. When we opened the engine compartment to see if there was anything else amiss, we noticed that the water pump shaft seal was leaking badly. We called ahead with the help another another looper that we had met back at Hoppie's Marina and got a slip and a mechanic to meet us at Clifton Marina, which was only 15 miles from our starting point.
When we took the water pump off it was definitely shot so we spent a bit of time trying to find the right replacement. It turns out that Pathfinder used a Swedish pump from Johsnon AB, which of course is three times what a US pump would cost and they are not easy to come by, but the mechanic found one through a contact of his in FL and it is coming in overnight. Then we can try to troubleshoot the alternator.
Also Max has been having some issues. He developed a hot spot at the root of his tail, which resulted in an open sore and itchiness. We got some over-the-counter treatments at WalMart near the Pebble Isle Marina that we stayed at two nights ago. Since we were stuck at Clifton until we got the motor straightened out, Liz took the Marina's courtesy car to Savannah TN near the point at which the TN River joins the TennTom waterway. She took Max to a Vet there and got him a cortisone shot and some antibiotics which he will be on for 12 days. Everybody feels better knowing that we have that under control.
If we can get the engine problems taken care of today, we can leave tomorrow and probably make it to the head of the TennTom by Friday. From there it is 450 miles to Mobile. The current in this part of the river will continue high until we hit the first lock on the TennTom, then no or helpful current from there to Mobile.
Unfortunately in the TennTom there are lots of locks. In fact, in the first 40 miles or so there are 5 locks that bring us down by 240 ft, including one lock that is an 84 ft drop. Commercial traffic on this section of the TN R has been very mild compared to the Miss and Ohio. We were talking to some TN natives and they said the tow boats are much more polite and easy to deal with on this part of the waterway. But there aren't many services from Demopolis AL to mobile which is the last 200 miles.
I guess thats all for now.
When we took the water pump off it was definitely shot so we spent a bit of time trying to find the right replacement. It turns out that Pathfinder used a Swedish pump from Johsnon AB, which of course is three times what a US pump would cost and they are not easy to come by, but the mechanic found one through a contact of his in FL and it is coming in overnight. Then we can try to troubleshoot the alternator.
Also Max has been having some issues. He developed a hot spot at the root of his tail, which resulted in an open sore and itchiness. We got some over-the-counter treatments at WalMart near the Pebble Isle Marina that we stayed at two nights ago. Since we were stuck at Clifton until we got the motor straightened out, Liz took the Marina's courtesy car to Savannah TN near the point at which the TN River joins the TennTom waterway. She took Max to a Vet there and got him a cortisone shot and some antibiotics which he will be on for 12 days. Everybody feels better knowing that we have that under control.
If we can get the engine problems taken care of today, we can leave tomorrow and probably make it to the head of the TennTom by Friday. From there it is 450 miles to Mobile. The current in this part of the river will continue high until we hit the first lock on the TennTom, then no or helpful current from there to Mobile.
Unfortunately in the TennTom there are lots of locks. In fact, in the first 40 miles or so there are 5 locks that bring us down by 240 ft, including one lock that is an 84 ft drop. Commercial traffic on this section of the TN R has been very mild compared to the Miss and Ohio. We were talking to some TN natives and they said the tow boats are much more polite and easy to deal with on this part of the waterway. But there aren't many services from Demopolis AL to mobile which is the last 200 miles.
I guess thats all for now.
Friday, October 9, 2009
We're back at Lighthouse Landing Marina near Kentucky Dam, ready to get underway for the next big leg of the trip. We spent much of the past week in Pisgah Bay - very serene, great swimming and lots of trails for hiking with Max. I wish we could stay longer in Kentucky Lake but the weather has turned rainy and cool. We don't want to be travelling with coats and gloves so its time to get going.
Yesterday we stepped the mast! Mark did most of the prep work on Tuesday, so all went quite smoothly and the marina didn't charge us much.
The downside of the mast being down is that we have no table inside to eat on since it was attached to the mast. Also with the mast down there are lots of hazards (chainplates, shackles, etc. to trip over or and both Mark and I have done so. With the mast lying on deck, our boat length is now 55 feet. This will make it harder to maneuver in small anchorages and also more expensive to stay in marinas.
It has been raining pretty much non-stop for the past 36 hours - sometimes quite hard -- and we've found a few leaks we'll need to repair when we get to Mobile. Time to take off...
Sunday, October 4, 2009
So how was Kentucky Lake
We have been poking around Kentucky Lake for most of a week now. We stayed at LightHouseLanding the first two nights. It is a very nice marina entirely sailboats; they sell both Hunter and Beneteau and their clientele appears to be surviving pretty well. There are quite a few Hunters in the 41 foot range that appear to be quite new, and there are many new Beneteaus including 34-42 footers. They also have cottages and rv sites for rent. The service department seems ok and they are going to help us unstep the mast. Even with such a large number of Diesel Sailboats, they don't sell fuel and the little oil that they had in their ship's store was for gasoline engines.
I did an oil change and transmission fluid change and everything looked good, they disposed of the used oil without charge. I ordered replacements for the water pump impeller and had them shipped to me at the Marina. I spent parts of two days mucking out the engine room. It was recommended to me to used Soy Sock bilge absorbers to keep from polluting the water by absorbing and digesting any hydrocarbon based fluid in the bilges. Unfortunately, the soy material breaks down into a really ugly gelatin-like substance that makes a real mess of the engine room. Yuk.
The Lake is 180 miles long and takes up a great deal of the Tennessee River down to Pickwick Lock and Dam whic is the start of the Tenn Tom waterway. The lake reminds me of Lake Pepin quite a bit --not too deep, pretty wide and LONG. The thing that makes it nicer than Pepin is that there are a large number of side bays that you can poke around in. We went down to Pisgah Bay about 6 miles south of Lighthouse Landing. It was fairly large and surrounded by state and federal parks with campgrounds.
There was quite a bit of fishing both from shore and in bass boats in the bay. Water temp here is still pretty near 80 degrees most places so we enjoyed a nice swim in clean water. We were anchored in 18 ft. Max got to go to shore multiple times and Liz walked through the woods with him. She was trying to get into a cemetary asociated with one of the few towns that was flooded by the creation of the lake. Unfortunately, it was fenced with barb wire, one assumes there had been some vandalism. There was some graffiti on some of the rock faces surrounding the lake but not too bad.
The guide books said that this bay was good holding ground for anchoring and there was a pretty strong cold front/thunderstorm predicted. We kept having the anchor alarm go off but did not seem to have moved much, but it was certainly enough to disturb our sleep. Anyway, the cold front brought pretty Fall-like weather with lows in the forties and blustery winds. We decided to try one of the other Marina's.
This one is called Kentucky Dam Marina and is run as a State Park. The facility is pretty nice, lots of both Power and Sail boats, gas and diesel. We had some communication troubles talking with them about how to safely reach the entry channel and where to go inside the marina which was frustrating but once we got in they turned out to be nice people just not very good communicators. They helped us dock and tie up at the fuel dock. When it was time to move to our rental slip, a common problem that we have found at powerboat oriented marinas recurred. The slip had plenty of water depth, but since it was built with powerboats in mind it had a crossbar across the front of the slip at 5 ft. So we unexplainably could not get more than half the boat into the slip. After we asked they admitted that the crossbar was there, but they thought it was at 6 ft. So they moved us to the end of the pier. We pulled in right in front of a Kady Krogen Trawler that must be 55 ft, feels like our cockpit is sitting underneath their bow sprit but we have had no problems\.
The Marina had a courtesy car/van which we used for free to get groceries, oil, and propane. We also stopped at a couple of roadside stands to get some vegatables since the produce in the local IGA food stores basically sucked: old and shrivelled and not very much variety. But it was nice to not to have to rent a car or pay big taxi fees.
It is sort of amazing, but none of the literature about this place mentions that it is entirely surrounded by "Dry Counties". No booze whatsoever for 40 miles. We went to Patti's 1880's settlement the local restaurant and said we were just there for cocktails and appetizers. The hostess said sorry its a dry county, Liz asked how about beer, "No, it's a dry county" was the response. Anyway we went back to the boat and made our own drinks.
IT has been very nice to be off the big rivers out of the current and in such pleasant surroundings and poking around instead of getting up at the crack of dawn to make another 60 miles.
Liz will comment further.
Please make sure that others know about the blog and send your comments or questions
Later....
I did an oil change and transmission fluid change and everything looked good, they disposed of the used oil without charge. I ordered replacements for the water pump impeller and had them shipped to me at the Marina. I spent parts of two days mucking out the engine room. It was recommended to me to used Soy Sock bilge absorbers to keep from polluting the water by absorbing and digesting any hydrocarbon based fluid in the bilges. Unfortunately, the soy material breaks down into a really ugly gelatin-like substance that makes a real mess of the engine room. Yuk.
The Lake is 180 miles long and takes up a great deal of the Tennessee River down to Pickwick Lock and Dam whic is the start of the Tenn Tom waterway. The lake reminds me of Lake Pepin quite a bit --not too deep, pretty wide and LONG. The thing that makes it nicer than Pepin is that there are a large number of side bays that you can poke around in. We went down to Pisgah Bay about 6 miles south of Lighthouse Landing. It was fairly large and surrounded by state and federal parks with campgrounds.
There was quite a bit of fishing both from shore and in bass boats in the bay. Water temp here is still pretty near 80 degrees most places so we enjoyed a nice swim in clean water. We were anchored in 18 ft. Max got to go to shore multiple times and Liz walked through the woods with him. She was trying to get into a cemetary asociated with one of the few towns that was flooded by the creation of the lake. Unfortunately, it was fenced with barb wire, one assumes there had been some vandalism. There was some graffiti on some of the rock faces surrounding the lake but not too bad.
The guide books said that this bay was good holding ground for anchoring and there was a pretty strong cold front/thunderstorm predicted. We kept having the anchor alarm go off but did not seem to have moved much, but it was certainly enough to disturb our sleep. Anyway, the cold front brought pretty Fall-like weather with lows in the forties and blustery winds. We decided to try one of the other Marina's.
This one is called Kentucky Dam Marina and is run as a State Park. The facility is pretty nice, lots of both Power and Sail boats, gas and diesel. We had some communication troubles talking with them about how to safely reach the entry channel and where to go inside the marina which was frustrating but once we got in they turned out to be nice people just not very good communicators. They helped us dock and tie up at the fuel dock. When it was time to move to our rental slip, a common problem that we have found at powerboat oriented marinas recurred. The slip had plenty of water depth, but since it was built with powerboats in mind it had a crossbar across the front of the slip at 5 ft. So we unexplainably could not get more than half the boat into the slip. After we asked they admitted that the crossbar was there, but they thought it was at 6 ft. So they moved us to the end of the pier. We pulled in right in front of a Kady Krogen Trawler that must be 55 ft, feels like our cockpit is sitting underneath their bow sprit but we have had no problems\.
The Marina had a courtesy car/van which we used for free to get groceries, oil, and propane. We also stopped at a couple of roadside stands to get some vegatables since the produce in the local IGA food stores basically sucked: old and shrivelled and not very much variety. But it was nice to not to have to rent a car or pay big taxi fees.
It is sort of amazing, but none of the literature about this place mentions that it is entirely surrounded by "Dry Counties". No booze whatsoever for 40 miles. We went to Patti's 1880's settlement the local restaurant and said we were just there for cocktails and appetizers. The hostess said sorry its a dry county, Liz asked how about beer, "No, it's a dry county" was the response. Anyway we went back to the boat and made our own drinks.
IT has been very nice to be off the big rivers out of the current and in such pleasant surroundings and poking around instead of getting up at the crack of dawn to make another 60 miles.
Liz will comment further.
Please make sure that others know about the blog and send your comments or questions
Later....
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
The trip so far down the Mississippi through the Ohio and TN to KY Lake
Hi
Sorry about the delay in posting more info but we have been out of internet access for 2 weeks.
I am writing to you from Grand Rivers, KY, the head of Kentucky Lake. We reached here yesterday afternoon. The crusing guide was fairly accurate about most things so far, including that getting through the lock into Kentucky Lake would require a wait. In our case about 3 hours for commercial barge traffic. This would not have been so bad except that the wind was blowing about 20 towards the dam, and the current was running about 3 knots in the other direction, nowhere to hide and our anchor dragged for the first time on the trip.
The upper Miss. from Prescott to Alton IL was mostly pretty good. The barge traffic was reasonable and the current was only about 1/2 to 1 knot. From Liz: The scenery and wildlife were enjoyable to watch -- almost the entire stretch is considered a wild life refuge and bird sanctuary. We saw many eagles as well as thousands of migrating pelicans and cormorants all along this stretch of the river. Most of the Marinas along the way don't see or cater to sail boats so we had trouble finding places to get fuel and pumpouts especially because the water level was low. We ran aground in Dubuque IA and our BOAT/US towing policy was no help since they did not have a contract with anyone in town. Luckily, some local powerboat owners saw our problem and came out with their 200 plus hp jetski's and pulled us off after about 10 mins of effort. We went back up the river to the lock and anchored below the dam, this worked fairly well so we did this at a couple of other locks.
We stayed at Alma, LaCrosse, WI ;Macgregor, Dubuque, Clinton, Leclaire and Keokuk, IA; Passing through Quincy IL we had a very scary incident with a bridge but I will let Liz tell that part of the story (from Liz: it was just very annoying. I was steering the boat and going under a 63 ft. bridge. I saw that there was some construction on the boat but what I didn't see was a cable hanging down on the opposite side of the bridge. The cable grazed the mast head and knocked off the lense cap for the anchor light. Fortunately the light itself was undamaged). We stayed in Alton, IL, just north of St Louis. Immediately upon leaving Alton everything on the river changes. The river is no longer controlled by locks and dams, and currents jumped to 2 to 3 1/2 knots, since there were no locks and dams the river level dropped and there were lots of exposed wing dams and the river becomes purely a commercial enterprise. Barge traffic increase by a factor of 3; still we did not have big problems with barges but with so much current and some tight spots at turns it created some tension.
Speed over the ground increased from 6.5 knots to an average of 8.5 knots, and a few times we saw speeds above 10, which is pretty fast for you non sailors. We stayed at Hoppies Marine in Kimswick MO south of St Louis, This is a legendary stop with barges tied into the river side used as docks, and the crusty old Fern Hopwood running the place. The Marina(I guess you can call it that) was started by Fern's father in Law in 1934 and she runs it now, and her husband plays a distant second fiddle. She is famously informed and opinionated about where to stop and not stop on the way down the river and gives a lecture/cocktail party each evening to let everyone know whats what. She smokes non-stop!! From Liz: While there, I went into the town of Kimmswick 1/4 mile away. It was one of the earliest white settlements. I saw several log house dating back to the 1830s. These were followed by one and two-story house built of locall brick in the early 1850's. Now the whole town is a tourist stop with lots of touristy knic knac shops but at least the architecture has been preserved well.
South of Hoppies, with intense current and not much in the way of anchorages, we stayed in a diversion ditch north of Cairo, IL. This was a narrow creek that when there isn't a thunderstorm is safe but Liz thought it was too swampy and smelly for her liking (from Liz: it was completely vile). Also there were 6 other boats most of which we had met at Hoppies or Alton staying in the narrow channel. This necessitated bow and stern anchors. Unfortunately, we are not well rigged for this and had to wrestle the second bow anchor around the deck to the stern and back. This resulted in a lot of swearing and twisting and mucky decks which was definitely less than optimal. From Liz: when we finally left the next morning at 7:30 the air was clear. But about 1 hr. later fog rose up. It became so dense we could no see either shore nor even the bow of the boat. We had to drop anchor so that we would not run aground. All of the other boats we had anchored with the previous night also had to drop anchor so we had to immediatley radio tows in the area where we were -- fortunately the nearest one was still 1 hr. down river so we were not in danger of getting run down.
From here we dashed down the last stretch of the Upper Miss. to Cairo around the corner into the Ohio River and up the Ohio. The Ohio is very high and running fast 2 1/2 to 3 knots against us, so this time we were struggling to make 4 knots up the river. We stopped below the first Lock and anchored close to shore still in 2 1/2 knots of current. This was the first time that we did not feel comfortable lowering the dinghy into the water for max to go to shore, and he was very confused and unhappy that the shore was so close and he did not get a chance to play or do his business. He finally figured out that there was no other way and took care of it on deck and felt better. Unfortunately, he will need to use this method when we our of shore or unable to make land so its good that he got it, although he still wasn't real comfortable with the situation.
That night we noticed some bilge water that did not look quite right and I did some poking around. Probably because I did not tighten the engine water intake strainer properly, the water pump impeller ate itself the next moring. This was upsetting since we had to shut down the engine and here we were in the Ohio R with big current pushing us. We were able to drift back in close to shore, anchor and begin repairs. First we announced on the radio that we were disabled and anchored near the channel, we got assurances from tugboats and the lock that we would be OK. Then we pulled out the parts box and at first only found the replacement for the water pump on the outboard, after searching some more we found the part we needed, replaced it and started the engine...no cooling water. This began about 20 mins of futzing and fussing until I finally got the strainer to stop leaking suction, then everything was back to normal. We lost an hour and a half all told and raised the tension levels a bit but it worked out.
From here we jumped to Paducah, KY. We were able to motor sail for part of the way which raised our speed from 4 knots, to 5.5 knots. This saved a couple of hours and we stopped at the town dock in Paducah. Had several coversations with the locals and went into town to have dinner. The downtown was renovated and quite nicely, but this was Sunday and for some reason almost all the restaurant owners in town decided to close on Sundays. We did find one place and had a pleasant if somewhat overpriced dinner out. From Liz: I was entralled with Paducah's river front! There is a levee wall that runs for three or four blocks along the river front. The wall contains about 20-30 large murals depicting the history of the town from original Indian settlements up through the "Atomic age" (Paducah produced yellow cake during WWII and throughout the 50's). Murals were very well done and each had a bronze plaque with some historical detail. Also there were three or four blocks of the "old" section of town - great old building and lots of historical descriptions.
From here we turned up the Tenness'see R which is also quite swollen with rain from the North Georgia and TN areas and so we were motoring against a strong current and this time the winds weren't right for moter sailing and we stuggled to maintain 4 knots. Up to KY dam.
The KY Lake is 180 miles long and not much current in either direction. There are Marinas and spots to Sail and Anchor. Since we are ahead of the insurance company's demand that we not reach the Gulf of Mexico before Nov 1, we will stop here and do some sailing and relaxing for a while. Then we will have to lower the mast and strap it to the boat since the section from here to Mobile AL has 16 bridges that are too low for us to get through otherwise.
Sorry about the delay in posting more info but we have been out of internet access for 2 weeks.
I am writing to you from Grand Rivers, KY, the head of Kentucky Lake. We reached here yesterday afternoon. The crusing guide was fairly accurate about most things so far, including that getting through the lock into Kentucky Lake would require a wait. In our case about 3 hours for commercial barge traffic. This would not have been so bad except that the wind was blowing about 20 towards the dam, and the current was running about 3 knots in the other direction, nowhere to hide and our anchor dragged for the first time on the trip.
The upper Miss. from Prescott to Alton IL was mostly pretty good. The barge traffic was reasonable and the current was only about 1/2 to 1 knot. From Liz: The scenery and wildlife were enjoyable to watch -- almost the entire stretch is considered a wild life refuge and bird sanctuary. We saw many eagles as well as thousands of migrating pelicans and cormorants all along this stretch of the river. Most of the Marinas along the way don't see or cater to sail boats so we had trouble finding places to get fuel and pumpouts especially because the water level was low. We ran aground in Dubuque IA and our BOAT/US towing policy was no help since they did not have a contract with anyone in town. Luckily, some local powerboat owners saw our problem and came out with their 200 plus hp jetski's and pulled us off after about 10 mins of effort. We went back up the river to the lock and anchored below the dam, this worked fairly well so we did this at a couple of other locks.
We stayed at Alma, LaCrosse, WI ;Macgregor, Dubuque, Clinton, Leclaire and Keokuk, IA; Passing through Quincy IL we had a very scary incident with a bridge but I will let Liz tell that part of the story (from Liz: it was just very annoying. I was steering the boat and going under a 63 ft. bridge. I saw that there was some construction on the boat but what I didn't see was a cable hanging down on the opposite side of the bridge. The cable grazed the mast head and knocked off the lense cap for the anchor light. Fortunately the light itself was undamaged). We stayed in Alton, IL, just north of St Louis. Immediately upon leaving Alton everything on the river changes. The river is no longer controlled by locks and dams, and currents jumped to 2 to 3 1/2 knots, since there were no locks and dams the river level dropped and there were lots of exposed wing dams and the river becomes purely a commercial enterprise. Barge traffic increase by a factor of 3; still we did not have big problems with barges but with so much current and some tight spots at turns it created some tension.
Speed over the ground increased from 6.5 knots to an average of 8.5 knots, and a few times we saw speeds above 10, which is pretty fast for you non sailors. We stayed at Hoppies Marine in Kimswick MO south of St Louis, This is a legendary stop with barges tied into the river side used as docks, and the crusty old Fern Hopwood running the place. The Marina(I guess you can call it that) was started by Fern's father in Law in 1934 and she runs it now, and her husband plays a distant second fiddle. She is famously informed and opinionated about where to stop and not stop on the way down the river and gives a lecture/cocktail party each evening to let everyone know whats what. She smokes non-stop!! From Liz: While there, I went into the town of Kimmswick 1/4 mile away. It was one of the earliest white settlements. I saw several log house dating back to the 1830s. These were followed by one and two-story house built of locall brick in the early 1850's. Now the whole town is a tourist stop with lots of touristy knic knac shops but at least the architecture has been preserved well.
South of Hoppies, with intense current and not much in the way of anchorages, we stayed in a diversion ditch north of Cairo, IL. This was a narrow creek that when there isn't a thunderstorm is safe but Liz thought it was too swampy and smelly for her liking (from Liz: it was completely vile). Also there were 6 other boats most of which we had met at Hoppies or Alton staying in the narrow channel. This necessitated bow and stern anchors. Unfortunately, we are not well rigged for this and had to wrestle the second bow anchor around the deck to the stern and back. This resulted in a lot of swearing and twisting and mucky decks which was definitely less than optimal. From Liz: when we finally left the next morning at 7:30 the air was clear. But about 1 hr. later fog rose up. It became so dense we could no see either shore nor even the bow of the boat. We had to drop anchor so that we would not run aground. All of the other boats we had anchored with the previous night also had to drop anchor so we had to immediatley radio tows in the area where we were -- fortunately the nearest one was still 1 hr. down river so we were not in danger of getting run down.
From here we dashed down the last stretch of the Upper Miss. to Cairo around the corner into the Ohio River and up the Ohio. The Ohio is very high and running fast 2 1/2 to 3 knots against us, so this time we were struggling to make 4 knots up the river. We stopped below the first Lock and anchored close to shore still in 2 1/2 knots of current. This was the first time that we did not feel comfortable lowering the dinghy into the water for max to go to shore, and he was very confused and unhappy that the shore was so close and he did not get a chance to play or do his business. He finally figured out that there was no other way and took care of it on deck and felt better. Unfortunately, he will need to use this method when we our of shore or unable to make land so its good that he got it, although he still wasn't real comfortable with the situation.
That night we noticed some bilge water that did not look quite right and I did some poking around. Probably because I did not tighten the engine water intake strainer properly, the water pump impeller ate itself the next moring. This was upsetting since we had to shut down the engine and here we were in the Ohio R with big current pushing us. We were able to drift back in close to shore, anchor and begin repairs. First we announced on the radio that we were disabled and anchored near the channel, we got assurances from tugboats and the lock that we would be OK. Then we pulled out the parts box and at first only found the replacement for the water pump on the outboard, after searching some more we found the part we needed, replaced it and started the engine...no cooling water. This began about 20 mins of futzing and fussing until I finally got the strainer to stop leaking suction, then everything was back to normal. We lost an hour and a half all told and raised the tension levels a bit but it worked out.
From here we jumped to Paducah, KY. We were able to motor sail for part of the way which raised our speed from 4 knots, to 5.5 knots. This saved a couple of hours and we stopped at the town dock in Paducah. Had several coversations with the locals and went into town to have dinner. The downtown was renovated and quite nicely, but this was Sunday and for some reason almost all the restaurant owners in town decided to close on Sundays. We did find one place and had a pleasant if somewhat overpriced dinner out. From Liz: I was entralled with Paducah's river front! There is a levee wall that runs for three or four blocks along the river front. The wall contains about 20-30 large murals depicting the history of the town from original Indian settlements up through the "Atomic age" (Paducah produced yellow cake during WWII and throughout the 50's). Murals were very well done and each had a bronze plaque with some historical detail. Also there were three or four blocks of the "old" section of town - great old building and lots of historical descriptions.
From here we turned up the Tenness'see R which is also quite swollen with rain from the North Georgia and TN areas and so we were motoring against a strong current and this time the winds weren't right for moter sailing and we stuggled to maintain 4 knots. Up to KY dam.
The KY Lake is 180 miles long and not much current in either direction. There are Marinas and spots to Sail and Anchor. Since we are ahead of the insurance company's demand that we not reach the Gulf of Mexico before Nov 1, we will stop here and do some sailing and relaxing for a while. Then we will have to lower the mast and strap it to the boat since the section from here to Mobile AL has 16 bridges that are too low for us to get through otherwise.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
September 13, 2009
Alma Wi. Mississippi River Mile 753.
Well we left Bayport on Friday morning. One last fire drill. The adapter plate that Patrick made to adapt our Navigator Compass to the Globemaster mount would not allow the transmission to go into neutral. So I took it off so we could get moving Lynn H. from down the dock was there to record our departure and had to wait a half hour. Oh well.
Motored down to Prescot Wi at the confluence of the St Croix and Mississippi R. Had a great cocktail party, birthday, bon voyage with Linda and Patrick, without whom we would not have been ready to go.
Got up early Saturday and slipped through the highway and RR bridges at Prescot, Miss RM 811 and started on the real voyage. Made it to Alma last evening at 5 pm. Up early again but now waiting for fog to lift so we can safely shove off.
All is well.
More later.
Alma Wi. Mississippi River Mile 753.
Well we left Bayport on Friday morning. One last fire drill. The adapter plate that Patrick made to adapt our Navigator Compass to the Globemaster mount would not allow the transmission to go into neutral. So I took it off so we could get moving Lynn H. from down the dock was there to record our departure and had to wait a half hour. Oh well.
Motored down to Prescot Wi at the confluence of the St Croix and Mississippi R. Had a great cocktail party, birthday, bon voyage with Linda and Patrick, without whom we would not have been ready to go.
Got up early Saturday and slipped through the highway and RR bridges at Prescot, Miss RM 811 and started on the real voyage. Made it to Alma last evening at 5 pm. Up early again but now waiting for fog to lift so we can safely shove off.
All is well.
More later.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
The Beginning
We have made the decision to go cruising.
Mark lost a job with HP last Fall and Liz took an early retirement from PDI this Spring.
We spent the Spring preparing the house for sale and put it on the market June 5. It sold within a month and closed on August 14.
A huge amount of work went into deciding what to take and what to store and what to liquidate. We have rented a 20x8x8.5 storage container and filled it flor to ceiling and wall to wall with things we hope to use when we reenter the land world. We held a estate/moving sale and sold a large amount of furniture and possessions. Stone Soup a charity in St. Paul Park was the recipient of large amounts of clothing and furnishings.
Our boat, E 2 motion, a CAL 39 built in 1980 has undergone extensive work this summer. Our dock neighbor and close friend Patrick Moore has accomplished incredible feats with some help from Mark. This included:
Replacing the transmission
Replacing the Water Heater
Upgrading the propane locker from 5 lbs to 20 lbs capacity.
Installing a Holding Plate Refrigeration system from Technautics
Extending the drawers in the Galley, and both Berths to increase the storage by 100%
Building a new cabinet in the galley where the old refrigeration unit had been
Building new doors to enclose several open cabinets to make storage more secure.
Liz has spent a great deal of effort organizing and stowing the stores on the boat. We are almost able to store everything securely for sailing. The boat sits several inches lower in the water but seems to be handling it well.
Our plan is to leave Bayport, MN on the St. Croix River on September 10, 2009. We will head down the Mississippi River to Cairo Illinois (811 miles). At this point we will turn up the Ohio River for about 100 miles and then turn south on the Tennessee River entering the Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway and reaching Mobile AL. This should take about 60 days. From Mobile we will head for Isla Mujeres, QR, Mexico and then down the coast to Belize.
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