We had the best time today.

It was warm and sunny today and we enjoyed every minute of it. We listened to music and danced and sang along. We had long stretches of the river to ourselves, so we took off our tops and relished in the sun on our skin. I found a spot to stretch out on the deck, while Larry drove the boat. We have had mostly cold and rainy days so today was special.

It was a little annoying the first part of the day when I was at the helm. There was mile after mile of trot lines in the channel. I was dodging them on both sides. If I'd had some way to do it, I would have snipped them all up. I'm sure they could foul up a propeller and rudder quite easily.

Larry started making the chicken sound (bok bok bok) when I insisted he take the boat back when a barge came up behind us. I am not afraid to own my cowardliness, so I hummed the tune and did the chicken dance in the cockpit. :)

Yesterday he took us into the lock with a barge. I almost had a melt down. We didn't die and nothing bad happened so I decided to let him live. Here is a picture of the barge that was in the lock with us.

Today was a really nice day and has revived our spirit after all the struggles of the two previous weeks.
Alison

More milestones passed, but when will it start being fun?

We left Aqua Marina Friday under a cloud-literally.  The Pickwick dam was holding water at 2 feet above normal pool to help reduce the flooding taking place on the Mississippi. That meant to us that the already troublesome 52 foot clearance bridge was now only 50 foot clearance; making our 52 foot mast even more difficult to go under.  We had practiced all day Thursday using the dinghy to heel the boat over and each time we tried it, we found a new improvement on the system.  Finally, we had it consistently working well to heel us over the required amount. But we still had to decide if we could safely make it under a 50 foot bridge.  After much practice, I was convinced that I could heel the boat over a full 3.5 feet, which barely cleared the first bridge.

 This is how we rigged the dingy so that we could fill it full of water with two bilge pumps and heel the boat over.

                                                    Happitat heeling over at the dock.

The urgency to leave was that there was rain in the forecast for the upcoming week and that rain would almost certainly raise the lake level even higher, making it impossible for us to leave for perhaps  weeks if we couldn't leave Friday! Early Friday morning, I checked with the lock masters and learned that the lake was down to only one foot above normal. Once we got past the first lock, we would be out of the TVA system and the Tenn Tom pool levels were at normal levels and were expected to stay that way, barring an unusual amount of rain. That, combined with the dismal weather forecast and our confidence in heeling the boat over allowed me to make the final decision to go for it.  It was now or much later.

I could have had the mast taken down and made all of this less of a problem, but the cost is about $500 to take it down and put it back up; plus, carrying a 52 foot mast on a 34 foot boat would be a considerable nuisance all the way down the river.  Also, if I succeeded in learning to heel the boat over, that skill would serve me in the future to get under low bridges or over shallow sand bars.  So I was quite determined to leave the mast up if at all possible.

So the first day, we cleared 5 bridges that were lower than my 52 foot mast height! We finished the day just shy of the first dam on the Tenn-Tom, anchored in a protected cove off the river.  It rained and stormed some, but the winds weren't bad and we slept well.  I was glad to get up next morning to find that the anchor had held and we were still where I had left us last night.

Saturday we went through three locks before settling into the Midway marina for the night.  Some pretty severe storms were predicted and that nice, solid dock seemed safer than an anchor.  And it was.  But we still had a pretty miserable night of it anyway.  When we first pulled in to the marina, Alison smelled diesel fuel again.  I found a fuel hose that had been leaking a small amount of fuel that would have accounted for the smell.  I removed the line, put fresh thread sealer on it and re-installed it, then did my best to clean up any fuel that had spilled into the bilge.

  This is where Alison sat as she supervised the flooding of the Titanic to heel the boat over.

                                           Alison in her fashionable rain gear.

We went to dinner at a fine family style restaurant a short walk away, did laundry and came back to the boat after about 10:00. We could still smell diesel, so I searched everywhere for more diesel, but found nothing.  We went to bed finally at midnight.  Almost as soon as I was asleep, we heard a beeping sound. Alison got up and found the carbon monoxide alarm was alarming and showing 20ppm of carbon monoxide in our boat!  That was alarming, so I got up to see where that much CO could be coming from.  CO is only generated, as far as I know, as a by-product of combustion.  If a gas furnace, for instance, has a leak in the heat exchanger, CO will be leaked into the home.  We had nothing burning in the boat.  I looked around outside and no one was burning anything I could see.  I opened the hatches and the CO level went down, which meant the source had to be inside the boat.  When we use the gas cook stove for heat, sometimes the CO will creep up to 10ppm or so, but we hadn't cooked anything in hours!  I was totally baffled. But I couldn't go to sleep knowing the CO levels were rising to possibly dangerous levels.  Since you get over 100ppm of CO from smoking a single cigarette, 20ppm isn't at all dangerous, but since I had no idea where it was coming from, I just didn't know how high it could go. The alarm itself might be giving a false alarm, but how could I know?  The predicted storm was moving in and the rain starting, so I closed the hatches and watched the CO levels for a while.  When they didn't go back up, we went to bed.

Then the storm rolled in and the rain poured down.  There is a window (hatch) right above where we sleep.  On a clear night, it makes for a lovely view.  This window has never leaked more than a few drops other than the sweat that collects when it's cold outside and humid inside.  But tonight, it dripped from several different places and wet Alison's chest and pillow.  She was so tired, she didn't even notice the pillow wetness.  She just threw a towel over the dripping part and went back asleep.

But the night still wasn't done with us.  Sometime later, Alison heard the inverter beeping.  After hearing it for some time, she woke me up and I  got up and turned it off.  It was powering the refrigerator, but the refrigerator would be fine till morning.

So this morning I'm tired, again, but the weather report is for good weather for several days, so we need to make way.  There are locks to pass and bridges to get under, fuel leaks to fix and who know what other challenges await us?

Up all night!

It's 3:30 in the morning! So far tonight the carbon monoxide detector had us plagued and worried us when it kept rising and alarming. The inverter that keeps the fridge cool when we travel has been possessed tonight and has beeped, grunted and groaned since we went to bed. The hatch above our bed did not used to leak! Now, I am so sleepy and jaded that the rain coming down on and around me, only causes me to reach up and grab a towel to lay across me. Even Larry is upset because my pillow is soaked on the right side. Well, I felt the splashes but since it was only getting the ends of my hair I thought, 'whatever'. I already have a towel on my chest. I woke up with the section of clothing between my boobs soaked. All of that on top of the obnoxious smell of diesel, all damn day. Until recently if I was awake in the middle of the night, I was having sex! Not fighting to be warm, dry, comfortable and alive from not being asphyxiated. If it were not storming, again! We could open the hatches and put in the screens. Arrrrgh....€%#^@&$)/ The only reason I'm up now is that on top of everything else, I had to pee!

Headwinds of all kinds

It's Thursday morning, Alison is still peacefully sleeping and I'm listening to Jimmy Buffett songs on Spotify, sipping tea and eating homemade oatmeal raisin cookies (I made a batch since I ran out of the cookies Angie gave me).  Sleeping hasn't always been easy on this trip for her, especially when we're hanging on an anchor and not safely tied up in a marina. Thank goodness she was awake on our "Dark and Stormy Night."  We've been travelling on the river for two weeks.  I had hoped to be in Mobile within three weeks, but all the delays with engine problems has kept us at marinas way too many nights and days.  It consumed time and more money than we can afford.  I thought I'd write down a few thoughts at this stage of our trip.

It seems like everything has conspired to make this trip difficult.  We had all sorts of delays and problems threatening to keep us from casting off the dock lines. Only sheer determination and dogged persistence against all obstacles made it possible to leave. Then, up until day before yesterday, the winds have been determinedly against me the entire trip.  If I wanted to go south, the wind blew hard from the south.  When the river turned north, the wind blew hard from the north. On a single day, the river turned south, then west, then north and the wind followed me and blew against me all day.  And I mean blew hard!  On a calm day the boat can get about 7 mph at 80% throttle.  Against these winds I could only make 5-6 mph, sometime as little as 3-4!  The headwinds produced a choppy lake, stirring up the debris in my fuel tank and causing the engine to fail.  Again, only dogged persistence against contrary winds made it possible to make any progress at all.

But on Tuesday, the winds were behind us for the first time.    I put up the jib sail and we positively flew downriver at a blazing 8 mph!  It was wonderful after the cold and wind we had been fighting against.  Finally near Florence Alabama, I had been making great time and was almost ready to enter  Wilson lock when once again, the motor coughed and stopped just as I was preparing to enter the lock.  Again-very bad timing!  I saw on a mapping program on the Ipad that there was a marina nearby, so I turned toward that inlet and called the marina to announce my arrival and to ask for help. I was determined to find someone that knew about diesels to help me fix this problem once and for all!  I was under sail in the open lake, but would need the motor to get up the narrow channel to the marina.  As I approached the channel, I tried the motor again and it worked, but it only got me half way to the marina before it coughed out again.  I was left drifting between houses and private docks, being blown back out toward the lake.  There wasn't enough room to sail and, as always, the wind was coming directly from the direction I wanted to go.  I called the marina and asked if they could come tow me in and they said the'd be there soon.  That makes four times I've been towed on this trip!  The first was from being aground, but the other three were from engine problems.  I managed to catch hold of a private dock and tied onto it while waiting for the tow.

A few minutes later, Jeff Wilcoxson of J's Landing marina pulled up and towed Happytat to the dock.  We discussed the engine's history and I suggested that the strainer in the tank must be stopping up.  He agreed and gave me several great suggestions to fix the problem.   At his advice, I vacuumed out the bottom of the tank with a device that I carry to change the engine's oil.  I could see gunk and trash flowing through the tube and took out a total of 6 gallons of diesel before the tube started coming up clear.  Also at his advice, I shortened the dip tube and installed an auxiliary fuel tank with a selector switch, so that if the engine starts coughing again, I can switch to the spare tank with clean fuel without missing a beat.  It's a great comfort to look down at my selector switch and know that if I it had been there for me before, I would have had a lot less to write about in this blog.  So many thanks to Jeff at J's landing!  And he didn't charge me anything for the tow, advice and a loaner car to pick up parts!! On my insistence, he accepted $20 from me. The marina people we have met on this trip have all been wonderful.

The next stage is travelling through the Tenn-Tom, a partly man-made canal joining the Tennessee River, going through lots of very rural Mississippi countryside with few marinas or grocery stops on the way.  It's 450 miles long and if everything goes well, which it hasn't so far, it will take about 10 more days of river travelling  before we see salt water.  This has been a fun, but very tiring trip.  I've spent far too many hours with my head stuck in the engine with diesel fuel on my hands.  Alison has been worried too much of the time about our safety and it  hasn't been as much fun for her so far as I'd hoped.  When I'm not actually working on the boat, I'm tensely awaiting the next thing to go wrong.  Yesterday I bought two more replacement fuel filters for spares (another $100 gone), one of the lifelines needs repair parts, and the hatch above our bed dripped water on my pillow when it rained yesterday.  We used the marina courtesy car and went to Walmart yesterday to get some prescriptions filled.  In fact, our trip so far has been a series of Walmart visits in different cities.  Exotic, huh?

The next big challenge is to get the boat under at least 6 bridges with only a 52 foot clearance height.  My mast is 52 feet from the water, plus antenna and wind vane of another foot. I have practiced  heeling the boat over at Sale Creek by hanging my dinghy from halyards (ropes) and a big wide strap (thanks Tony) from the boom hung over the side of the boat, then filling it with water from a small pump.  The water gradually adds weight, heeling the boat over and thus lowering the mast.  It worked fine at the dock, but how will it work going under a real-life bridge?  Will the river current pull me faster than I want to go? Will the dinghy actually lower the mast enough? I learned yesterday that the river level is up from normal due to spring rains by one foot.  That means that my clearance is now only 51 feet! Now I have to heel the boat over at least two feet to clear.  I plan to heel it over 4 feet to be sure.  Today is practice day.  When it warms up a little, I plan to go out in the harbor and do some practicing with the dinghy.  If I am not confident in my ability to heel the boat over, I'll have the marina take my mast down and carry it on the boat till we get to Mobile where we'll have it raised back up again (another $500).

Wish us luck!
Larry and Alison
SV Happytat

Navigation and Anchorages

In case anyone is interested. At first I was using maps and a guide book to find marinas and anchorages, but now I have these awesome apps on my IPad . One is Garmin blue chart mobile and the other is Active Captain. They work together almost seamlessly. It makes finding what you want so much easier. And what's really cool, is that now, I don't have to ask Larry where we are or look on the map or read day beacons. I can pull up our location on Garmin blue chart mobile and tell him where he is. I still double check the apps and the maps. It helps me feel more secure having one to verify the other.

BTW, I suggested tying up to a tree much earlier in the day, because I had read in the handy dandy guide book that it was well advised to do so, with any amount of wind due to narrowness of the anchorage and downed trees under the water. Lesson learned #462.
Alison

It was a dark and stormy night...

It is Saturday, April 21, and we are safely docked in the beautiful Joe Wheeler state park. I am contentedly sipping tea and eating the oatmeal cookies I made yesterday from Angie's recipe. Yum! For only $23 we have a slip in one of the loveliest lakes I've ever seen.  Surrounded by hills, there is a marina here with dozens of beautiful sailboats in the slips as well as two covered docks with trawlers (non-sail motor boats), and a lovely lodge.  AND 5 bars on their free wi-fi!

When we first arrived, I had to go to the lodge to sign in, so I started walking toward it. It turns out we are facing the rear of the lodge so the entrance to the main lobby is not plainly marked. So I'm walking around, looking for an entrance when the first likely entrance I come to is blocked by a bride standing there with a man I assume was her father.  I noticed there was music playing softly outside and looked around to find that I had walked into a wedding!  There were white plastic folding chairs arranged on the lawn with flowers and a burlap isle with flower petals scattered for the bride.  I still needed to find the lobby, so I walked on behind the audience and past the wedding area to find the registration lobby.

Later, Alison and I went for a walk around the grounds and passed by an older black man sitting in a chair on the lawn.  I said hello as we passed and he looked up from his book and said hello.  I recognized him!  It was James Earl Jones!  When he speaks, it sounds like the voice of God!

But let me fill in the last couple days previous to this:
After driving in the marina courtesy car (thanks Guntersville marina!) all day Monday trying to find the single bolt I needed to get the boat running again, I had to come back to the marina empty handed.  It's a special bolt called a "banjo bolt" and it has a hole drilled in the center of it for fuel to pass through.  I found a supplier on the internet and ordered the part.  Since I had spent the day looking for the part, I was too late to get it sent over night that day, so we had to stay at the marina until Wednesday.

Tuesday, I took down the bimini (the awning that covers the cockpit) and, using the awl we bought a few months ago at Harbor Freight, began learning how to sew canvas.  The threads on the bimini had deteriorated and the whole thing was in danger of falling down on my head.  So, I decided that this was the time to fix it.  I had all day and nothing else to do!  I watched a Youtube video on how to sew with an awl, threaded the awl and got started.  The first few stitches took an hour to get right.  I got faster with practice, but the project took about 10 hours to complete.  The end result isn't pretty, but the bimini will not fall down on my head now.

Wednesday, the part came and I rushed to pick it up.  On the way, Alison and I stopped at a delightful restaurant called the Rock House and had a nice lunch.  After lunch, we put some gas in the old Toyota pickup the marina loaned us, then went to the marina that had ordered our parts. The parts, a bolt and six washers, came to $80!  Only ten of that was shipping!  I reached into my wallet for my debit card and it wasn't there.  We searched the car; I searched my pockets; Alison searched my pockets; but the more we looked, the more it wasn't there.  Now this is a serious problem.  I had enough cash to buy the parts, so I paid for them and we went searching for the lost debit card.  Retracing our steps, we first went to the Rock House restaurant.  I went in to ask if they had seen it, while Alison searched the parking area in case I dropped it.  The lady at the restaurant said she hadn't seen it, so I sadly left.  But Alison was walking quickly toward me saying "I found it!"  She had found it laying on the street by the parking spot we had just left.  We were so relieved!

So we went to Walmart and got some food supplies, then back to the boat.  It took me no more than 5 minutes to install the bolt and washers.  I started the motor and it ran perfectly!  Yay!  We could finally leave.  Alison searched the maps and guide book for a good anchorage and we decided on one that was only an hour's sail away, since it was already about four o'clock.  I paid the marina bill, filled the water tanks and we headed for freedom!

Did I mention that the weather was predicted to be pretty scary the following day and night?  We chose the anchorage because it looked like a good place to anchor the boat and wait out the 20+ mph winds and storms that were headed our way.  The thing is about the weather when you live and sleep in a boat is that the weather can ruin your day if you're not prepared.  On land, a summer storm can blow some shingles off your roof or even break a tree limb and drop it on your house.  In a boat, a strong wind can take your entire house (boat) and blow it away to places you don't want your house to be!

So we found this beautiful little cove right by the dam that we would have to go through when we went downriver.  It was deep enough, but narrow.  We motored carefully into the cove until the depth got too shallow for my six foot keel (the big heavy blade sticking down from the bottom of the boat to keep it from tipping over), then backed back out a few feet.   I dropped the big "Claw" anchor, then got in my little rowboat (dinghy) and took another anchor about 50 feet off the stern (rear) of the boat and dropped it into the river.  The first anchor was to keep the boat from being blown backwards in the strong southerly winds that were predicted. The second anchor was to keep the boat from swing too far to one side and perhaps swinging into shallow water or trees.  That done, we relaxed and enjoyed the rest of the evening, knowing that the boat wasn't going anywhere.

We took a side trip in the dinghy and paddled back into the cove until we got to the little creek that fed the cove.  It was a lovely place. The smell of honeysuckle drifted by from time to time and two resident ducks paddled slowly around nearby, completely ignoring us. And no city noise.  It was a lovely sunset that night.  The temperature was in the 70's and didn't drop below 60 all night. Perfect sleeping weather!  And we slept well.  That was not to be the case the next night.

As the day progressed, the winds got stronger and stronger, just as predicted.  Even in the cove, surrounded by trees on a pretty high hill, we were hit by gusts of 15 mph or more from time to time.  Later that day, Alison asked if the boat had moved downwind from where we had started.  I looked carefully at the anchor buoy and at the surrounding trees and concluded that, yes, the boat had indeed moved from where I had dropped the anchor!  The wind had blown us back out toward the lake and the dam by at least 30 feet.  That meant that my main "claw" anchor hadn't held.

We knew that the worst of the weather wasn't over, and we didn't want to wake up in middle of the night somewhere out in the lake, so I proceeded to re-set the anchors.  I started the motor, then pulled up both anchors, moved the boat further into the cove and dropped the anchors again as before.  Then, to be sure the main anchor held, I put the motor in reverse and tried to back up.  The anchor held firmly.  But I still didn't trust it, so I watched it until well after dark, especially every time after a strong gust had blown us around.  It was holding perfectly.

Before we went to bed, Alison asked if it might be a good idea to tie a rope to a nearby tree to be sure we didn't move.  That meant letting down the dinghy off the davit (a mounting rack on the back of the boat for carrying the spare boat), paddling against fierce wind across the creek and tying a rope to a tree.  The anchor had held for hours against strong winds and I didn't feel like I needed to go to all that trouble.  The anchor is all we would need for tonight.  After all, I would be counting on this anchor to hold the boat all night in ocean winds soon, so I might as well trust it here in this little protected cove. I would later regret this decision.

So I went to bed, confident that the storm and winds would not be a problem.  Alison was still nervous and couldn't sleep, so she stayed up. I was sleeping soundly when Alison came to the bed and said: "The boat is only a few feet from the bank and I think it has dragged farther down the creek!"  I was groggy, but this couldn't wait, so I got up, put on some warm clothes and went outside.  It was about 3:30 am, very dark, spitting an occasional shower of rain, and blowing the boat around smartly.  I got out our big spotlight and looked around.  We had indeed drug anchor and were only 20 feet from the bank and 50 feet from the lake!  I had to get away from the bank and farther into the creek, then re-set the anchor again.  Only this time it was dark, rainy and very windy.

But first I had to pull up both anchors before I could motor up the creek to safer water.  The stern (rear) anchor had to come up first, so I started pulling the rode (anchor rope) in. The boat swung around toward the stern anchor as I pulled, but after pulling in most of the rode, I wasn't able to pull any more.  No matter how hard I pulled, the stern anchor would not come up.  I tied the rode onto a winch to get more power.  It was firmly stuck.  The stern anchor was on a 75 foot rode, so I decided to just release the stern anchor rode and let it run free as I motored farther into the creek.

I turned my attention then to the main culprit of this mis-adventure: the bow anchor, also known as the "claw." I motored forward to where the yellow milk jug tied to the anchor showed me the location of the claw.  I went forward, opened up the anchor locker, sat down, planted my feet firmly against the front wall of the locker, and started pulling up the anchor while the wind tried to push the boat back to where I had just come. It took every ounce of strength to pull the anchor up, more than usual I thought.  But it had to come up, so I pulled and pulled until I saw it.  The anchor had wrapped itself around a large tree branch!  The wind was howling and it started raining again.  How was I going to get this branch off my anchor before the wind blew us back into the lake?  I went back to the cockpit and motored back into the cove farther and decided to do what Alison had originally suggested: tie the boat to a tree.  I gathered up a long rope and told Alison to pass it to me when I came around in the dinghy.  I lowered the dinghy again and rowed around to the front of the boat where she tossed me the rope.  Then I rowed against strong winds toward the bank, spotted a tree that hung over the bank and tied the rope to it.  The stern anchor was doing a great job of holding us off the bank and the tree would keep us from being blown downwind and into the lake.

Now that we were secure, I turned my attention to the anchor.  It hadn't held because it wasn't dug into the creek bottom. Instead, it was busy rolling around with a three inch thick, twenty foot long tree branch! It was wrapped around the branch several wraps and I couldn't get it unwrapped sitting in a small row boat.  I paddled back to the rear of the boat and tied off the dinghy.  I climbed into the mother ship, went to the tool shed and got my big, manly Black and Decker battery powered reciprocating saw with a long wood cutting blade.  I went forward, leaned over the bow of the boat and sawed the limb right where the chain had wrapped around it.  It cut through easily and fell off the chain.  The anchor was free! But the rope that held my little yellow anchor marker jug was still tangled.  So I pulled on the rope until the remainder of the branch was within reach of my saw and cut it loose.  The boat was secure and I was wet, cold and exhausted. So was Alison.  We got out of our soggy clothes, climbed into bed and, despite the lightening and wind outside, fell quickly asleep at about 4:30 am.

Now one would think that after a night like that, I would have slept till noon.  But no.  I woke up at 6:30 am!  The wind had died down considerably, it wasn't raining, and I wanted to be back underway.  The temperature had dropped overnight and was considerably colder than the balmy night before, so I put on my insulated underwear, several layers of clothes, ate a bowl of hot oatmeal (I was out of cookies), and went topsides.  The dinghy was full of water from the rain and a small leak in the drain plug, so I bailed it out enough to use it, then paddled over to the tree and untied the boat rope.  Then I went back to the boat and used the motor to force the recalcitrant stern anchor loose.  By then it was about 9:00 am.  I called the dam lock operator and told him I was heading his way and to please lock me downriver, then motored the boat toward the dock.

I should have known it was going to be a rough day when I first entered the lake.  It was blowing like stink and cold as a witches titty.  The wind blew so hard on the lake that the boat heeled over six degrees with no sails up. But no, I will not be a slave to comfort!  I must go forward no matter the conditions!  Sometimes I wonder about me.

I made it into the lock perfectly and they lowered me down to the downriver lake level.  I still think that's cool.  But when they opened up the towering lock gates to let me out, the wind shrieked into the lock like an angry demon.  The boat was still tied to the bolster on the lock, but blew back and forth like a scared horse.  It was all I could do to keep her off the lock walls.  Alison meanwhile was missing all of this because I didn't wake her.  She had been up most of the night.  I released the rope and powered up the motor to leave the lock in defiance of the angry wind.  The wind blew the bow of the boat into the wall momentarily, but I powered up more and pulled away from the lock.

The rest of the day was brutal. The temperature never went above the upper 40's and the wind blew at 12-16 mph all day directly in my face.  When Alison came to the cockpit at about 10:00, I was shivering cold.  I hadn't dressed for this kind of weather.  She brought me more warm clothes and hot tea.  That made it bearable, but far from comfortable.  But for hours Happytat and I plowed on into 3 foot waves that made the boat bounce up and down like a wild horse.  Alison located a public access area where we could pull in for a while and I tied Happytat up to a dock and took a much needed hour-long nap.  Then we threw off the dock lines and motored out of the quiet harbor and into the merciless wind and waves.

For three hours more, we plowed into the wind and waves, heading for a marina in Decatur, Alabama.  Finally, after hours of wind and waves, I had the bridge in sight that marked the location of the harbor just on the far side of the bridge.  It was just then that my motor coughed.  The RPM meter had been reading a steady 3000 RPM all day, but now it dropped to 2200, then back to 3000.  Then it dropped even lower, then back up, then lower, then the engine died. All of the bouncing up and down had probably stirred up more crap in the fuel tank and clogged the filter again. In the face of 20 mph winds and within sight of the harbor, the engine died!  It's like a repeat of the "shipwreck" of a few days ago.  I'm within sight of the harbor and the engine died- again.

I started making contingency plans.  This time at least, I had the sails ready to hoist which would at least keep me off the bank and in control of my boat.  But the wind was again coming from exactly the direction I need to go!  I could only get to the harbor by sailing back and forth until I could get close enough to drop sail and coast into the harbor.  Furthermore, I had to somehow do this back and forth in a way that got me under the bridge without hitting the bridge supports.  It just didn't seem possible in these winds and waves.  So I reached down and turned the key to start the motor. If it would only run long enough to get me to the harbor...  I turned the key and nothing.  The boat was already being blown back up-river and away from the harbor and the bridge.   I turned again and it hesitantly started, coughed, then slowly the RPM gauge climbed to 2000, 2500, then 3000 and held steady.  The boat turned back into the wind defiantly and we motored directly toward the middle of the bridge.  If the motor quit now, I could still turn back and not be in danger of hitting the bridge supports.   I passed under the bridge and now I had to turn ninety degrees right to get to the harbor, which was within sight now.  Just as I turned right, the motor died again.  I could be blown into the bridge supports if I didn't do something immediately.  I quickly reached for the jib sail furling rope and pulled out a few feet of jib sail.  The wind grabbed it and immediately the boat regained some forward speed and pulled away from the bridge.

Here's a picture of the boat at the dock in Decatur and the bridge that I barely made it under safely.

Now that the bridge wasn't a threat, I had to somehow get to that narrow harbor entrance under sail with a 20 mph wind without crashing into anything.  I reached down and tried the motor again and it started.  Once it seemed that the motor would keep on running, I dropped the sail and headed toward a dock.  I made it to the dock and with Alison's help tossing me the ropes, I tied us off.  We were safe!

But the angry wind blew the boat against the dock like it wanted to crush the boat between the wind and the dock.  The fenders that protected the hull against the dock weren't meant for this kind of brutal beating.  I had to do something.  I couldn't count on my motor to pull back away from the exposed dock and motor me to the safe, protected harbor just yards away. If the motor failed while I was on my way, I would be blown back toward the bridge I had just passed.

There was another dock about a hundred feet away upwind.  If I could tie up to that dock, it would be upwind of the boat and we wouldn't be beating our brains out against the downwind dock we were on now.  I got out my 250 foot anchor rope, untied it from the anchor and walked it around the dock to the other dock upwind and tied it off.  Then I went back to the boat and tied the other end of the rope to a strong winch.  I went forward and slowly, with all my strength, pulled at the rope and pulled our 13,000 pound boat against the wind and toward the upwind dock.  As the bow of the boat pulled more into the wind, it presented less windage and became easier to resist the wind.  I pulled and pulled until my arms and back could pull no more.  I went quickly back to the winch and used it to pull the boat toward the dock.  It was easier, but moved the boat only a few inches each turn so it took longer. After winching until my winching arm was exhausted, Happytat was finally hanging from a rope tied to a large bollard and no longer bashing against a dock.  After several tries, I managed to toss another rope to a cleat on the dock and pull the boat parallel to the dock and tie her off securely.

 I was cold, exhausted and hungry.  Alison had prepared a hot, delicious supper and we ate and rested. It had been one of the roughest days I can remember, but it was done.  We both went straight to bed and despite the howling wind outside, slept soundly.

Next morning, I changed the fuel filter, started the motor and it ran perfectly.  I looked downriver and there was a railroad bridge just ahead with only a 20 foot clearance.  Alison found the call number and I called the bridge to ask them to raise it for us.  They raised it and we motored happily on our way.

We were approaching the Wheeler dam and preparing to go through the lock when the motor coughed again and stopped. This time, though, we were in the middle of a large lake with a gentle 8 mph wind.  No worries.  I put up the main sail, opened up the jib and began sailing across the lake.  Alison had located the Joe Wheeler marina that was just before the dam, so we were headed that way.  It's hard to sail into a marina and I'm not that good of a sailor yet, so I tried the motor again and it worked fine to get us into the marina slip where we are now.

This place is so nice and we have had so much trouble, I am tempted to stay here a while.  But we'll probably leave and head down river again this afternoon, after I've worked some more on the fuel system, that is.

Sometimes this adventure reminds me of The Hobbit: Scary times mixed with occasional peaceful and happy times.

Beavers and shot guns, oh my.

It's one thirty in the morning and I can't sleep. I keep thinking about what happened this evening. Larry and I were on the party barge doing some sewing. Well, Larry was doing the sewing and I was keeping him company. It isn't really a barge either, because it doesn't go anywhere. Its more of a really nice floating room with open walls for nice views of the river.

Larry was sewing and I was reading when there was a sudden loud sound. I looked up and in walks a man with a very determined pace and a shot gun. He asked if we had heard any loud splashing sounds in the last few minutes. I said yes out in front of us. I wish I had said no. The man said he was looking for a beaver. So, of course I asked why? He said it was eating Sheila's willow tree that she planted. Sheila and her husband own the marina. He then went on to explain how willow trees are like candy to beavers and he had to get rid of it. Larry spoke to him briefly and he left.

A little while later he came back (without his gun) to introduce himself. I though he was going to start talking about the beaver and killing it again, so I cut him off and said I didn't care. I meant I didn't want to hear anymore about killing the beaver, but I didn't say it very well. I was inadvertently rude and he left without saying more.

A man comes out of no where at night with a shot gun, it put me ill at ease. Then he talks about killing an innocent animal. A marina was built in the animals natural habitat and then a tree that beavers love to eat was planted next to the water. You can't invade the beavers home and then lure them in with tasty treats and kill them. It seems unfair.

After he left, Larry asked me what I would do if a deer came all the time to eat my garden? I said we could put up a fence. He said deer can jump fences, then what would you do? I don't know what I would do. I just don't know.
Alison

Sailing ain't no place for sissies!

I would not live on the river for a year, unless I were doing the Great Loop and then still probably not. Once we arrive at the ocean, we will not need the engine very much. Our boat is pushing 30 years old, but she still deserves respect; as every part of her is great! Fortunately, Larry is not a sissy and neither am I. It amazes me how often people say 'be careful' or 'you're crazy', when in actuality we are safer on our boat than going down the freeway at 70 mph.

Waiting in a beautiful marina for a part is way better than going to work everyday or sitting in our house in the same spot year after year wishing for something new to do. I have been criticized for never staying in the same job or home for long at the time. When in actuality the ones criticizing me are the ones who wish they had the guts to change their lives. Plus, watching some of these same people flounder is great fun...for me.
Alison

P.S. Cruising is fixing your boat in exotic location.

Still at the Marina!

Sunday morning we prepared to leave the marina and be on our way again.  I had found and repaired the fuel filter housing problem and the engine was running great.  We paid the marina, filled the tanks with fuel and water, and motored away happily.  I was settling in for a long day at the helm.  It was cold and windy, but I dressed up warmly and sailed (motored) onward.

About 45 minutes into the trip, Alison called up to me from the cabin and said she smelled diesel fuel.  We were in the middle of a large lake, so I stopped the motor and went down to check it out. I found that one of the fittings I had removed while checking out the fuel system was spitting diesel fuel on the engine.  Diesel isn't especially flammable, but it was urgent to find and fix the problem so we could be on our way.  I grabbed my handy tools and tightened up the bolts that were leaking.   It still leaked, so I tightened it again. And again.  And this time the bolt broke off in my wrench.  S***!!  D*** it!  Without this bolt, we were literally "dead in the water."

The winds by now had begun to pick up a lot.  There were dark clouds and spitting rain and winds of about 12-14 mph.  So I put up the mainsail with a reef (that means I only let out part of the sail) and let out a little bit of jib sail and prepared to sail back to the marina, just a few miles away.  Unfortunately, the winds were coming directly out of the Southeast and the marina was directly Southeast.  That meant that I had to make my boat travel upwind to get to where I needed to go.  With reduced sail, that is even harder to do.

Alison had already begun cooking eggs for breakfast when I put up the sails.  Imagine trying to cook in a kitchen that is rocking unpredictably!  It's even hard to just pour a drink of water in those kitchens.  But Alison soon presented me a hot breakfast of two eggs over medium and a piece of hot fried toast.  I was quite busy keeping the sailboat under control because by now, the wind gusts were approaching 16-18 mph.  I was trying my best to keep the boat from heeling over too much because I knew Alison was trying to cook.  In a relatively calm moment, I considered how to eat my breakfast sitting there.  In these conditions, I needed all my attentions focused on sailing the boat.  I scooped the eggs up in the toast and folded them over in a sandwich and took a big hungry bite.  Yellow egg yolk shot out of the sandwich and landed on the seat and all over my expensive binoculars.  No time to worry about that now, just keep sailing.

I called the marina to tell Alan, the manager, to expect me back because I was having engine trouble again.  He said he'd meet me with the marina barge. "Barge?" I thought.  Whatever, as long as he gets me back to the dock.  The winds were still gusting 16-18 mph straight from the direction I needed to go, so I had no choice but to tack back and forth to make forward progress.  Waves were one to three feet.  It occurred to me that to Alan it must look like I was just out there enjoying a fun day of sailing since I was sailing every direction but toward the marina.  So I called him and explained why I was having to get to him so indirectly.  He said he had wondered what I was doing when I was sailing away from the marina, but that he was already on the water heading my way.  I looked and saw what looked like something from a Mad Max movie, only without the guns.  It was square and floated on square plastic pontoon floats.  It had a crane mounted to the front and a 9 horsepower outboard motor on the back.  Alan sat on top of the motor and guided his barge slowly and erratically my direction. A sailboat under sail has no brakes.  It will keep going as long as there is wind.  And we had plenty of that! So I had to time my approach to his barge just right to keep from zooming past him or colliding with him.  As I approached, I dropped both sails and coasted his direction while he piloted his barge toward me.  When we got close enough I tossed him a line that he tied onto his barge.  Surprisingly, his little 6 hp motor slowly but surely towed my big 13,000 lb boat the rest of the way to the marina just in time for the rain to start pouring down.

Pictures of the Guntersville "Mad Max" towing barge.

Monday morning I got up at 6:30 am to get an early start.  I was still smelling diesel though.  So I searched the engine compartment and it was clean.  I had thoroughly cleaned it yesterday of all diesel fuel.  Further searching revealed that there was a substantial amount of diesel in the bilge (the lowest part of the boat that catches any spills anywhere in the boat and is pumped out by an automatic pump).   So the first thing I get to do before breakfast is clean out a nasty, diesel contaminated moldy bilge.  YUK!   After that was done, the boat smelled more like home and less like a truck repair shop.

By then, it was time to go find the part I need to get the boat running again.  Again, the marina generously loaned me a nice Dodge Caravan to drive-no charge!  I went to the auto parts store they reccomended, but they didn't have anything like it.  But Bill told me to go see Larry down the road, and gave me directions: "Go left out of here to the next light then turn right.  When you get to the four lane highway, turn left and go about 8 miles.  Larry's place is right past the Erwin marine dealership and just before the Guntersville Dam sign.

I drove off hopefully to find Larry.  I found him right where Bill had told me he would be.  It was a small blue steel building with small boats in the yard next to it.  No sign.  When I walked in, I saw about eight men sitting comfortably in an irregular circle. Some were leaning back in their chairs and a couple were sitting with the back of the chair facing forward. They all looked at me when I came in and I said: "Looks like all the smarts in the country are sitting around here in this one building.  Must be an important meeting going on here!"  A middle aged man on the right said: "Yep, If a bomb was to be dropped on this building, the world would suddenly get dumber by a sight."

I said: "I'm looking for Larry."
A middle aged man behind the desk in the center of the group said: "You just found him. What can I do for you?"
I showed him my problem bolt.  He looked at it carefully and concluded he didn't have anything like it.  The others in the group of offered some suggestions of where to find one, but  Larry said I should go to Imperial Fasteners in Huntsville.  On the way, he said I could stop by S&S.  They work on motors like mine and might have it.  I thanked them and headed out to find both of the recommendations.

I found S&S and showed an older man what I needed.  He was wearing what used to be dark blue trousers and jacket just like my dad used to wear.  He took me out in the field out back to show me the engines he said were like mine.  When we got there, the engines were covered in  vicious five foot high briers.  To reach those engines would require the sacrifice of much blood and a good possibility of snake bite.  He said we should go back inside and talk to Jerry, the owner.  We found Jerry in front of the store talking to a couple men that were just leaving.  Jerry wanted to help, but didn't have a bolt like that.  He said I should try Imperial Fasteners.

So I programmed my GPS for Imperial Fasteners and drove off hopefully.  The GPS immediately took me through miles of single lane country roads and over a small mountain.  Just as I was sure that my GPS was taking me on a wild goose chase, I began to see signs of civilization.  Just two more miles and I'll be there.  When I arrived at the address the GPS told me to go to, I was in the middle of a large subdivision.  There was no commercial buildings to be found anywhere. I looked up the address and told my GPS to take me there.  When I got there, it wasn't there.  When I found a phone number, the guy that answered said that they were not in business any more.  But he did tell me the name of the place I should check.

That's just the beginning of my very frustrating day.  I called and visited a couple dozen places.  Did you know that many places close on Mondays?!  Who knew?  I finally gave up and came back to the boat. I looked up the distributors of parts for my boat and asked if they had the parts.  They have the parts, but it's too late to overnight them today.  So the earliest I can get my parts is Wednesday.  That means two more days delay!  So we'll make a few more minor repairs to the boat tomorrow and just wait.  All this for a single bolt!

If you read all of this long story, you are either a beloved family member who finds anything I write interesting, or you don't have much to do.  thanks for reading!

Larry

My first, hopefully my last, shipwreck

Ahoy!

This morning, I consulted the weather carefully and learned that the bad weather wasn't going to hit our area until 4:30 or 5:00.  A full service marina was only about 3 hours away, so I decided to leave our quiet little anchorage and sail to the marina.  We need to wash clothes, buy a few things and fix a few things on the boat.  For instance, I ran hoses between the engine and the water heater so that we would have hot water while en route.  Well, it doesn't work and we have no hot water. This means that if we stay away from marinas to save money, we don't shower. Yuk!  There are a few other minor repairs I needed to make, so I was anxious to get to the marina.  Sitting around in the little harbor all day waiting for a storm to come that night just didn't seem the thing to do.

So I pulled up anchor and sailed out of the relative safety of the harbor and into the open lake.  Let me say, Guntersville Lake seems to go on forever!  It's 67,000 acres and 76 miles long, compared to Chickamauga at 34,500 acres and 59 miles long.  As soon as I entered the lake, I was hit with 14 mph winds directly on the nose.  Without a headwind, I can make about 6.5-7 mph motoring.  With this headwind, I was only able to plow ahead at about 5 mph.  But Happytat plowed on faithfully for hour after hour.

After about 3 hard hours of head winds and one to two foot waves, I was thinking: "I hope this old Westerbeke engine doesn't fail me now.  I wonder what I should do if it does?"  Within minutes of thinking this, I got my chance to find out what I would do, because the engine coughed, then ran normally, then coughed harder, then ran, then coughed a few more times and died.  There was still a 14-16 mph wind blowing and the boat immediately started blowing toward land.  Alison took the wheel and guided the boat while I attempted to clear out any water in the fuel filter. When I came back up from the engine, Alison said the boat was still heading toward land.  I tried the engine again and nothing.  So I said: "I'll put up some Jib sail to help us sail away from land," and proceeded to open up the jib.  The wind was blowing ferociously and tried to pull the Jib all the way out, but I quickly locked it in and tried to use it to sail away from land.  It worked for a while and I thought I had it going my way, but the wind just pushed the jib over and turned the boat toward land.  There were houses all along the shore, but nowhere I could just pull into and tie up. So I was concerned that the boat would go aground in a place that would damage her hull in these wind and waves.  I ran forward and dropped the anchor in the hopes of stopping the boat from going any farther toward land.  I was partially successful, but the boat still swung around into shallow water.  Fortunately, it was a soft sand, mud bottom and the boat just bobbed gently in the shallow water.  Also fortunately, the wind slowed to a gentle breeze of 5-8 mph.

I got on the phone and called my friends at US Boat to ask for their help - again.  When the dispatcher heard who I was, she said, "Is this the same boat we help yesterday?"  I ashamedly said it was the same boat.  So they sent a boat to help me.

While I was waiting on them, I worked earnestly on my fuel system.  I changed 2 fuel filters and checked fuel levels.  The fuel in the filter bowl had some dirt and water in it, so i re-assembled everything and tried the motor again. Nothing.  No fuel was being pulled into the filter. It was empty!  I finally determined that the main problem was the fuel pump.  I had spares of other parts and spare filters, but no fuel pump!  That meant I was out of commission.

Meanwhile, someone must have called 911 for me, because a boat was speeding my way with flashing lights. They almost passed me by, then stopped, turned and headed my way. Then another emergency boat came too!  He slid his boat up to mine and asked how I was doing.  I replied that I've had better days, but I was glad to see him!  It was the marine version of the fire department and sheriff's office who had come to save the day.  And they did!  They towed me to deep water, then the Sheriff's boat towed me the final 40 minutes or so to the marina. On the way, the predicted storm began to rumble. There were bursts of lightening and loud thunder surrounding us and the wind began to pick back up.  As we were pulling into the marina, with dock hands waiting help my crippled boat safely into a slip, the rain started in earnest.  I released my rope from the Sheriff's boat and gave him a very sincere thank you, and started pulling into the slip. Alison had passed me a poncho, so I stayed drier than the poor dock hands who stood in the rain while they guided me in.

Guntersville sheriff towing me to Guntersville Marina after the "shipwreck."

So we're sitting safely in the marina dock riding out the big storm, warm. well-fed and comfortable, but tired.  I have always heard of the term "safe harbor" but never really felt the full meaning of that phrase until today. We were never in any danger, but the boat could have been damaged seriously had it gone aground in on a rocky shore.  I've learned a few things from this experience:

• Carry a spare fuel pump.  This is an older motor of unknown history.  I have had a mechanic look it over and replace things he thought needed replacement. But the fuel pump was working, so there was no need to replace it.
• Keep my sails uncovered and ready for quick deployment for emergency.  If I hadn't had the mainsail covered up, I could have quickly raised it along with the jib and safely sailed away from shore and all the way to the marina without the motor.
• I can call 911 around bigger cities and they have water rescue facilities that can get to me more quickly than US Boat.
• Un-clutter the boat inside and out.  When I was trying to move about quickly, little things got in my way and slowed me down in trying to keep control of the boat.  When I had the jib sail up trying to sail away from shore, Alison was desperately trying to keep all the "stuff" we had laying around on the table, counters, and shelves from falling all over the cabin floor.  In the process, she was being thrown back and forth by the rocking and rolling of the boat in the wind and will probably be bruised from some of the impacts.
• Stay as upwind of land as the channel allows when there is much wind. That will give me more time to react if something goes wrong.  I had been hugging the landward side of the channel to cut the corner shorter.  That meant when the motor quit, I was already near land.

The good thing is that this 3 week motor trip is putting the motor-and us- to the test.  If anything is going to break, I want it to break while I'm on the river and close to services.  

This blog isn't to be all about how wonderful sailing away is, without balancing it with the reality of the challenges that come with it. Sure, there are the days when we're sailing down the river on a beautiful spring day, singing a happy song as we sail along. But there will be days when things don't go so well.  I'm not the least bit discouraged and fully confident that we will be in the Keys in a few weeks, safe and sound.  Maybe a little bruised and a little wiser, but better sailors.  Then we can anchor the boat, relax and enjoy the rewards for our struggles.

Larry

South Pittsburg to Revere Ware anchorage

It's been another exciting day on the river for Happytat!  After I finished the post this morning, I got ready to throw off the dock lines on a stunningly beautiful morning. I had some of Angie's oatmeal cookies and tea, then I started the motor, put her in reverse and...nothing.  Motor running, transmission in reverse...no movement.  I'm stuck in the mud. It seems that while we were sleeping peacefully, TVA lowered the river levels a few inches, and I had no inches to spare.

Now, in all honesty, it was laziness on my part.  Last night, I was preparing to anchor in a little dip in the riverbank, but then saw a small dock a few yards away.  "If I can tie up to that dock,"says I, "it will be lot easier than lowering an anchor and having to pull it back up tomorrow morning."  Alison warned me against it, but I thought I could do it.  So I edged up closer and closer to the dock, watching my depth carefully: 14 feet, 12 feet, 8 feet, 6 feet, 5,4,3 feet and stop.  Now, I know that I need 6 feet to float my boat, but I figured that if I backed up just a couple feet, my keel would be in the 6-8 feet of water that I just passed.  So I backed up and she cleared the shallow water and was floating.  I tied her off and we went happily walking to Walmart and back, then went to sleep.

This morning, when I was unable to get free, I summoned my US Boat rescue number. A few months ago, I wisely bought a towing policy that gives me free towing should I get stuck.  I've used it twice now and it has paid for itself ten times over.  Within a half hour, a boat came to my rescue and pulled me back in to deep water.  We were on our way!  But it was already noon and we had many miles to go.  A few miles down-river, I came to a fork in the river.  The map wasn't handy, so I followed the most prominent set of river markers to the right. Wrong!  A couple miles later we saw a bridge that clearly was too low for our 52 foot mast.  I called Alison to the cockpit and we consulted about the problem.  After looking at the map, we concluded that I turned right when I should have turned left at the fork.  So we backtracked a couple miles to the intersection and made a u-turn to the right channel.

But my problems weren't over yet.  I had turned into the channel just ahead of a large towboat with a mile of barges in front of him.  It was like pulling onto an on-ramp and suddenly finding yourself on the Indianapolis 500 racetrack in your little Honda civic in front of a row of race cars heading your way.  Alison got on the VHF radio and talked to the tow boat captain who told us to pass "on the two whistle."  Now, I have found that, on the water, normal terms like "right" and "left" are never used.  Instead, we sailors use "port" for left and "starboard" for right.  But we had to look up "on the two whistle."  It means to pass on his starboard (right) side. So we stayed on his right and he soon passed us.  A few minutes later, we passed under a railroad bridge that had been raised to let us and the tow boat through.

I'm not given to getting upset about things usually and I didn't think I the past few minutes had caused me any particular stress, but my stomach started burning.  A couple Tums and a hot lunch brought to the cockpit by Alison settled it down fine.

Now let me catch up a little.

On Sunday, we were met on the fuel dock by family and friends who came to see us off.  Kyle and his friend Rob, Angie and Terry, Heather and Ron Landry, Becky Garner, and my brother Robby.  We were wished bon voyage by Andre, the marina owner, and Eric, the marina manager and by several friends we had made on the docks over the past year.  It was bittersweet leaving all of them, but the adventure beckoned.  As I rounded the final turn out of Sale Creek, I looked back to see what I think were Angie and Terry still there, watching us disappear around the bend.  Thank you all for coming to see us off!  It make the event seem even more special!

We didn't actually leave until about 3:00 pm Sunday and we were exhausted from the battle that was the past week to get ready to leave.  So we  cruised down the river for about an hour, eating the delicious oatmeal cookies Angie had given us as a going away gift, to Possom Creek and dropped our anchor.

Next morning, I ate some oatmeal cookies and tea, Alison brought up a delicious breakfast omlet with english muffins, orange juice and hot tea! Yum! Then we sailed down river past many memorable places.   It felt like we were saying to them: "See!  We really did it!  We're sailing past you right on to the Gulf!"  We sailed past Possom Creek where we had parked our RV for three months last year so we could be close to the boat to work on it.  We sailed past Privateer Yacht club where we bought our first sailboat, a sweet little Catalina 22 and learned a lot about sailing from some great people.  We sailed through the Chickamauga Dam locks that we had driven over in frantic traffic for many years.  We sailed by the seafood restaurant on Amnicola Highway where we sat many

Goodbye Beautiful Chattanooga!

Its hard work being a ship captain!

Enjoying the view.

Another dream fulfilled!  Our boat docked in front of the Aquarium.

Railroad bridge near South Pittsburg, raised for us to pass.

Peaceful harbor sunset at Revere ware anchorage.

Another peaceful harbor picture.

times at the open tables facing the river and dreamed of the day we would sail down it.  We sailed by the Riverpark that we had spent so many great times with our kids at.  We sailed by the Bluffview district where we had often stood on the overlook and dreamed of sailing down the river. We sailed by, then stopped at the docks at the Aquarium where I had stopped often and looked at the boats tied up to the docks and wondered if one day, I would have a boat tied up there.  We sailed around Moccasin Bend and under Lookout Mountain and marveled that we were really doing this!

We stayed that night a few miles past Moccasin Bend At Williams Island.

The next day was the most scenic day of the trip so far!  I ate some oatmeal cookies and tea, then we sailed through ferocious rapids named Tumbling Shoals, The Suck, Suck Shoals, The Pot, The Skillet and The Pan.  No kidding!  It's on the map!  There were no rapids, but these interesting named sections of river took us through the "Grand Canyon of the South".  I had always heard of it, and about the tourist boats that took people on Fall Color Cruises through this area.  But I guess I thought it was probably mostly hype.

It's not hype!  I've been to the Grand Canyon.  It's lovely and dramatic.  And I've been to Yosemite, and it's breath-taking.  But I felt as though I was cruising through a wonderland of beauty.  It compares in every way to the big names of Grand Canyon and Yosemite in beauty!  I turned off the motor and let the current slowly take us for a tour of this truly Grand Canyon.  We felt like talking above a whisper was too loud here. Alison and I both tried to take pictures so that we could bring this place with us, but it was futile.  There will be no pictures of this sanctuary.  I do not have the language to describe it.  But to have missed this lovely place would be a great loss!  And I know of no way to see it other than sailing your own boat down it.  I doubt a Fall Color Cruise would be capable of helping you experience the serene beauty of this wonderful place.  I'd LOVE to see it in the Fall though!

Shortly after that, we came to the lock at Nickajack and entered the Guntersville reservoir and then on to the aforementioned dock at South Pittsburg.

We have anchored in a little cove for the night and maybe for tomorrow night too.  The weather is predicted to be pretty severe tomorrow, so we'll play it safe and stay here till it's over.  After that, we'll be sailing to Huntsville Alabama.
That's all for now.  G'night!

Our first blog

Well, here it is, the first page of our highly anticipated (by a few family members) blog!
It is 8:33 am Wednesday.

We docked last night at a little wooden dock meant for fishing boats in South Pittsburgh at about 6:00 pm.  We needed a Walmart fix, so we put on our walking shoes and headed out.  As we were leaving the dock, a young couple were getting out of their pick up truck getting ready to go fishing in the river.  The young lady looked wide-eyed at the boat and asked us if that was our boat. Alison replied that yes, it was.  She said "We don't get that kind of boat around here. It's really cool!"  I felt like I had come from another planet and landed in my spaceship in this town.  They said Walmart was 3 or 4 miles down the road. So we took off walking confidently.

We finally made it to Kimball, a nearby town that I had visited many times on driving trips to middle Tennessee and Nashville. Our feet were hurting and we were hungry.  There were many restaurants close by, including a Cracker Barrel (our favorite), Shoneys and lots of fast food.  There is a KFC there that Dad used to drive from Cleveland to service their A/C and refrigeration equipment.  The Cracker Barrel was another 1/4 mile farther than the Shoneys, our feet hurt, so we chose Shoneys.  Mistake! Worst meal I've had  in a long time.

I had intended to hire a taxi to take us back to the boat, but it turns out, there are no taxis in the area, so we began walking back.  We were walking past a car parked in the lot with kayaks on top and a camper trailer in back.  The couple was still sitting in the car, so we stopped to explain to them that they remimded us of our car when we went on our cross country trip. They got out of the car to talk to us and it turned out that they were returning to Minnesota from living in the Florida Keys for several months. We told them that's where we were heading in our boat!  They were real excited and gave us lots of good information about the Keys and boat navigation software.  We talked about the Keys for at least 20 minutes in a Walmart parking lot in Kimball Tn!  Is that serendipity or what?  We walked back to the boat and fell into bed exhausted!

There's lots more I hope to put in the blog when there is time, but I'm anxious to get going this morning. Next stop is Huntsville, Alabama!  Since there is lots to see there, and there are thunderstorms predicted, we may stay a day there before continuing our journey.

Larry

In front of the Aquarium in Chattanooga

Chickamauga Dam Lock