Crossing Our Wake

Homeward bound, Friday, October 19th. Leaving the Tampa area after refueling, we decided that even Sarasota was not a sufficient attraction versus getting to Ft. Myers by going outside (in the Gulf) while the weather was tolerable. So, we returned again to the Gulf of Mexico and pointed the boat south. Because of shoaling around the entrance of both Tampa Bay and our destination Boca Grande, we were forced to go slightly offshore again into 4 ft plus rollers and the wind. By late afternoon, we rounded the marks and headed into Charlotte Harbor and past the old lighthouse at Boca Grande. (Picture). Inside and back in familiar waters we passed Captiva and Sanibel islands, down the “miserable mile” to Shell Point and finally up the river a few miles to marker 73 and the entrance to Gulf Harbour Marina. Passing our condo building and into a very quiet marina about 5:30 pm. We had returned and crossed our wake. As we turned to back into our slip, a group of friends greeted us with signs, cheers and liquid cheers. What a great surprise. It was good to get back and see old friends again.

Ned

P.S. Even though we’re not sure of the exact mileage, (it’s about 5,600 miles.), we did count 103 locks. I’ve told Judy not to total up the gallons of fuel because that would only give me a terrible headache……. But what a trip! We saw a lot of country and good friends along the way. And special thanks to Judy, who in spite of almost losing a toe in northern Michigan, had a positive attitude and was a great supporter. She was the one who went out on deck in wind, rain and rolling seas while I sat inside, high and dry. Thank you dear. We had the trip of a lifetime, …together.

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The Land of Shallow Water

Pardon the delay in updating this blog. It’s been several days without Internet connections and no pictures. (How do you take pictures of shallow water?) . We left Carrabelle on Wednesday morning after spending three days in that port, waiting for the weather (and waves) to calm down out in the Gulf of Mexico. Because the trip out into the Gulf is long, about a 160 plus miles to Clearwater, weather is quite a factor. If the weather were bad or your boat had trouble making a long jump like that, there was an alternate site about 80 miles away, called Steinhatchee, Florida. We headed out after being warned by the marina folks that it was not a good idea and that we’d probably return. Well they were right and it was lousy out there. Instead of returning to Carrabelle, we turned and plowed our way to Steinhatchee, running right into a strong easterly wind and waves. Terrible trip, but we made it only to arrive in the shallow water town of Steinhatchee at low tide. The marina where we intended to get fuel told us not to approach their dock, since the water level was too low, and instead directed us to a competitor where there was slightly more water. We did bump bottom but made it to their dock and got our fuel topped off for the long run the following day. Opting to stay at their fuel dock for the night (without any electric or water connection), they offered us the “loaner” truck and some instructions to “Roy’s”, the local fish house where the fresh grouper was delicious. Thursday morning we were underway after daybreak and headed out of Steinhatchee and out the five miles through “Deadman’s Bay” to slightly deeper waters, intending to run south to Clearwater. Because we were now on the eastern side of the Gulf and protected slightly by the Florida land mass, we hopped for a smoother ride. The only problem was that overnight, the wind had shifted to the southeast and again we ran into the wind and waves. It was a long run and because of the seas, we were forced to go slower, however we did arrive off Clearwater around 3:30 pm and felt that AWEIGH could go further toward Tampa Bay. Our original destination was The Vinoy Hotel and Marina, in St. Petersburg, but we found out that they were not reopening until November, so we ducked into Tierra Verde Marina near Bradenton. Bad choice, since their dock master told us he was going home at 5:00 pm and couldn’t help us dock and further, that the only slip available was only 16 feet wide. Now our boat has a beam (width) of 15 foot, 8 inches. That left all of 2 inches on each side. That’s a challenge, but we made it only in, only to find that there was no water available anywhere near our slip. To add additional insult, the following morning as we filled our fuel tanks, we discovered that their fuel was perhaps the most expensive price per gallon on the entire trip. As you can imagine, the decision was made to head for home and Gulf Harbour rather than spend more time in the Tampa area where we’ve been several times before. As Judy said, “We’re outa here” 

Ned

Yacht Sinking

Sunday evening in Carrabelle was exciting to say the least. After a quiet day in port waiting for the seas to calm down, we thought nothing much happens on Sunday. Wrong!
We had walked to the grocery store for a few things and stopped on our way back and started hearing the news on the waterfront. Two fishermen in a very small boat (19 ft.) had gone to sea on Saturday and apparently their boat had capsized in the heavy seas and they spent the night clinging to their overturned boat before being rescued Sunday afternoon. They were local men and one had seven children at home.
Later in the evening, as we were watching the 10 pm news on television, there was a thud and something hit the dock, causing our boat to rock. Rushing up on deck, we saw a large yacht, sinking by the stern and being tied up to the dock directly behind us. The boat, a 67 ft. Skipperkey yacht being moved to Ft. Lauderdale from Wisconsin, had taken on water in the engine room, while about 60 miles out at sea. The flooding caused the boat to lose all power and required that they issue a Mayday call to the Coast Guard, who responded with a spotter plane and a helicopter which dropped pumps. Of course all of this was in the middle of the night and in fairly rough seas. This was not weather related, but probably a mechanical problem. A nearby fishing boat was able to secure a tow line and all day Sunday was spent towing the vessel toward Carrabelle. When they arrived behind us, only the stern was flooded as can be seen in the first picture. The second picture shows the Coast Guard personnel talking to the delivery captains about 1am, which is when Judy and I went back to our boat and to bed.
Apparently during the night, in the course of trying to salvage the boat, several compartments were opened, which allowed additional flooding. The boat sank at the pier as shown in the third and fourth pictures and now will require extensive work to refloat. What a mess. The boat was a brand new $1.5 million dollar luxury yacht and will cost a small fortune to repair. We had intended to head out this morning, but hearing stories and seeing a boat sink, made us decide to stay in port at least another day and wait for things to calm down.

Ned Remember you can double click pictures to enlarge

House on a Boat!

After almost six thousand miles of travel, I thought we had seen just about everything until yesterday afternoon. After rounding the bend in a narrow stretch of water, near an area called the Marsh Swamp, we came upon a house on a boat! It was a frame cabin home built on a barge. There were six or seven guys on board having a great time as they traveled along. They waved and saluted us with cans of beer as we cruised by them.

The other sighting that thrilled the first mate was that of dolphins jumping right beside our boat! I tried to get a picture, but my trigger finger wasn’t fast enough! It is good to be back with the dolphins!

When we last blogged a few days ago, we were headed for Panama City, we thought, on an outside run. That did not happen because when we got out it was rather bumpy, so we “turned tail” and headed back to the Intra-Coastal to proceed on our way. Dockage, in Panama City was at a very nice marina, Bay Point. It is part of a Marriott Resort complex.

Yesterday we arrived in tiny Carabelle, FL and although it is sunny and pretty, we may be here for a few days waiting for the wind to shift direction or at least die down some before making our 170 mile crossing in the Gulf to Clearwater. Looking forward to getting down to central Florida where we may stop in St. Pete or area for a few days before finishing our journey.

Judy

A Visit with the Munroes

On Thursday morning, we got underway very early, about 6:30 am, and headed for the last lock, on our trip, number 103. Whew! No more locks. It was a good run of more than 100 miles before we entered salt water again. We cruised past Mobile, Alabama and into the long Mobile Bay. Half way down the bay, AWEIGH turned into a shallow channel leading to the Dog River Marina. It was more of a shipyard than a marina, but they had a loaner car which we borrowed to drive back into Mobile where we found a seafood restaurant next to the permanently moored battleship, USS Alabama.

The next morning, we arose later than usual, then headed down Mobile Bay to the Intercoastal Waterway and east toward Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, Alabama to visit with Hugh and Maria Munroe. We docked in a new marina and shopping complex called Marina at the Wharf. It was quite an impressive facility. We enjoyed visiting with the Munroes and seeing their lovely home and the surrounding area. This whole area is really growing fast.
Today, Thursday,Oct. 11th, we traveled a short distance to Pensacola and after docking, headed off to visit the Naval Air Museum. It was most interesting and four hours passed before we knew it.
Tomorrow, its off to Panama City. The weather forecast is very good so we plan to run outside. We are getting rather anxious to get back to Fort Myers!

Bobby’s Fish Camp

Today we covered 98 miles from Demopolis to Bobby’s Fish Camp. We moved right along and even got through the Demopolis Lock right away. We had to stop here at Bobby’s to insure we had enough fuel to run hard and cover the next 118 miles to Mobile. Yeah---civilization at last and ONLY one more lock---the last of the 103 locks on this Loop adventure. This part of the trip is what our grand daughter , Megan, would call boooring!
There is nothing to tell about Bobby’s Fish camp except it is a bunch of trailers and a fuel dock—it is kind of the armpit of Alabama. In fact, the picture almost makes it inviting, but you can’t see the old house trailers and the trash surrounding them. You dock yourself, walk up the hill and ask them to turn on the fuel. Then you fuel and walk back up and pay. Talk about slow fuel. There is no pump, it’s gravity fed. We’re tied up here for the night—no electric service and no water yet they charge for dockage. Thank goodness for the generator and our sufficient water tanks.
AWEIGH will leave here at dawn’s early light!
Judy

Big Blue in ‘BAMA’

Today, Sunday afternoon October 7th , finds us in Demopolis, Alabama at the Demopolis Yacht Basin and boy is it a stretch to call it a Yacht Basin We are here because it’s the only marina period. After fueling ourselves and docking ourselves, we took the loaner car to see the thriving metropolis of Demopolis. Enter Big Blue which was a navy Lincoln Continental Town Car. It doesn’t look so bad from the outside but the inside was dirty and trashed. All knobs were missing. The windshield wipers kept cutting on, the air conditioning was broken and the windows on my side (of course the first mate’s side) did not go down. And it was hot. (90 degrees plus). We laughed all the way to Walmart where we went to buy groceries and a newspaper. We asked the checkout girl for six quarters in change for the newspaper machine for the Sunday paper and that totally threw her. She said, “I didn’t know the paper cost $1.75” !!

Travel today was rather routine with trees etc along the river bank, until we came to one area where the shoreline was lined with white limestone in an area called The Cliffs of Epps. Quite interest and different.
I figured out today that so far, we have traveled 693 miles in two weeks, but of course, five of those days we did not travel at all for various reasons.
Tomorrow, it’s off to Bobby’s Fish Camp, the only place to stop before reaching Mobile
Bay. Bobby’s is a run of 98 miles and then Mobile Bay is another 100 miles from there.
Stay tuned!
The first mate



Car
Cliff of Epps

The Tenn-Tom

After leaving Aqua Yacht Harbor on Thursday, we headed south on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway which runs south to Mobile Bay. It is known as the Tenn-Tom and has 12 locks each of which is 600 feet long and 110 feet wide. The first lock, Whitten Lock, is the fourth highest in the United States and we went down 84 feet. The picture shows the nine story high lock doors opening. Late that afternoon, we docked at Midway Marina near Fulton, Mississippi—kind of the middle of nowhere. That evening we had a good fried catfish dinner at a small restaurant adjacent to the marina. It was all town folk there as we were the only transient boat in the marina. Friday dawned another hot sunny, day. We covered only 54 miles but transited four locks before arriving at the Columbus, Mississippi Marina . We borrowed the Loaner car and drove around a little to see this quaint southern town which has some old historic homes and the Mississippi University for Women. The first public college for women in America. After the Civil War, a group of Columbus women decorated graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers buried in Freindship Cemetery. This event started out as Decoration Day and was later adopted as National Memorial Day.

A new restaurant, Woody’s, was adjacent to the marina so we had dinner there. It was quite a nice place with white tablecloths and much more of a gourmet menu that one would expect at a marina restaurant. Today, Sat., it was again, hot and sunny. I don’t think I’ll be wearing the jeans and long sleeve shirts I brought expecting at least cool mornings and evenings somewhere along the way. I think we are to far south for that now.

We almost had an extra passenger when we left the Columbus Marina. The cat shown in the picture hopped up onto our bridge this morning and settled in for a time. Ned coaxed him off but he was quite a jumper and a few minutes later he was back. He had a cute personality, but no tail! Today we traveled 65 miles, and did two locks. Another slow day with fishermen out on the weekend. Tonight we are at an anchorage about 54 miles north of Demopolis, Alabama. The first mate thinks this river stuff is getting old and she is ready to get to Mobile Bay in a few days. First Mate

AWEIGH on the “hard”

Quick Note: We've had terrible problems getting Internet connections in small towns and remote anchorage locations. So, it's been almost a week since we were able to post. Sorry.
That’s a boaters description of taking a boat out of the water for storage or repairs. At noon on Tuesday, (October 2nd), we brought the boat to the boat yard and she was hauled out for inspection of the propellers. Interestingly, there was a large mass of 3/8” line wrapped around one shaft and the other prop was knocked slightly out of alignment. It’s critical that all three blades of a propeller be in perfect alignment. If one blade is out only a quarter of an inch, that will cause vibration, which can result in even worse problems. Fortunately, we carried a spare set of props that had been aligned, so they were installed. It still is a rather difficult job to break seventy pound propellers off their shafts, but the yard crew did a great job. After power washing the bottom of the boat and cleaning off the growth that starts on all boats, even in fresh water, they launched the boat and we returned to our transient slip. The attached picture shows the yard area where AWEIGH had the work done. Unfortunately, I left my camera on board and there was no way to get it off, so the picture does not show our boat “on the hard”. Later that afternoon, a man arrived to start working on our master stateroom head (toilet) which had failed shortly after we left Alton. Despite all my efforts, I could not solve the problem of the system’s failure to generate a vacuum. The vacuum pump is located under and behind an area that can only be accessed by crawling through a tiny hole. It required a small, thin man with the strength to work with one hand while supporting himself with the other and this yard had just the man. He worked for quite a while before the problem was isolated. It was not in the vacuum system, but in the line which ran under the floor. Over the years, the line had drooped down until it rubbed on the starboard drive shaft. It took years to wear through, but eventually a small hole was made which caused the problem. They somehow were able to change that section of piping and we were back in business again. Life is good now that the mater bathroom works even though we do have a second head forward on the boat. Enough of the technical stuff. Wednesday morning, Judy and I took one of the loaner cars and drove to nearby Shiloh National Park to visit the battlefield and visitors center. Shiloh was the site of a fierce Civil War battle involving 65,000 Union and 44,000 Confederate troops. Nearly 24,000 men were killed or wounded there in two days of fighting. It was very moving to walk through the National Cemetery and see so many unidentified graves.

Pickwick Lake

Leaving the anchorage, AWEIGH continued up the Tennessee River ( heading South) until we finally arrived at the Pickwick dam ( 65 feet up). The method of securing the boat in these big locks is interesting and sometimes challenging. We have to loop one end of a line around a floating bollard, that’s built into the lock wall. The other end gets attached to a cleat. Judy’s job is to lasso the bollard as we come alongside. Actually she’s getting pretty good. The picture was taken looking up the side of the lock in the slot where the floating bollard rises. It is like a six story building.

Pickwick Lake is a large man made lake (55 miles long) created by damming the Tennessee River. Although the river continues on for several hundred miles, we left the Tennessee and began the Tombigbee Waterway which runs four hundred miles down to Mobile Bay. Because of our boat problems, we elected to stay at a good service facility, known as Aqua Yacht Harbor. It is located right in the corner of Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi. We found this 600 slip marina and boat yard to be a first class marina with very capable, professional repair people.
After two nights at anchor, it was nice to hook up to power and water again. In order to get the work done, we needed two days there. The first evening at Aqua Yacht, we took one of their loaner cars and went to dinner with a couple from Indianapolis who are also doing the Loop.

Life on the Tennessee River

Sunday was another slow day on the Tennessee River with many recreational boaters and “good ole boys” out fishing. The captain made a decision to run the boat at a slow speed (8 knots) because of vibration problems at higher speeds. He thought our props might have snagged a floating line or maybe a prop was bent because we had hit a log on two different occasions. Once was on the Mississippi and the other on the Ohio River. These floating logs, called “dead heads,” are generally below the surface and so are difficult to detect. The plan was to get to Pickwick Lake where there were marine facilities to haul the boat.
Many times on the river we passed cottages built along the banks that reminded us of the places we stayed years ago at Ocean Isle beach in North Carolina. The one pictured here must have been built for the next 100 year flood because it was so high above the ground. At one point, we rounded a bend and saw cows coming down to the river for a drink. This was definitely a rural setting.

Again late in the afternoon, we found a peaceful anchorage behind an island called Swallows Bluff. Some young people were parasailing on the river nearby, ….. an unusual sight in the middle of nowhere. Along the way that afternoon, we discovered that our Direct TV antenna could still get local St. Louis stations so we took turns going below to watch the Rams go down to yet another defeat! That evening, we watched the Ken Burns PBS special called “The War”. Right in the middle of it, we lost the satellite signal so we played some cards the rest of the evening. Life isn’t very exciting these days but it is surprising how tired we are each night!

Green Turtle

When we last blogged, we were at Green Turtle Bay Marina and Resort
That Friday (September 28th), we stayed to have some minor plumbing work done, but because they did not have the parts needed, the repair didn’t happen. It was a beautiful day so we rented a golf cart from the resort and went to the little town of Grand Rivers, Kentucky, for an ice cream float and to pick up a few items at the local IGA store. Because we had the cart, we returned that evening with some boater friends to have dinner at Patti’s 1880 Settlement restaurant which features good country style cooking with huge portions. It was a challenge to drive the couple of miles down rural roads after dark to return to the marina.
Saturday dawned clear and warm. After fueling, we were underway about 9:30. We headed down Barkley Lake to the Barkley Canal cut which took us into Kentucky Lake. Since it was a weekend with beautiful weather, there were lots of fishermen and houseboats out on the Lake. We needed to proceed at a slower pace. The scenery was lovely and I could only imagine the beauty we would see along the tree lined shores, if the trees had started to turn color, but they had not. Kentucky Lake became the Tennessee River as we headed South, and even though we were heading South, we had to report our location to the few passing tows we encountered as “upbound”. The Tennessee River is one of a very few rivers in the United States that runs north.
Late that afternoon, we found a peaceful, secluded anchorage aptly called Birdsong Creek because it was near a rookery! An evening at anchor in a secluded spot, safe from the towboat traffic, was very relaxing and enjoyable!