Home for a bit

Staggering in to home plate

Because of the jammed traffic in Gulf Shores, it took us an hour and a half to get the few miles from Jim's house to Enterprise Rent-a-Car in Foley to turn in the Nissan Rogue we had rented in Paducah, KY.  Then we braved I-10 to get home about 6 PM, me with a raging intestinal infection.  Finally, about 9:30 PM I decided it was going to be me or the very painful infection, and I got some antibiotics in me and got some decent sleep for the first time in days.  Now we will watch the Mississippi River for our clue as to when we return to Pathfinder to resume our journey.  Until then, there will be no more entries here.

On the road - for real

Wednesday, 29 June 2017

TRAFFIC!

 I awoke at 0530 and decided that since I was not going to go back to sleep, Mary was just going to have to get up and get going too.  I had told her the night before that facing an almost 600-mile drive to Orange Beach to retrieve our pickup truck from brother Jim’s house that we would have to get going early.  By 0645 we were stuffed into our stuffed rented Nissan Rogue.  I don’t think we could have slipped a pancake into that vehicle it was so full.  We arrived safely in Orange Beach at 6 PM, and Mary has informed me that there will be no repetition of today’s zero-dark hundred departure.  We will transfer the mass of stuff from one vehicle to the other and then go to Foley to return the Nissan the Enterprise Rental Car.

A day of breathing hard

Tuesday, 27 June 2017

From zero to ninety in no time at all

 This was a day that just kept accelerating throughout the day.  It started with my quest to find the missing parts shipments amongst the chaos that is Green Turtle Bay’s three receiving systems, one each for FEDEX, UPS, and USPS.  Both packages I was looking for were addressed to Ken, the owner, rather than to me, but one was addressed to him “aboard Pathfinder,” and the darned staff still made no attempt over three days to contact the boat.  In the end, I had both packages by mid-morning.  With the new voltage now in hand I went to the GTB Boat Works office seeking technical help for the short job of replacing one Balmar regulator with another and was told it would be a week before they could help.  Unacceptable.  I went back to the boat, read the installation instructions and found that for four of the five wire connections I could simply pull the multi-plug out of the existing regulator and plug it into the new one.  The fifth connection took a few minutes to make and BOOM, I was done and ready to test the new installation which worked well.  Then I removed the alternator so that I could get it overhauled by Panama Alternator while we are home waiting on acceptable river conditions to continue the journey.  As I finished that job, one of the mechanics working on Mike’s big SeaRay knocked on the door to tell me they were about ready to start his waterlogged engine and go for a sea trial.  I went on down the pier .and ended up helping them by pushing the starter button for a few seconds at a time as they bled various lines.  They finally got the engine running discovering no injector damage as a result of water being run through them, LUCKY Mike.  We were supposed to go over to the fuel dock and load some fuel into the now-empty starboard tank but decided that on the way to the fuel dock, just a couple hundred yards distant, that we would take the boat out onto the Cumberland River to give the engine a thorough test at speed.  This SeaRay 450 Express with two 430-HP engines was interesting to handle because it literally leaps as the clutches are engaged when the boat is at a standstill.  I tried to ease out of the slip on one engine and found the boat very quickly charging toward one side of the slip, which I corrected with the bow thruster.  Once in the river, we threw a monstrous wake at the 1800 RPM the mechanics wanted, and I worried over the safety of nearby small fishing boats.  It was hard to find a clear area where we could run the engines up.  Eventually, we ran at 2100 to get to the speed Mike said he had been running, and the wake flattened out somewhat.  Back at the marina, we filled it up with three hundred gallons of diesel and put it back in the slip and called Mike to tell him of our success.  It turns out the source of water in the starboard tank was a loosely fitted fuel tank air vent on the side of the boat which allowed its external portion, mounted low on the hull, to turn its opening forward allowing it to scoop water into the tank when the boat runs at higher speeds.  He will return to GTB this coming Friday with his son as crew to take the boat up the Tennessee to its new home in Knoxville.  We finished mooring Mike’s boat just about the time Mary and I were scheduled to take the courtesy van on a 50-mile round trip to Paducah to pick up the rental car we had reserved for our trip home.  While I Paducah, we of course hit a quilting store for some purchases.  When we got back to GTB two hours later, I informed the marina manager that we were departing for a couple of weeks at which time he informed me this would be a problem since the boat needed to be moved to make space on the guest dock for the big Fourth of July weekend.  I told him I would gladly move the boat, but with the alternator out of it, I could not start its engine.  It was near quitting time for the marina staff, but he elected to use the tow boat they have to accomplish the job.  I ran to the boat and told Mary o vacate to the rental car while three of us used the tow boat to move the boat across the cove to another pier.  By this point, it was dinner time, and Mary and I went to the yacht club for something to eat before returning to the boat to begin packing the car.  We finished that task about midnight ending one very busy day!

Going Postal!

Monday, 26 June 2017

So where is my part? 

Today was the day I expected to get take delivery of the new voltage regulator the Ken bought online, but after numerous frustrating checks of the three offices at this marina where mail can wind up, I am left with a USPS tracking number which says it was delivered to “Parcel Locker” in Grand Rivers, the local municipality.  I can only now assume, after hours, that this refers to the local post Officer, open 10 AM to 2 PM.  Ugh!  I am going out there tomorrow morning and see what they know.  This evening, while Mary and I were in Eddyville and a so-so quality catfish restaurant, Mike Sullivan called to report that the mechanics will have all the contaminated fuel pumped from his starboard tank after which he wants me to conn his boat over to the fuel pier on its on remaining engine and bow thruster where we will put a hundred gallons of diesel fuel into the 200-gallon tank t balance the boat out with the 100 gallons already in the port tank.  Then the mechanics are going to try to restart the starboard engine after which I wll take the boat back to its transient slip, hopefully with two engines to maneuver with.

Sunday workday

Sunday, 25 June 2017

Every day some work to do

Ken and I talked some more about his planned AIS installation, and I spent time researching how to install a NMEA 2000 network to support it.  Then I sent the results of my research to him and to Doug Miller, CEO of Milltech where the AIS and all its connections will be purchased.  Doug responded to several questions I emailed in on a Sunday afternoon!  Our friend Mike Sullivan and his crew departed for home in Knoxville leaving his semi broken down SeaRay 450 Express here awaiting mechanical help to clean the starboard engine of all the water in its fuel system.

It's YOU!!

I AM Rich Gano!

 

So back in 2006 when we were up the Tennessee River around Huntsville, a fellow Trawler email List member heard me calling to the marina on the radio using the Calypso’s call.  It was mike Sullivan and wife Pat who quickly retrieved their anchor and came into the marina to meet us.  We had a nice visit and invited them over for waffles the next morning – it was our only face-to-face meeting.  They were completely enamored of our small waffle maker that we gave them a spare one we just happened to have aboard.  Over the years since, on the odd occasion we email each other directly, one or the other of us asks how the waffles are.  Mike got wind of our being in this area and said he would be rolling by here delivering his new-to-him boat to Knoxville.  He was not planning on stopping here because he needed to get his crewman back to work on Monday and needed to make a lot of time.

Today, I was sitting in the marina office to get some decent wifi, and some boat called in with an engine casualty and said he was coming in on one engine.  I did not hear all the radio conversation, but the marina staff were concerned about the boat making it into a safe landing in part because they were understaffed.  I volunteered to help out over at a nice long easy-to-approach pier across from where Pathfinder is moored.  One other dockhand and I helped the boat get moored, and I hung around to chat with the owner about his engine woes but never aw the name of the boat on the stern.  I ended up down in the engine room looking around for him and found the trouble was water in his fuel as evidenced by Racor filter bowls o that engine being full of water.  At one point as I was dispensing invaluable advice I felt it incumbent on me to mention that I did not work for the marina and that I was just passing through taking this trawler to Lake Michigan.  At this point, the owner said, “Are you with Rich Gano?” to which I replied, “I AM Rich Gano!”  Mike Sullivan and I just did not recognize each other after a one day acquaintance 11 years ago!

Mary and I checked out the marina van and took Mike and his crewman to dinner.  Poor Mile is going to have to leave the boat here and go home and handle the dewatering of his fuel system by the boat works here at long distance.

 Owner Ken emailed me with some questions about adding AIS to the boat today, and it is apparent that he may be getting ready t send one here for me to install.  We did not see the new voltage regulator today in the mail; so maybe Monday.  Then it will be a challenge to get the boat works to install it so Mary an I can go home for a bit.

An interim plan

Friday, 23 June 2017

Plan for waiting

Discussions with “our owner” have resulted in a plan we all think will work.  Firstly, he had the great idea of emailing the “help” address given on the River Gages web site of the Corps of Engineers (the people who control locks and dams and dredging of the inland rivers) asking for Mississippi River current flow information.  The problem with the COE data is that it never tells what speed the currents are flowing.  They seem to think more in terms of water levels and cubic feet per minute of water released.  What he got back from his query was estimated current speed in miles per hour based upon several specific water levels at St Louis, which is really helpful to us in determining when to leave this marina to head for the Mississippi.  The owner thinks that it would be fruitless to try to get up the river unless we can expect to make around 5 MPH over the ground, and based upon the engineer’s data, that is not going to be possible for a few weeks to come.  So we plan to get the alternator regulator the owner has ordered installed and tested and then rent a car to drive home from which we can observe the COE River Gages site.  We will be driving home via Orange beach where we will turn in the rental car and get into our pickup which was left at Jim’s house and dive home after spending the night there.  Once it is determined that we should head back up here, we will drive the pickup back here to Green Turtle Bay and leave it parked here while we head north on the boat.  Once we have delivered the boat to the owners, we may assume “drivership” of the rental SUV they will be driving and return 400 miles to Green Turtle where we will transfer our belongings into our pickup and proceed upon our merry way.

At Green Turtle Bay in The Land Between The Lakes

Thursday, 22 June 2017

Beginning the long wait

 This is the halfway point of our journey and the place which we selected as close enough to the Mississippi to glean knowledge of its condition from others who have recently done it.  After talking with a fellow who just pulled in after coming down the Mississippi and another experienced captain here in the marina, it is apparent from these conversations that our earlier investigations are confirmed and that traveling upstream with river gage levels above 20 feet at Cape Girardeau is not feasible in this boat.  I have shipping information from Ken the owner on the new alternator voltage regulator, and the local canvas maker came by this morning to scope the bug screen job Ken wants done.  I was glad to put the two of them together on the phone and to step out from being the middleman.  Hopefully, the regulator can get here and be installed by early next week, and the screen work can be ongoing so that Mary and I can go home to for a bit of change of pace and to check on our home.

Last day underway for a while

Wednesday, 21 June 2017

Last day underway before our intermediate destination

Since I was awake anyway, I decided that we were leaving Cuba landing about 20 minutes early, and we had an uneventful ride for the last ninety miles to Green Turtle Bay Resort Marina as we watched the river widen out from a waterway to a real lake.  Concomitantly, our speed bled off a bit down to 9.0 MPH, but we got in here to the fuel dock at about 3:30 PM and took on 223 gallon of diesel fuel after 107 main engine hours and 746 miles of travel.

Racing barges and Tropical Storm Cindy

Tuesday, 20 June 2017

Bowling along with a following current

Finally, a day in which we were not pushing this slow boat against a current – we got a bit of a push.  We got underway at 0650 this morning just because I was ready ten minutes earlier than planned, and it was a good thing too, because we had to “race” ahead of a double-wide barge tow to get to Pickwick Landing Lock and Dam before it did.  I called the lock operator on the cell phone about ten minutes after we got underway to tell him we were an hour away and to see what traffic was like.  That’s when he informed me about the big tow which was going to take three hours to lock through and that I needed to get there in about forty minutes if we were to have a chance of squeaking through before the big guy.  I pushed the throttle as far forward as I was comfortable with, and as we popped out of Yellow Creek into the Tennessee proper, there he was, a BIG tow on our starboard beam.  We turned 90 degrees to port and headed downstream toward the lock peddling as fast as we could go.  Luckily he was so slow we beat him to the lock and got through in good order.  Our one hundred mile ride down the Tennessee with over one mile per hour favorable current saw us running at 9.5 MPH or better all day.  We saw a rather narrow stretch of waterway for a number of miles with little to recommend for viewing followed by a widening river with many fine homes amongst very dramatic rock formations and bluffs.  Besides the “loser” in our race to the lock, we saw only one tug and tow headed in the opposite direction.  One other faster yacht overtook us going downstream, and we saw a few dozen bass-boats or pontoon boats all day.  We slid into home at 1800 here at Cuba Landing Marina from which we will depart at 0600 tomorrow morning in order to get to Green Turtle Bay Resort Marina by about 1530.  Thus will be accomplished the goal of arriving there before the effects of Tropical Depression Cindy on Thursday/Friday.

A day at Aqua Yacht Harbor

Monday, 19 June 2017

Enjoying Aqua Yacht Harbor

 We elected for a day of regrouping here and just enjoyed dinner with friend Lynn Flatt who came over from nearby Miche, TN.  We took the courtesy van about 20 miles east of here to tiny Iuka, MS to do some shopping and have a little lunch.  We are watching the development of Tropical Depression 3 ad its predicted track to dump a bunch of water on us by Friday.  We plan to leave here at 0700 tomorrow and hopefully get through Pickwick landing Lock in good order before starting the 190-mile downstream run to Green Turtle Bay Resort.  We are hoping for a good stiff current to carry us along the trip in just two days. Had a long talk with owner Ken Price and a Balmar technician over the fact that the old, obsolete voltage regulator will not respond to heavy uses of 12 volt power from the house bank to recharge it.  We will probably be installing a modern one while in GTB.

Done with the Tenn-Tom

Sunday, 18 June 2017

A not so sweltering day

We ran the generator and air conditioning today –sooo much better.  I don’t think we could have taken today with the same old following wind and stifling humidity without AC.  We got to the top of the Tombigbee Waterway today near where it tees into the Tennessee River.  We were underway at 0810 and moved through three locks at 54 miles of waterway to arrive here at Aqua Yacht Harbor by 6:10 PM. Gonna stay here for two nights while weather improves before heading down the Tennessee to Green Turtle Bay Resort to await the Mississippi.

Holy hotcakes is it HOT!

Saturday, 17 June 2017

A sweltering day

We got underway at 6 AM from good ol’ Clumbus Marina and ran 60 miles of waterway through four locks to arrive at Midway Marina at 4:30 PM.  We did try to race around and ahead of a tug with eight barges to the last lock, but we could not get far enough ahead of him to give the lock tender time to get us through and the lock returned to a ready condition for the tow.  So we had to sulk around for about an hour to get through.  It was a tough day heat-utowise because what little breeze there was came from astern leaving us sweltering in still, muggy, 91F air.  I did not run the generator to get the air conditioning running because of a couple of reasons, one being I wanted to see how the battery charging system worked out underway.  The house bank did not get much charge from the alternator whose power was run to the main engine starting battery and thence to an automatic charging relay (ACR), and I think the reason was the high demand made on it kept its voltage below the level where the ACR would close and shoot it some charge.  Tonight, after a few hours of ventilation of the engine room, I braved the heat and changed the alternator output directly to the house battery.  We’ll see how this arrangement works out of our way to Aqua harbor marina at the head of the Tombigbee Waterway where it tees into the Tennessee River, about 54 miles and three locks away.  Now we two live in the house of regret over the Mexican dinner we scarfed down tonight at Mi Toro in Fulton, MS.

A little techy but ready to roll

Friday, 16 June 2017

Ready in all respects for sea – at last

 

Today turned out to be a banner day, but it was not always apparent because there were ups and downs along the way.  I ran to the nearest auto parts store early and got a hydrometer to test the battery cells of the house bank and found them all to be OK.  Then Glenn Miller, the mechanic showed up around 11 AM with the repaired generator starter and the new gaskets for the exhaust manifold.  I had been troubleshooting the battery charging system trying to figure out what electrons were going where when he showed up and had to hurriedly put things back together so we could have lights and ventilation in the engine room.  He finished up about 2 PM after running the generator for a few minutes to ensure all cooling connections were good and the coolant and oil were at correct levels.  I went back to my troubleshooting intending to give the generator a more thorough test of a couple of hours after finishing my battery charging work.  Before Glenn showed up, I had narrowed my focus to a battery cable about as big as your thumb running from the main engine starter on the same post as the positive power cable from the starter battery to the center post of the multi-position switch which is used by the operator to pick the battery or batteries used to power all the 12-volt systems on the boat from potable water pump to GPS/radar.  This cable connection made NO sense because it was supplying power to a place which is designed to SEND power along to the end use.  Ken Price, the owner, and I have discussed this cable and elected at the time to leave it alone since the boat seemed to be running OK, but once the Pathmaker automatic battery charge router quit on us, changes needed to be made because even with the new automatic charging relays I had installed the main engine would not charge all batteries.  Once I removed this odd cable from the switch, all was sweetness and light with the charging system with the main engine, shore power, and generator power all able to charge the batteries.  You sorta hadda be there to understand the intensity my sweaty smile.  So with that finally solved after about nine days, I turned to testing the generator.  I started it up and switched from shore to generator power and loaded it up with a two of the three air conditioners and the water heater, and it ran, for an hour.  Then as I was opening the hatch beside Mary’s feet to go down to look it over, the danged thing suddenly stopped.  OH SH___!  I let it cool for a while before attempting to troubleshoot but could find nothing to indicate way the generator quit.  I finally decided that the high-heat shutdown switch might have been remounted by Glenn just a bit differently from how we had found it when we disassembled the exhaust system last week.  I realigned it bit and restarted the generator and ran it for an hour and a half checking all over the machine with my IR thermometer finding no temperature higher than 174F before calling it good.  I called the office to get our bill ready, and we are now ready to go tomorrow headed for Midway Marina 60 miles up the river.

Messing about

Wednesday, 14 June 2017

A long day doing boaty work

The battery charging parts I ordered online and a small power supply for a video camera in the engine room arrived yesterday.  T, the manager of the marina helped me cut and terminate each of the six power cables needed, and I got to work around 5 PM and finished up putting the new system in and pulling the old one out about 11 PM.

Still no word on the needed generator part.  Looks like we’ll be here bit longer.

Working away in the marina

Wednesday, 14 June 2017

A long day doing boaty work

The battery charging parts I ordered online and a small power supply for a video camera in the engine room arrived yesterday.  T, the manager of the marina helped me cut and terminate each of the six power cables needed, and I got to work around 5 PM and finished up putting the new system in and pulling the old one out about 11 PM.

Still no word on the needed generator part.  Looks like we’ll be here bit longer.

A quiet day in the neighborhood

Monday, 12 June 2017

A quiet day in the neighborhood

 

The few weekend boaters and the fishing tournament folks are gone, and the Columbus Marina once again slumbers in the summer sun.  The folks on Fruition across the pier just left in their car which they retrieved from Orange Beach on Saturday and will be gone for a couple of days leaving Mary and me the only humans on the large covered pier.  The purple martins, however, are a very buy community as the numbers flitting pairs have set up housekeeping in a couple of neglected vessels.  There is a lot of activity to watch as they feed their young and make a thorough mess of the areas below their nests, which look like swallow nests just sort of muddy messes glued to the underside of boat overhangs.

UPS tells me on my computer that the automatic charging relays I ordered to modify the DC electric charge system aboard Pathfinder are here in Columbus; so I pay attention to the parking lot next to the marina office across the way for a big brown truck.  Then I will be busy over at the marina shop making charging cables.

Later:  The exhaust gaskets or the generator are here, but the solenoid for the starter is not yet here.  Maybe tomorrow.  The automatic charging relays are here, but I still have fuses and wiring on order to complete the battery charging installation.

Mary and I took off in the courtesy van for a few hours today to get some miscellaneous boat parts and a bit of general shopping for Mary.

When we got back there was an 80-foot yacht tied up at the guest pier with a bent prop.  I went over and sat on the edge of the pier for a couple of hours watching the marina manager and the mechanic Glen Miller dive on the boat to remove the five-bladed 36-inch prop using a tool the vessel carried aboard called a Prop Smith.  I found it entertaining as well as educational.

Another sport heard from

Saturday 10 June 2017

A Bass fishing tournament

Here we are all snug under cover.  The local excitement today was a bass fishing tournament.  The docking for weigh-in was conducted over at the transient pier where we were moored the first night here.  The bass fishing tournament director and his crew roll into town with a big trailer with a fold-down stage where the director conducts business at the end of fishing.  There is a large parking and ramp area about a mile from the marina where the boat are launched.  Each boat is given a little float with a number on it, and the boats are sent off in “flights of 25 or so boats and given a time eight hours hence when they must present their float and have their LIVE bass catch bagged in a special bag to be carried by the fisherman up to the scales under a tent set up alongside the trailer.  After being weighed, the fisherman walks back to the pier with his bagged fish where the fish is released.  After all the weigh-in is completed, the director calls out the name of the putative winner, and the two of them walk down to the pier for a thorough inspection of the boat to ensure it meets all tournament equipment regulations and that no unauthorized equipment is aboard which would give the fisherman and unfair advantage.  The prize money depends on how many are entered, 109 boats in this case – at $300 apiece entry fee.

If you do not own one of these 50-80 thousand dollar fishing machines but want to be in the tournament, you can register as a “non-boater,” and you will be assigned to a boat by lottery unless you preregistered some months ahead and “link” to your boat-owner buddy.  The boat owner has control of your fishing while you are aboard, and call tell you as a non-boater to sit down and not fish anytime.

So much regulation – sheesh.  But it was fascinating to watch and talk to the people involved.

Mary and I took the courtesy van into town to eat lunch at the Grill at Jackson Square and for her to hunt up a couple of what turned out to be nonexistent fabric shops.

Boat-wise, I measured out the lengths of 1/0 battery cable needed to complete the battery charging modifications I will install using two ACRs.  I came up with 40 feet total which I placed on order with the marina manager.  I also fixed a couple of drawers which were trying to droop when pulled out due to broken track guides.  I found a couple of new-in-the-package guides aboard which I used to repair the situation.

The generator starter solenoid was bit of a challenge to the marina manager to find, but it is on its way from Florida.  The exhaust manifold gaskets should be here in a couple of days.  The generator should go back together in a couple of hours once all the parts are here.

Tomorrow will be a mostly waiting day unless I can find some more stuff to do aboard Pathfinder.

The Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau, our reference point, is now not expected to go below 20 feet above the zero gauge level until 27 June.  It is approximately 6 steaming days to Green Turtle Bay (one steaming day from the Big Muddy) where we have planned to wait on the river to come down; so even if we completed all repairs tomorrow and left the next day on the 12^th, we’d be sitting at GTB for over a week.

Covered for now

Friday, 9 June 2017

A bit of better news – we’re covered for now

A skinny mechanic called in by “T” Caldwell the marina manager here at Columbus Marina came today and tore into the generator.  What at first blush looked to me like a crack in the exhaust manifold was actually the engine side of the manifold backing out of the engine due to loosened nuts on the studs which secure it in place.  BIG relief not to be looking for that part, because it is unfindable for this 30-year old generator.  T got busy with his parts supplier and in a half hour found the necessary gaskets needed for when we replace the manifold on the engine.  While back there digging around on the generator, the mechanic also found the starter had a burned up positive lead on the solenoid; so the out came the starter and into the back of the mechanic’s truck.  This may have been the source of the burning electrical smell we experienced the other day.

Next to the problem of no charging current getting to the house battery from the alternator.  The battery charged up just fine on the inverter’s battery charge last night; so that side of things is OK.  Had the generator been working, I could have charged the battery using the inverter’s charger while underway, but that method was also not available.  So the plan now is to install two Blueseas automatic charging relays (ACR), one between the main engine star battery and the house batteries, and one between the main engine battery and the generator starting battery.  T can make the battery cables for me right here at the marina’s work shop.

Today at 1100 I moved the boat from the guest dock to a covered, and I didn’t even have to lower the mast.  So we are good for the time being while we await further developments with the generator.

Some days it's just stones

Thursday, 8 June 2017

Some days it’s just stones

Woke up at 0500 intending to get going for Columbus Marina 48 miles distant at first light around 0545 only to see a tow trudging on by our anchorage northbound toward the Tom Bevill Lock just 20 miles up the waterway.  Nuts, there was no way we were going to catch up to him and bypass him and get in the lock and locked through before he would arrive there with his sledge-hammer priority over us recreational vessels.  There was nothing for it but to meekly follow him up to the lock and wait, and wait some more.  We ended up sitting around so long that our anchorage buddy who had intended getting underway around 0730 caught up with us and locked through with us around 0930.

As we exited Bevill Lock, we got the unwelcomed news from the operator that our next lock at the Stennis Dam was going to be out of service for a few hours, but that did not bother us too much since we were 30 miles away and could just cruise along at our usual 7 MPH and take the lock as it reopened.  Well, as we closed in on the lock the operator encouraged us to speed up and get ahead of the tow which was now about a mile ahead and going slowly.  We two boats rounded a bend running as fast as we could expecting to see the tow and saw nothing.  Another call to this not so sharp operator revealed that no, the repairs were not yet complete.  In the end, what could have been a 1330 passage of the lock ended up being about a 1700 passage.  We idled away the time drifting, poking our noses into embayments alongside the channel to escape the current, and finally anchoring with pathfinder hanging onto Fruition who actually dropped the anchor.

Along the way, it became evident that the house bank of batteries the ones which run the refrigerator, navigation electronics, and just about every other thing except starting the engine was not being recharged.  Something in the obsolete automatic charge routing system had given up.  I switch the engine starting batter, which was getting charging voltage from the alternator into parallel in order to get us here to Columbus Marina where we finally arrived shortly after exiting the Stennis Lock.

Our trip odometer on one of the chart plotters passed 400 miles today.  Just another thousand to go.

A pluperfect day until..

Wednesday, 7 June 2017

A pluperfect day, that is until….

Underway at 0640 before one of the crew was out of her bunk.  Another larger faster vessel, the Fruition, had planned to get underway at 0800, and I spent a lot of the day looking behind us for them.  The weather was JUST perfect, the kind of cruising weather one wishes for and never gets, except today, coolish and with a dry air breeze in our faces.  Shorts and tee shirt weather.  Go up on the flying bridge weather.

Never saw a single barge tow and only 3 or 4 bass boats all day.

The Helfin Lock was 50 miles distant, and I was thinking Fruition was going to pass us by and lock up first, but they showed up astern just as I was calling the lock operator an hour out on the cell phone.  The lock operator said he would “reverse the lock” for us meaning he would lower the water and open the downstream gates so we could cruise right in.  I told Fruition that, and they elected to slow down and follow us into the lock.  About 15 minutes later, we heard a southbound recreational vessel call the lock to lock down, but by then, my cell call had gotten him moving water and gates to our advantage, and the southbound guy had to wait about an hour for us to get into the lock and locked up.

Mary made it known that she desired to get into Columbus Marina tomorrow early enough to visit a local quilting store, that that idea wasn’t going to work with my original idea of anchoring  Sumter Park at MM 270.  So we trudged on along to MM 286 where we anchored in Windham Cutoff at 1700, astern of the Fruition.  70 miles in 10 hours and 20 minutes – 6.77 measly miles per hour.

Our plan for tomorrow is for us in Pathfinder to get underway a half hour before Fruition for the 20-mile run to Tom Bevill Lock and Dam so that we may arrive simultaneously, or nearly so and lock through together.  Hopefully, the lock operator and any commercial traffic (which has priority over us) will get with Mary’s ideas and let us pass through the lock expeditiously so we can mosey on up to Columbus at a decent hour.

And now, to go into the furnace of an engine room and check the main engine over.  Looks like we used 27 gallons of diesel today at 1800 RPM or 2.6 GPH.

And then I tried to start the generator to cool us off a bit, and found it to have a crack exhaust port into the exhaust manifold – no generator.  Luckily the weather has turned cool in the evening, and there are surprisingly few bugs.  We taped a portable fan I brought along in front of a screen for the open aft hatch into our sleeping and ran it on the inverter until 0100 in the morning when I had to turn it off due to it getting too cold in there!

What a day

A pluperfect day

Underway at 0640 before one of the crew was out of her bunk.  Another larger faster vessel, the Fruition, had planned to get underway at 0800, and I spent a lot of the day looking behind us for them.  The weather was JUST perfect, the kind of cruising weather one wishes for and never gets, except today, coolish and with a dry air breeze in our faces.  Shorts and tee shirt weather.  Go up on the flying bridge weather.

Never saw a single barge tow and only 3 or 4 bass boats all day.

The Helfin Lock was 50 miles distant, and I was thinking Fruition was going to pass us by and lock up first, but they showed up astern just as I was calling the lock operator an hour out on the cell phone.  The lock operator said he would “reverse the lock” for us meaning he would lower the water and open the downstream gates so we could cruise right in.  I told Fruition that, and they elected to slow down and follow us into the lock.  About 15 minutes later, we heard a southbound recreational vessel call the lock to lock down, but by then, my cell call had gotten him moving water and gates to our advantage, and the southbound guy had to wait about an hour for us to get into the lock and locked up.

Mary made it known that she desired to get into Columbus Marina tomorrow early enough to visit a local quilting store, that that idea wasn’t going to work with my original idea of anchoring  Sumter Park at MM 270.  So we trudged on along to MM 286 where we anchored in Windham Cutoff at 1700, astern of the Fruition.  70 miles in 10 hours and 20 minutes – 6.77 measly miles per hour.

Our plan for tomorrow is for us in Pathfinder to get underway a half hour before Fruition for the 20-mile run to Tom Bevill Lock and Dam so that we may arrive simultaneously, or nearly so and lock through together.  Hopefully, the lock operator and any commercial traffic (which has priority over us) will get with Mary’s ideas and let us pass through the lock expeditiously so we can mosey on up to Columbus at a decent hour.

And now, to go into the furnace of an engine room and check the main engine over.  Looks like we used 27 gallons of diesel today at 1800 RPM or 2.6 GPH.

Fixing problems before thy are

Tuesday, 6 June 2017

Detecting problems before they are

Up to this point, generator checks have consisted of looking at the level of the coolant recovery bottle and the oil dip stick before starting.  Being somewhat of a belt and suspenders type, I wanted to double check the coolant level at the source.  So I reached back to lift the radiator cap and noted the heat exchanger was loose in its saddle mount.  I pulled the top of the sound shield off and found the two worm gear clamps broken.  I will be headed over to the chandlery to get three suitably sized clamps because the box of clamps on board contains nothing big enough.  I would like to find some sort of cushion materiel to go between the saddle and the heat exchanger too.  The concern here is that with the heat exchanger beating up and down in the saddle, its thin wall would eventually rupture with all the attendant catastrophe.

I went over to the boatyard section of this place and ran into Fred, the owner, who cut me off a piece of old firehose which I sliced open to make a pad for the saddle under the heat exchanger.  I bought three clamps (one for spare) large enough to go around the saddle and exchanger and strapped it all back together.  The broken clamps were not old and decrepit looking by any means (although two short ones had been used to make up one big enough to encircle the heat exchanger), and I begin to think they broke from the forces of expansion of the heat exchanger as the generator warmed up.  The break was in the solid stainless steel section midway around the clamp where you would think they were strongest.  I did not really honk down of the new ones, and hopefully the cushioning effect of the firehose will aid in preventing more breaks.

We went to a little unique restaurant called The Bistro on the small town square for our 19th anniversary dinner.

Underway early tomorrow headed for Sumter City park anchorage 56 miles distant.

What is Cruising?

What's that burning smell?

Saturday, June 3, 2017

What’s that burning smell?

This title suggested itself to me this morning when we smelled burning electrical insulation shortly after reentering the river from our overnight anchorage.  We immediately shut down the engine while I checked out the engine room.  I discovered a stronger smell there but nothing obvious came to my attention.  The generator had been off for several hours, and no heavy demands were being made of the inverter.  We restarted and returned to the anchorage and dropped the hook at short stay while we shut down again as I investigated further.  Still nothing obvious.  As I write this two hours earlier and after frequent engine room checks, the smell persists as I guess one would expect of something like charred insulation, but the boat is running fine, and all systems continue to operate.  My next plan is to get into Demopolis tonight, cool the engine room down, and thoroughly go over all batteries and cables looking for issues tomorrow.

 

In regard to electrical and specifically engine room fire suppression, there is none installed.  The three dry chemical extinguishers are fine for fires in the topside spaces, but opening an engine room hatch to fight a well-stared fire (there is no automated detection system) with a dry chemical extinguisher would be hazardous to the fire fighter and useless in the end while damaging all the wiring insulation down there from the corrosive effects of the dry chemical agent.

 

Up the Creek

Later on Friday – UP THE CREEK

Well now we are LANDLOCKED – we have passed through the first lock at Coffeeville Dam 116 river miles north of Mobile.  We no longer have unfettered access to the sea, oh my!  We got to the lock at 1 PM and the lock master kindly let us through, even though he had to lower the water he had been saving in the lock to handle a southbound barge tow.  He figured he had enough time to spare, and it worked well.  We were free of it by 1345.  Whew, one down and about 19-20 to go.

We arrived here at Bashi Creek (no cell/hot spot coverage) at 1715 after our 0540 departure from Three Rivers and were a bit disconcerted to see two larger yachts tied side by side just inside the entrance, but we talked to them and just eased by them to move a few hundred feet up into this very narrow creek where we dropped a bow and stern anchor to hold us in place.  There is enough room for a bass boat to idle past us, barely.  We saw a few tows today, very little debris this side of the lock and maybe a quarter mph of head current.

Tomorrow, we intend to leave here at MM 145 and proceed to Demopolis at MM 216.to stay in the marina there for two nights.  That 71-mile jaunt includes transiting the Demopolis Lock a couple of miles before the marina.  The main reason we will be there two nights because we have some items the new owners wish us to place on the boat one of which is a replacement microwave oven.  Mary will be so happy to be able to heat her coffee water in less than the thirteen minutes it now requires in this dying nuker.

Speaking of river miles, the Tombigbee Waterway has a traverse which twists and turns like a snake with a broken back.  So I got on the computer and measured a straight line from the top of the Tombigbee WW where it joins the Tennessee River down to Mobile where it starts and got 300 miles.  Well, guess what friends, the actual number of RIVER miles one travels on this wonder from bottom to top is 450!  Photo is from my laptop computer's Coastal Explorer navigation software.

First lock

Our first lock of this trip

We got underway from Three River Lake just off the river at 0540 today in just enough hazy, dark visibility to find our way through the trees which crowd the narrow channel into the lake.  Today were are going from MM 64 to MM116 at the Coffeeville Lock and Dam.  We should arrive there about 1240.  After that we have the option to tie up at Bobby’s Fish Camp at MM 118 or go on to Bashi Creek to anchor at MM 145.

And above is what it looks like entering Coffeeville Lock. 

Delivery first day underway

Wednesday, May 31 2017

First day underway

We got underway from Jim’s pier at 0707 and arrived at The Wharf fuel pier at 0830.  There we executed what had to be one of the fastest refuelings ever.  I had previously polished as much fuel from port tank to starboard as would squeeze into the stbd tank.  Thus we ran with a list of a few degrees for that first leg.  So I had room for about 100 gallons in the port tank, which took all of 15 minutes to pump.

I was glad to be moving again so quickly because afternoon storms were predicted to move across Mobile Bay.  With an 8-mile per hour boat, we would be hard pressed to escape an oncoming storm.  As it was there was a marine warning issued for our area as we neared the mid-point of our four-hour transit of the bay, and we watched as the horizon to the southwest darkened and began to rain on us.  I veered out of the 13-foot water which covers most of the bay an into the ship channel so as to be in deep water if we got hit with the strongest winds predicted.  Shallow water heaps up fast and dangerously in strong winds. 

By the time we were closing the industrial waterfront where the channel narrows, I was having to hand steer because the winds from astern were heaping up the water to 2-3 foot waves making it difficult for the autopilot to keep up.

At 1617, we made our first day’s goal of an anchorage in Briar Creek off the Tennsaw cutoff which in turn is about a mile off the Tombigbee waterway.  It is rather exotic here with swamp all around and some strange vee-tailed birds I have never seen before.  We get some TV but not enough connectivity to get a mobile hotspot on the phone for internet.  Guess this will go out later.

Thursday, June 1, 2017

First Full day of the Tombigbee - Briar Creek to Three Rivers

Well, what a fine day to wake up on my birthday in a well-found vessel in the middle of the swamps of Alabama!  And happy birthday to Glenn, pathfinder’s previous owner.

I got us underway at 0600 in order to get to the next anchorage early in the day to avold being underway when the predicted thunder storms roll up for the Gulf.  After shutting down the generator and all the lovely air conditioning, we found the air coming through the opened windows much more pleasant than we expected.