Final port for Gulf to Lake Michigan delivery

Got underway from Chicago’s Du Sable Harbor at 0625 headed across 33 miles of the southern end of Lake Michigan.  I had a quick breakfast, prior to getting underway because I was uncertain whether sea conditions would allow food preparation.  Mary is a lot slower in the mornings and was also feeling a bit ill due to eating wrongly the night before at a waterside café near the marina.  Since she was not required for any particular duty, she climbed back into bed as we departed the protected area of the Chicago breakwater.  The lake, while not really rough, was still stirred up a bit with occasional sets of three-foot swells from the northwest working through choppy waters.  The overall effect of this was that Mary did not show her face for the entire four and a half hour transit to Michigan City – she was a bit unwell.

 Along the way, I turned on the radar because I was afraid we may have pinched its cbale when we put the mast back up last night.  Sure enough, it was inoperative.  Nuts.

The weather continued fair with light winds but with a confused sea.  By the time we pulled into Washington Park Marina in Michigan City, the temperature at the fuel dock where we went for a pump-out of the sewage holding tank were quite balmy but dry, quite Fall-like.  After pumping the tank we moved to the assigned slip way over in the area of the marina just behind the tall coastal dunes which shelter it from the wrath of the Lake.  As the day progressed, the winds from the northeast grew in intensity as the air started to become almost chilly.  I was glad we had completed our trip earlier in the day.

 We lowered the mast to examine the multiple-wire radar cable and found nine of ten wires severed.  Luckily, I had brought my electrical repair box and was able to strip, solder, and insulate each of the wires, and I was really relieved when we put the mast back up and the radar worked.  I REALLY was not looking forward to telling the owner that his radar was broken for his coming trip back into Canada.

 Later, when I returned to the marina with the rental van, Mary had recovered from the crossing and had organized the offload of our “stuff” which took us a couple of hours with many full dock carts taken up the very long concrete pier.

 We will meet Ken and Trudy Price tomorrow at 1030 to go over the boat and turn it over to them, but tonight we are off the boat and in a small local motel near the marina, all ready to start the trek bac home via Kentucky where were will transship all of our stuff back into the truck before turning in the rental van and continuing on home.

Thus ends the 1400-mile boat delivery up six major and several minor river systems over the period 29 May to 24 August 2017.  Despite a few aggravating teething problems with the battery charging system and the generator, the boat performed well and will do well for its new owners.  This the final entry for this trip.

CHICAGO! No more rivers or locks.

Tuesday and Wednesday 22/23 August 2017

We did some organizing on Tuesday getting some of our stuff collected in hand carry bags and stowed in the forward cabin.  We have decided to move off the boat tomorrow and spend the first night in Michigan City ashore in a motel so the boat can be completely cleared out and cleaned up before Ken and Trudy Price arrive to take possession the next morning.

 

Underway at 0600 today for Lake Michigan!  We had two locks to get through on the waterway and one lock at the harbor to Chicago and had good luck with the first two as there was little barge traffic.  We were in and out of the locks in short order.  And then we ran into the Asian Carp barrier.  The Corp of Engineers is testing various aspects of this barrier to prevent the spread of Asian Carp into the Great Lakes, and we got caught up in it because we had to wait two hours before they took a break from their testing and let us through.

We passed a lot of barge shuffling operations as smaller tugs maneuvered barges hither and thither.  We were stopped a couple of times for a few minutes until the situation became clear. 

As we closed in on Chicago, the low bridges came fast.  With the mast down, our bimini tops out at 15 feet and 5 inches above the water.  A number of the bridges we had to go under were 16 feet and some inches, and it was a test of nerve to stand on the flying bridge and watch the heavy steel silently pass overhead.  Finally, we came to the one bridge we could not slide under, a railroad bridge near downtown with only 11 feet of clearance.  The bridge tender told us it would be a half hour before he could raise the ugly rusty monster, but only ten minutes after we tied up to a nearby floating pier, he raised the bridge and we were on our way to the center of downtown.

As we approached the canyon formed by all the skyscrapers we ran into the terminus of all the tour boats.  They all turn around and head back to the harbor at this one spot, and we just slipped in amongst them.  There were dozens of them big and no so big.  The noise of traffic, boat engines, sirens, and whatnot echoing off the tall buildings created a cacophony as we stayed in our place in line until the line turned about again leaving us sitting alone in front of the Chicago Harbor Lock.  We had just missed a lock sequence into Lake Michigan and so hung out for 20 minutes or so as more vessels collected for the next one.  This lock experiences a small lift into the Lake and has none of the usual floating bollards we have become used to.  Instead, this look feature lines hanging down for boaters to hold onto while the water is allowed to flow into the chamber.  Just astern of us was a pontoon boat full of a bunch of folks who were clearly new at this sport, and they laughed and squealed as they fumbled about back there trying to catch and then hold their lines. 

Eventually this final obstacle to our unfettered progress also fell away, and we were released into Lake Michigan like fingerlings into a trout stream.  We moored at a tee-head pier in DuSable Harbor Marina from which we will lunch ourselves at Michigan City early tomorrow morning.  We raised the mast back up with the help of a passerby, and I went into the engine room to solve the question of why the alternator stopped charging the batteries today – loose connection of the power feed to the regulator.

If I ever see another lock, it will be too soon

Monday, 21 August 2017

Poor start, OK end

So I woke up at 0500 and looked out to see a tow going by our stern headed for the Starved Rock Lock a few miles upstream.  This was very bad news because we were not able to get underway in the darkness and overtake the tow in time to beat it to the lock.  Thus, after getting underway at 0600, when we could see the water, we ended up waiting for three hours to get through the lock as the tow was so big it had to be broken up into pieces and pushed through the lock piece by piece.

Another worry was fact that two more tows were closing in on us from downstream, and I was afraid we were going to be shoved to the back of the line.  However, the lock tender sent us on through after our long wait even as the two tows came around the bend headed for the lock.  After we got through the lock, we were faced with the possibility of following that same tow through the next lock which was thirteen miles away.  Luckily we were going at 8 MPH while the tow was going at around 4 MPH, and thirteen miles was just enough distance for us to overtake the tow and put enough distance between him and us to enable us to get through the lock before he arrived.  The next lock, Dresden was not busy, and we got right through it too. 

A couple of miles later we turned into Harborside Marina here in Wilmington, IL after their 4 PM closing time.  The description over the cell phone by the marina staff did not square well with what we were seeing which required us to try two moorings before we found one with electrical power.

The TV weather forecast for Lake Michigan has confirmed that we need to remain here until Wednesday morning which will enable us to get to the Lake on that evening (50 miles and three locks) and have good weather to cross over to Michigan City, IN on Thursday.

The look from above and moving on

Saturday and Sunday 19 and 20 August 2017

What’s on the other side?

While wandering along the winding waterway of the Illinois River, we would occasionally come to a short area devoid of vegetation on the bank and would get a glimpse over the river bank of something like a power plant way off in the distance.  It became evident that unlike some rivers we have traversed where there is little but more trees and undergrowth for miles beyond the banks, the trees along this river were simply a thin screen hiding what lay beyond.  A quick Google Earth check showed vast areas of land under cultivation which justified the presence of the truly large grain loading ports which their immense silos we saw along the river from time to time.

Our run up the river Saturday from Havana, IL to Peoria was pretty uneventful with us doing a float through of the Peoria lock which was open and waiting for us.  Then we got held up by a railroad bridge while the railroad people messed about with a few rail cars they were shuttling back and forth.  I got ticked off when they would not respond to radio calls on the usual channels and finally put out on the emergency and hailing channel, “Is there anybody out there who knows how to get this railroad bridge operator to respond?”  THAT got his attention, and he told me the bridge would be raised shortly.

We ended up at the Illinois Valley Yacht and Canoe Club, known as IVY.  It is a nice facility, but the dining room was closed due to parties scheduled for the room.  I kindly member came by and took Mary a few miles away to a store where she could purchase a few necessities.  Then we satisfied ourselves with some snack bar food.

Underway on Sunday the 20^th and the leisurely hour of 0800 saw us make a good run of 55 miles running around 7.5 MPH average.  We moored in a 20 foot long slip with our stern sticking into the river at the South Shore Boat Club in Peru, IL.  The place, like a lot of boating/yacht clubs up here is member supported with this one having a decidedly less affluent looking membership than yesterday’s experience  Nice people who were interested in the boat, huge by their standards, and where we had been.

Tomorrow, Monday, will see us out of here early and running right through the eclipse of the sun which will see us getting about 89% of the eclipse effects.  We have 49 miles of waterway and three locks to negotiate to get to Harborside Marina in Wilmington from which point it should be a one-day run of fifty miles and two locks for us to get into Lake Michigan at the Chicago waterfront.  The problem is that the weather is supposed to deteriorate with thunderstorms tomorrow night through the first half of Tuesday.  Additionally, our planned Wednesday run from Chicago across Lake Michigan to Michigan City, IN, our final destination, would be complicated by brisk winds from the north meaning possibly rough seas.  Thursday looks much better with nine MPH winds from the east predicted.  So we are thinking of spending an extra day at Harborside Marina to let the weather pass by, assuming we can get there tomorrow.

Thumb twiddling interspersed with frenetic activity

Friday August 18, 2017

At the mercy of Joe Blow

Today was a bit longer than it needed to be because of some Joe Blows working on the LaGrange Dam lock.  We spent a relatively quiet night at Illinois River mile 57.5 anchored in the 1 MPH current just outside the red nun buoy south of a nondescript little hunk of lozenge-shape land with the grandiose name of Big Blue Island.  The river is so low that we could not find deep enough water to get into the preferred anchorage between it and the river bank.  I watched the AIS display on the plotter to see when any tows were on the way down river from the LaGrange lock 23 miles upstream.  Due to ongoing maintenance work on the lock, no vessels can transit the lock between 0600 and 1700.  I figured that by the time the first down bound tow backed up behind the lock could pass by us would be late at night.  Eventually, I was able to see the tows headed our way in the chart plotter which displays their AIS date transmitted from their transponders to our receiver.  The good thing about the AIS installation we have here in Pathfinder is that is also transmits our position, course, speed, and name to everybody else with a receiver.  That way, the tremendously big tows running up and downstream a mere 300 feet from our cockleshell can see us for miles before they get to us and plan their passage by us accordingly.  And, of course, we also have our anchor light.  Watching an approaching tow in the utter blackness of night which seems to be the norm on remote rivers is almost eerie.  Along with a low rumble like the sound of a very slowly approaching freight train.  Soon there is a blazing blue-white shaft of light like a light saber on steroids shot across the bend upriver and illuminating the opposite bank with an almost physical force.  The next visible clue to what is coming is a blinking yellow light indication the center of the forward barges and either a red or green sidelight.  Then a long blackness as the barges emerge around the corner.  Finally, the towboat itself emerges with is blazing pair of searchlights above the bridge and numerous yellowish deck lights.  Imagine what it is like up in the third or fourth story darkened pilot house handling the 4-6,000 horsepower engines and those blazing lights moving at the glacial speed of 4.6 MPH.  Finally the two yellow lights in a vertical array are visible as the tow passes indicating to any vessel astern that there is a towing operation in progress ahead.

So anyway, we avoided being trampled by one of those behemoths and got moving toward the LaGrange lock to make the promised noon lunch break for the construction crew at which time the lock tenders have been putting through pleasure vessels and other smallish loads.  So there we were at 1150, tied up on the lock wing wall a few feet from the closed lock chamber gates watching the workers across the way NOT acting like lunch hour was arriving.  Noon arrives and nothing changes – aren’t they hungry?  1205 and the lock tender radios us that the workers are NOT taking a break but that they will quit early.  Oh great!  Four hours of more sitting.  Then about 20 minutes later the lock tender announces that the workers have taken a fifteen minute break and that locking through will commence immediately.  And about 20 minutes later we are FREE and flying northward as fast as our four little propeller blades can spin.

The next viable anchorage was 40 miles north, and a big delay at the lock would have SNAFU’d our plans big time.  In the event, we got to Havana, IL 120 miles up the Illinois River and into a decent anchorage near a coal loading facility by 1830.  And then a thunderstorm roared through.  At least it had the decency to do so before bedtime.

The Last river

Thursday August 17, 2017

Up the Illinois

Underway this morning at 0705 and anchored at mile 57.5 just outside the red buoys marking the eastern side of this north-south running river.  We have only a couple of feet of water under us.  We are just south of Big Blue Island with the current keeping us pointed up stream.  We are three hours away from the infamous La Grange Lock where all sorts of tows are stacked up awaiting transit of the lock both northbound and southbound.

We will begin seeing southbound tows let through the lock beginning at 1700 around 2100-2200 and then one about every hour.

We have had a pretty good day weather wise with southerly winds at ten or more MPH pushing us along.  With the muggy air just sitting here not cooling us, we elected to run the generator all day and enjoy the air conditioning.  It has gone from overcast to partly cloudy.

Mary is not perfectly happy with no internet on her cell phone, but she does have “talking” bars and has made one call already.  Farther complicating her life is the fact that we can get no TV stations via the boat’s TV antenna.  Such are the vicissitudes of modern inland river travel.

Journey through Jersey

Tuesday/Wednesday August 15/16, 2017

Seeing the country

Tuesday was spent wandering around the local countryside of Jersey County, Illinois as we traveled 12 miles down beside the river on the road between the steep bluffs and the water to Alton.  Why Alton, you say?  Well, because there is a quilt shop there, of course.  Our mode of transportation is the beast of a marina courtesy van, a Dodge 3500 15-passenger job.  It is quite a climb for Mary to get in.  From Alton, after a most satisfying Steak and Shake meal we were off to Jerseyville to visit the ever popular Wally World and a local grocery.  The new AIS module and the new/used generator glow plugs arrive by FEDEX.  I immediately installed the glow plugs, a short, easy job, and the generator now starts much quicker.  We had a so-so dinner at the Oyster Bar Restaurant over the marina office/store.

Today, we got our visit early on from the DataTronics technician for the purpose of installing the replacement AIS module.  We unwrapped the box from the vendor together, and I had him crawl into the flying bridge console to install it with its six connections.  In a few minutes, we had an operating AIS, and he made no changes to my initial wiring.  The tech told m that his company usually restricts itself to servicing US Coast Guard and commercial vessels and that the only reason he was sent was because his boss thought we were the Coast Guard buoy tender PATHFINDER which we passed in St Louis coming up here.  Once he committed to sending a tech, he felt honor-bound to carry through with it despite discovering our true identity.

Next up, after Mary gets done with her shower and laundry, will be another death defying trip in the beast to Jerseyville for some miscellaneous errands.

The next dam we must pass through is the La Grange Dam 80 miles from here.  Its lock is in poor repair and will be closed daily from 6 AM to 5 PM for repairs vastly completing river transit for all concerned.  I called the lock tender today and voiced my concerns.  His response was that the workers are taking a noon break and that was when they were sending through the recreational vessels probably because locking smaller vessels goes faster than the big tows and can be done during a lunch break.  Our Current plan is for us the leave Grafton here at mile 1 or 2 on the Illinois and to anchor at the 57-mile mark overnight so that we can get underway in the morning for the easy 23-mile run to the lock at mile 80 to arrive before noon.  urrent is expected to be lots less than on the Mississippi.

A little faux pas and a big win overall

Monday August 14, 2017

We have prevailed

Underway at 0605 from Hoppies for a long eleven hours underway getting to Grafton Harbor Marina in Grafton, IL on the first miles of the Illinois River.  Along the way we were making mostly 5-plus MPH until we got into the Chain of Locks Canal after Lock 27 a while after we observed the Gateway Arch in all its splendor.  This several mile long canal, open at the north end to the Mississippi takes vessels around the impassable Chain of Rocks rapids just to the north of downtown St Louis; so being stoppered at the bottom by the lock, there is no current.  As we had been losing coolant from the engine for several days, and I thought I had resolved the issue, I had been looking for an opportunity to pull the radiator cap for a level check after several hours of running.  Since there was no traffic in sight in either direction, I coasted to a stop and stopped the engine, popped open the hatch and pulled the radiator cap.  Sure enough, I needed to add a quart of so of distilled water.  Done with that, I hit the starter button to a resounding silence.  What?!  Mary who was not in favor of this evolution from the get-go was to say the least not impressed.  I popped down to check out the starter area and was in the process of troubleshooting when I realized during one of my trips out of the engine room that now we were drifting slowly toward the rocky edge of the canal.  Dropping the anchor was a possibility, but then we would have been in the way of any towboats with wide barge loads transiting the canal.  I knew there were none coming up from the lock, but now way off in the distance to the north, I could see a tow coming down the canal.  It was time to stop trouble shooting.  I called back to the lock and told them we were without power, and they immediately called to a Velda Taylor.  Who?  I looked around and saw a small tug up the canal a ways working with some barges and with binoculars was able to read its name, Velda Taylor.  I figured the quick thinking lock master had seized upon the only quickly available asset for help and sure enough, in a minute she came back on the line and told me to shift to the working frequency of the Taylor.  They quickly untangled themselves from whatever they were doing and ran down to us and took us alongside and placed us alongside a nearby empty barge before getting back to whatever they were doing.  Now alone again and secure, I grabbed the volt meter and prepared to do battle with the reluctant starter and or its solenoid.  At some point I found myself over by the helm looking at the shut off engine battery cutout switch.  It is located out of the line of easy vision, and since some modifications to the battery cable runs to fix the earlier battery charging problem, has not been a regular part of the engine start sequence.  It must be on to start the engine, but it does not have to remain on for the engine to keep running.  Apparently after we got underway, I inadvertently hit the switch lever shutting it off while reaching down to change over from shore to generator power when Mary wanted the generator on to power the microwave to heat her coffee water – so it was all her fault.  Anyway, the switch now in the proper position we were started and on our way in a twinkling with effusive thanks to the Taylor and the lock master.  Next we exited the canal back into the Mississippi for another several hours until we arrived at the Melvin Price Lock and Dam, which only delayed us about 45 minutes.  We then watched the land on the Illinois side rise up to become tall tan limestone cliffs with a road running along their bases.  We finally exited the Mississippi and ran another mile or two on the Illinois to arrive at Grafton Harbor in the tiny tourist trap town of Grafton, IL clinging to the river side at the foot of some steep hills at the north end of the bluffs we had watched for miles.  After all that, the run as an hour less than I had originally estimated.  We will be here several days while I get a tech to come verify the correct installation of the new AIS transponder due in here tomorrow by Fedex.  There are also a pair of generator glow plugs headed here, which should make starting the genny a much quicker affair.

Seeing new places

Sunday August 13, 2017

And we are at the famous Hoppies Marina

We woke up this morning to find it too foggy to get underway at 0600, but thirty minutes later, it was clearing.  We popped out of the Kaskashia River to find we were behind a tow and gaining slowly on him, a first for us on the Mississippi.  He reported he was maxed out on speed, and it took a hour for us to finally get ahead and clear of him.  It was a clear, dry, and very temperate day, and we ended up on the flying bridge to enjoy the weather.  Mary researched some sites along the way on her smart phone.  We made our best overall speed today, 5 MPH and arrived at Hoppies Marina at 1430.  This ramshackle place is three old barges lashed end-to-end and tied to shore via a walkway, and it is famous amongst the long range boating enthusiasts who transit this part of the Great Loop which circles the US east coast up to the Great Lakes, and down to the Gulf Coast via the route we have traced from Alabama in this boat.  It is the only Marina on this river south of the St Louis area and is used as a jumping off point for “loopers” heading south.  The town of Kimmswick here is a touristy little place for bored St Louians to come for the day.  We ate a lunch/dinner at theBue Owl. Tomorrow we need to get moving early so we can hopefully get through the busy St Louis area and through the Chain of Rocks lock and canal and then the Melvin Price lock to finally arrive at a marina, all told about 60 miles.  Given the current, this is ambitious, and we are expecting delays at the locks.

Conquering this river one inch at a time

Saturday August 12, 2017

A nice day to cruise

After a late evening concern over a thunderstorm passing to the east of us and some light rain from it, had a fairly peaceful night in our makeshift anchorage.  We woke up to cool dry air like we get in late September and early October back home.  Mary wore her hoodie for a while because it was coolish at 0600 when we got underway for a 39-mile run to the Kaskashia river at mile 117 where we found the lock and dam of the same name about a half mile up.  We are securely tied up to the outside of the lock’s wing wall for the night.  Tomorrow will see us underway for another 40-mile day to reach the famous ramshackle Hoppies Marina, the only marina on the Mississippi between St Louis and New Orleans.  The piers consist of three old steel barges lashed together, and the place is run my Fern, a lady of considerable experience of life and the river and apparently happy to dispense her knowledge of them to all and sundry.

Swim call!

Friday August 11, 2017

Oops, where do we anchor?

Because the run today was not supposed to be too long, we did not make a conscious effort to get up and get moving early from our fore and aft anchorage in the narrow diversion canal.  Eventually, we did get underway at 0840 in the rain and headed for the Grand Tower wing dam anchorage 30 miles distant averaging 4.6 MPH.  Unfortunately, when we got there at 3:15 PM a recent rise in the river had overtopped the wing dam a bit allowing for a giant swirl of debris to collect in there.  It was a most unwelcomed finding because the next known secure anchorage was 40 miles north.  That would have meant running in the dark for many hours, and even though I have a 700 Watt work light rigged on the bow for emergencies, we were not looking forward to this effort.  Luckily, we spotted a sandy beach area off a camper trailer park a few miles farther along.  We pulled in to an indentation in the bank which listed the place as Tower Rock Ferry.  We found that the big rocky bluff jutting into the river nearby shields this spot from the heavy current, and we hardy moved as we stopped the boat.  We look directly west at the river, and there is no wake or westerly wind protection, but the weather great with no wind, and there is no traffic on the river.  Being a little warmed up after messing about in the engine room for a few minutes, I got in the chilly river for a few minutes of cooling off.  Swim call in the Mighty Mississippi!

In the slower lane

Thursday August 10, 2017

Shifting from fast to sloooow

Underway at 0605 from our anchorage behind the mooring cylinders and headed downstream at the exhilarating speed of 10-plus MPH passing many, many moored barges until we got to the Mississippi at 0740 and made the almost 180-degree turn heading north.  That was where the rubber meets the road on this trip as the current speed was going to make or break us.  As it turned out the average 3.5 MPH head current we encountered was as expected giving us an overall speed of advance of around 4.4 MPH.  Our hopes had been to make at least 4; so we were OK.  But, WOW is that slow.  We ended up in a diversion canal immediately off the river at mile 49.  We get off the Mississippi at mile 220.  Our daily run distance is governed by two things, speed and available anchorages.  We cannot run I the dark safely, so each day’s run is limited to around 40-50 miles due to daylight, but sometimes like today because the next three anchorages are 30 and 40 and 40 miles from each other.  So today, we go 30 miles, tomorrow and the next day, 40 each.

Our last favorable currents

Wednesday August 9, 2017

And away we go

That is until as soon as we backed away from the slip at Green Turtle Bay a tow sipped by the entrance of the marina headed for Barkley Dam a mile or so away.  So much for a quick getaway – an hour delay while we waited our turn.  Then it was thirty two miles of boring narrow Cumberland River until we entered the broad Ohio.  We enjoyed 1.5-20 MPH favorable current all day on both rivers.

We were bowling along in fine style as we approached Dam 52 where thanks to our new AIS transponder, the lock operator called to inform us that the dam wickets were up and that we’d be required to lock through.  It was two hours of doing donuts until we were called to enter the lock for the 10-foot drop.

The lock tender told us to come in and moor port side to which meant we had to rearrange all our lines and fenders on the run.  We got in and were just finishing tying up to the single bollard we could find near us (and it was not the floating type we have been used to for some fifteen locks), when Mary told me the lock attendant on the opposite lock wall was yelling something.  It turned out he wanted s to moor on the STARBOARD side on that wall.  I told him we had moored in accordance with the radioed instructions, but he said they had not consulted him and that we were in a dangerous spot.  So we backed up and again changed sides of our lines and fenders.  There was a worker repainting the yellow border along the curved edge of the lock wall well down the way from us, but the new paint where our mooring lies went across the wall was NOT yet dry, and it is now on our lines and hands.  Worst locking we have ever had.

Finally, we arrived at the Olmstead Lock and Dam currently under construction.  The lock is not yet in use which means that vessels sail through the lock.  Tows had to have an assist tug to escort them, and we were initially asked to follow astern of a tow which was being escorted.  As we were in the process of positioning the boat to do that, new instructions arrived to just go ahead and sail through alone.

After passage of the Olmstead Dam, we ran down the river about one mile to anchor in the last known decent anchorage before the junction with the Mississippi River now a mere 13 miles away.  We are between a pair of giant barge mooring cylinders and the nearby shoreline in about 9 feet of water.  Our first attempt at setting the Supermax resulted in failure as I could hear it dragging across the gravel and mud bottom.  After retrieving it and resetting the shank from the loose mud position to the mid-position, we had success.

The AIS transponder has been an asset and fun to play with today.  There were so many tows about today all with collision potential sounding the AIS alarm on the plotter due to the closeness of our passages in the narrow channel that I had to turn the alarm off.

The generator started up without fuss and is now cooling us off after a warm muggy day with following winds -  our norm it seems.

Ready

Tuesday August 8, 2017

All set

Today was spent at breakfast followed by a mini trek to a fabric shop about 20 miles away across the Kentucky Dam followed by a boat wash down.  Then a call to the AIS supplier asking why we were having issues getting AIS data to the flying bridge chart plotter.  After some advice from them, another couple of hours were wasted trying various connection methods all to no avail.  Mary made a last run to the local food store.  The plan is to get up around 6 Am and call Kentucky Lock and Barkley Lock to see which has the best chance of us getting through in a timely fashion.  Currently, Kentucky Lock has a delay time of 6 hours while Barkley has a delay of 15 minutes.  Going through Barkley right here by Green Turtle Bay and thence down the Cumberland adds 25 miles to our trip, but avoiding the delay at Kentucky Lock will make up for it.  Our likely anchorage tomorrow night will be on the Ohio River fifteen miles short of the Mississippi in the current and not something we would normally like, but that’s all there is down there.

I talked briefly this morning with the owner of a big yacht which had just pulled in from up north.  He said the current in the Mississippi was 2-3 MPH, which is about as good as we could have expected.  We should find out for ourselves Thursday morning.

Our sole mechanical concern is the generator’s seawater pump.  After I got the new injectors installed and started it, there was a lot of squalling noise and no water through the exhaust.  I shut it down and went to investigate and found the seawater pump to be very hot.  I restarted the generator, and the squalling noise wet away quickly and water came gushing out of the exhaust.  I suspect this pump will eventually fail; I just hope it isn’t for another couple of weeks!

More goodies to add to da boat

Monday August 7, 2017

Final equipment installation before resuming the trek

Lucky me – when I went over to the chandlery this morning, I encountered the clerk who I had spoken to about a month ago about ensuring the store remained stocked up with VHF antennas on the off chance I would need one or two.  When I told her I would need to order two, she told me she had two in the back room and was I the guy who had called a month ago about them?  Clearly yesterday’s clerk had not investigated the back room.  I bought them both and after breakfast at the marina café got down to seven hours of labor installing the two antennas, a new AIS-capable VHF radio at the lower helm, a new Camino 108S AIS transponder with NEMA 2000 network.  I removed the old faulty radio from the flying bridge and put the old lower helm radio up there.

Mary spent the afternoon over in Paducah 27 miles away in a quilting shop and visiting the National Quilting Museum.  At 4 PM she called to say we had dinner reservations here in Grand Rivers at the famous Patti’s 1880 Settlement Restaurant.  I just finished the last electrical connection of all my work in time to get showered for dinner, but I did not have time to test any of the equipment.  After dinner, I switched it all on and everything worked!  We now have AIS data at the lower Garmin chart plotter and on my laptop navigation software.  I need one more NEMA 2000 connector to be able to get the data to the Garmin plotter on the flying bridge and will have to have it sent to the owner for him to bring to the boat when we deliver it to him.

We have made the decision to leave here on Wednesday 9 August to attempt a passage of the Mississippi River from Cairo, IL to Grafton, IL above St Louis.

Oh, my aching back!

Sunday August 6, 2017

My back aches

Most of today was spent hunched over the generator exchanging the old injectors for a pair of newly overhauled ones.  Nothing ever goes as smoothly as I hope, but the generator has finally started after a lot of hassle.  The long pole in the morning was the trouble with getting the return fuel compression fittings loose from the brass fittings on the injectors.  Even with a tubing wrench, which you would think in surrounding most sides of the hex-headed compression fittings would grip the 7/16 inch hex ok, the wrench began to round off the shoulders.  I had to resort to a small vice grip to get that off, but the effort took over an hour.  I had to unbolt the generator’s electrical control box in order to get access to the left hand injector and in so doing unknowingly pulled the fuel shutdown control circuit wire out of its crimped terminal ring which attaches it to the overheat sensor - all this behind the control box.  This resulted in the fuel shut-off solenoid not getting the 12 volts it need to hold the fuel valve open, but I did not fall to this conclusion for a while.  Soooo, no start.  I finally had to take a break, got showered, and accompanied Mary to Paducah to get some groceries.  Several hours later, I was back in the engine room and finally figured out the fuel solenoid was not moving and the reason why.  Reconnecting the wire required removal of the sound shroud (second time today) and bending over the generator to screw in the tiniest little screw and its nut through a ring terminal.  So tonight is recovery with ibuprofen!  I will run the generator for an hour or so tomorrow while getting gong on the AIS installation.  Hopefully, I have saved the easy part for last!

First thing in the morning I will go over to the chandlery and speak with the girl there about ordering a couple of VHF antennas because my Standing Wave Ratio meter which tests the integrity of the antennas showed both of them to be shot.  Hopefully, she can get them from her supplier the next day.

Back aboard in Green Turtle Bay Marina, Grand Rivers, KY

Saturday, August 5, 2017

Back aboard

Mary and I loaded up our pickup truck yesterday and drove to Birmingham where we spent the night in a motel in order to visit with Pam Parsons the daughter of my great and good but sadly deceased friends Hank and Ruth and Stanford Skinner.  This morning we once again braved the craziness known as interstate highway diving.  I must say that I would feel ever so much safer aboard a boat dodging monster tows in a lightning storm at night on a narrow river!  Those people out there on the crowded interstates are trying to kill you!

We arrived here in Green Turtle Bay Marina in grand Rivers at 1600 today to find the Pathfinder under a covered slip WAY around the marina cover such that one is required to depart the main business area of the marina, and backtrack through Grand Rivers and out the south side of town to circle around to pier 12.  The pier and marina office/business area are within sight of each other about several hundred yards apart, but the trip between then by road is several miles long.  Once we got parked, we discovered that we were about fifty feet above the water level on the side of a hill.  It took us both three trips back and forth between the truck and the boat with two capacious dock carts to load all the stuff from the truck onto the boat.

After a dinner at the marina Yacht club, yes several miles around Robin Hood’s barn, we returned t the boat where I finished up installing the overhauled alternator with new vee-belt about 10:30 PM.  Tomorrow I will attack the task of removing the old injectors from the Onan generator and installed the overhauled pair I brought with us.  Then a sea trial will be in order to assure all Is well with the alternator and the charging system.

At some point after the engine room fun, I will be installing the new AIS transponder and AIS-capable VHF radio the owner had me order for him.  I check them out at home to ensure I had all the NMEA 2000 network parts to connect the AIS to the two Garmin chart plotters.  I think it will be slick system and not too tough to install.

With our own vehicle and no more two-hour limit as imposed by the marina for their courtesy van, Mary is FREE and expects to make at least one trip to Paducah, about 30 miles away to see the National Quilt Museum and to visit a quilt store.  She is trying to entice me to go along by telling me about a Civil War museum and other things that may be of interest to me, but I am thinking the boat work will take priority.