Monday 28 December 2020 Wheeler State Park
We arrived at 2:30 PM yesterday after
flogging the poor U-Haul truck to the max and spent an hour and a half with Scott
the previous owner getting a run down on all the systems of this houseboat. The most striking aspect of the electrical
system is that there is no 12-Volt breaker panel. The major 12-Volt consumers like the
refrigerator and the Vacuflush toilet are wired directly to a fused panel in
the engine room, and largely because of that reefer running on only 12 Volts, the
battery switches are commonly left on such that the starboard engine is running
in parallel with the generator battery and the house bank. The only way to start the port engine if it
has a weak or dead battery is through the use of a set of jumper cables.
Scott de-winterized the
freshwater system, and we filled the hundred-gallon tank.
After Scott left, we set off to
the local Foodland in Rogersville, AL to stock up.
I sticked the tanks with the
calibrated dipstick and found them at 30 gallons port and 40 gallons starboard –
each holds 120 gallons. Today we
arranged for a park ranger to come down to the fuel pumps and then moved the
boat over there to take on 160 gallons more gasoline to top off. The boat responds well to the clutches and rudders
and slow maneuvering speeds. There was
no wind making the reentry into the almost zero side clearance slip easy, but I
can imagine the horror story if it were windy.
We worked well into the evening last
night unloading the truck and finally quite out of sheer exhaustion pulling the
hundred-pound four-wheeled steel dock wagon up the steep ramp to the parking
lot and then straining to control its descent once loaded. This morning I finished the task including the
tremendously heavy Weber grill Frank sent along.
After I cut the box open on the
pier and removed the grill’s components, I had to get a fellow across the pier
to help me lift and balance the heaviest part on the handrail of the boat while
I ran around to the boarding gate and then forward to grab it and lower it to
the deck. I talked with Frank, and for
now he wants it on the bow; so that is where I will assemble it tomorrow. Then it will be on to setting up the forty-inch
Tv he also sent with us.
Tonight, we journeyed twenty-five
miles west it Florence, AL in our big box “car” to make a Wally World run,
check out return transportation after tomorrow’s return, and to have dinner at
Cracker Barrel.
When we got back to the boat, I
was greeted with a nasty weather surprise when I brought up my favorite app,
Windfinder on my laptop. The front we
had been planning to beat by getting to the top of the Tom Bigbee Waterway on Wednesday
has accelerated closing out Wednesday with winds gusting to 36 MPH. This shallow draft, slab-sided houseboat
would be uncontrollable in a lock with winds like that howling and swirling
through.
