Home for the Holidays'

Friday 11/13/09      After arriving in Columbus we proceeded to prepare the boat for a 2 month rest. A thorough cleaning of both interior and exterior including the hull started the proceedings. The marina continued to fill up with boats waiting to see what path Ida would take which made for great boat watching. A couple of our favorites are the 52 Krogen Express (http://www.krogenexpress.com/) and the 57 Marlow Explorer (http://www.marlowexplorer.com/) both on the same dock as us! Can you say salivate! The folks on the Marlow probably think I'm some kind of stalker for as much time as I spent looking at it with my jaw sprung open. It was interesting watching the Marlow which is 18'2" wide enter the 20' wide slip. The owners son controlled the whole process by wireless remote while standing on the side of the bridge deck. The boat never hit the dock once. I guess all the years of playing video games pays off!

On a different note there were a couple of items that I forgot to mention in earlier posts that fall under the strange category. One is pictured above. We found this guy hanging around the dock at Port Charles Marina, St. Charles, Mo. The other is a little more disturbing. While travelling in the vicinity of New Johnsonville, Tn. a male voice came over the VHF radio on channel 14......."Oh booger bear, oh booger bear, talk to me booger bear". That voice was soon joined by another and a discussion about booger bear ensued. Needless to say we sped up a little to put some distance between us & them. I thought I heard banjos in the background!

On Monday 11/9/09 we picked up a rental car from Hertz and loaded our suitcases, 3 bags of Pams' shoes, other assorted goodies, and 2 props. We pulled out of the marina at 12:30 pm and headed north. Our trip home had 2 highlights. One was stopping at Lamberts cafe in Sikeston, Mo. (http://www.throwedrolls.com/). Lamberts is one of those places you must experience at least once in your life. The food is good and plentifull but their claim to fame is their hot rolls which are delivered to your table by a young man throwing them to you no matter where you are seated in the restaurant. A tourist trap for sure but a successful one at that. The line was out the door when we arrived.
The second highlight was staying at a Holiday Inn Express. I'm sure you can tell by my writing how much smarter I am!
A recap of the first leg of our trip south goes as follows; We travelled 979.7 miles burning 800 gallons of fuel for a little over 1 mpg. The engines ran for 89 hours and the generator for 41. We spent 13 days of actual travel and 17 days over all to get to Columbus.
We will be in Illinois until early January when we plan to return to Columbus and continue the journey south. Until then Happy Holidays!

Leg 1 Complete. We're in Columbus, Ms.

Tuesday 11/3/09     Another beautiful day! So nice that we decided to take a down day at Grand Harbor. Of course Pam had to mess that up by doing laundry!
Since we've been travelling on the Tennessee we have run into several "Loopers". For those of you who don't know, a looper is a member of Americas' Great Loop Cruising Association and can be identified by the AGLCA burgee flying on their boat. The loop is a water route up the East coast, the Hudson River, Erie Canal, Great Lakes or other river routes through Canada, the Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, and Tombigbee rivers to Mobile and then to Florida and back to your starting point. You can Google it if you want more info. Loopers come in boats of all shapes and sizes which makes for great boat watching. Most are competent boat handlers and some are not! Personally most of them drive me crazy with the lack of understanding they have about river travel. Oh well! They're having fun and that's what matters.

One different vessel we saw come through Grand Harbor was the C.G. Richter, an old ferry boat that ran between Door County and Washington Island in Wisconsin. Supposedly it was enroute to the Virgin Islands for new employment.

Our day concluded with a trip to the Catfish Hotel for a delicious catfish dinner on the banks of the Tennessee.

Wednesday 11/4/09     The day started with coffee at Grand Harbor with Chip Lucas (harbormaster) and Fred Meyers a noted author of many cruising guides who slips his boat at Grand Harbor. Interesting conversation with the usual BS tossed in. After coffee and once the fog lifted we headed down the Tenn'Tom Waterway, Columbus bound.

We passed through the Jamie Whitten Lock and dropped 75'. Just a word of caution when passing through the Whitten lock. Wear your raincoat! Look closely at the picture and you can see the water streaming in from the sidewalls. We did three more locks that dropped us another 90' and anchored for the night near Smithville, Ms. in time to have cocktails and a cigar before the sun went down.
Thursday 11/5/09     Hoping to wake up to fog so we could have a lazy morning, Mother Nature thwarted us once again. Another clear sunny morning so off we go. A quick call to the Wilkins lock and 15 minutes later we were going in the chamber. Today though we would not be alone. Three loopers who had been staying at the nearby Smithville Marina came out in time to lock down with us. Not a big deal and all were competent boat handlers but it sealed our fate as to what speed we would be travelling  for the day since the locks are close together and the lock masters will wait for all to arrive from the previous lock even if your boat runs three times faster than the others. That's OK. We didn't have far to go anyway.
We went through three more locks and dropped another 80'. Following the last lock Tourist was able to get up and run for a bit to burn off some carbon build up in the engines. We arrived at Columbus Marina shortly before noon to find that they were filling up fast due to Tropical Storm Ida that is threatening the Gulf Coast. Demopolis yacht Basin in Demopolis, Al. has sent word to Columbus and the other marinas to the north not to send any more boats south since they have no more room for any transients. Demopolis is the last marina before Mobile.

Moving Again!

Monday 11/2/09     Sitting at anchor behind Wolf Island at mm 193.5 on the Tennessee River waiting for the steam to clear off the water. It appears that our timing, although not great for avoiding high water on the Mississippi was in retrospect pretty good. I just checked the daily river stages and found that St. Louis is above flood stage. Cape Girardeau is now at 39'. Flood stage is 32' and when we came through it was at 29'. Glad to be out of that mess. Further more we would be stuck somewhere since the river is closed to recreational vessels at St. Louis until the it recedes.

We ended up staying longer at Green Turtle Bay than we expected since the forecast for this past Friday was crap. Heavy rain and wind. For once the weather gurus hit it on the nose. About noon the stuff hit the fan and made it a very miserable day for anyone on the water. If you look at the picture you can see the jibsail unfurling on one of the sail boats due to the wind.

Saturday 10/31/09     Dawn came with cloudy skies but no rain. We cast off the lines and headed out into Lake Barkley for a short cruise to the canal that connects Lake Barkley (Cumberland River) with Kentucky Lake (Tennessee River). The day progressively got better as we travelled with sunshine popping through after noon! At one point we passed an old loading dock that had a couple of guys sitting on it fishing. Not that odd except that we couldn't see a boat anywhere. Look close at the picture and you'll see the boys sitting towards the right rear.

We travelled 100 miles and anchored behind Densons Island for the night to a full moon. Trick or Treat!

Sunday 11/1/09     Dawned with heavy fog. so thick that we couldn't see either shoreline. Ready to go at 7am but as it is with boat travel, Mother Nature has the last word. About 8:30am the fog cleared and as we were getting ready to raise the anchor we spotted nine deer walking along the river bank. We watched as they walked along trying to find a way up the steep bank. After walking in and out of the water they decided to turn around and go back the way they came. Smart move since the bank only got steeper had they kept going.

Travel today was easy. Bright warm sun, (I was in shorts & t-shirt) passed 2 boats and 1 barge and arrived at Wolf Island in time to relax before dinner. A good day!