Almost Ready for Removal

It may not look like much, but the past two days have been very productive.  First thing yesterday morning Linda found Ray once again fixing the steps up to the boat.  She was afraid he read the blog, but he said they still weren't right.  So here they are with the correct rise on each step.  You can also see engine parts laying around, these are from the starboard side and those jugs are full of antifreeze, but there's still more in the bilge.  Ray estimates there had to be four to five gallons in each engine.

More engine parts.  The one's under the boat are from the port side.  If you notice in the bottom right corner, that is a mixing elbow off of the exhaust manifold.  Originally Ray planned on taking them off in one piece until the first set on the port side just about went through the floor when he took the last bolt out, and then he couldn't hardly pick them up.  He estimates that just that mixing elbow weighs about 50 pounds without the exhaust manifold.  I wanted to get a comparison photo of the mixing elbow from the new engines, and will try to do that later, but the new ones are about a tenth of the size and weight.

Here are all of the panels off of the generator, in which Linda did a majority of the disassembling.

With all of this, the generator and both engines are ready to be taken out of the boat except for the engines not being disconnected from the prop shafts yet.

Redneck Yacht Club

We did not get pulled out of the water until today.

Here is our "mobile home" being "hauled" to its summer home.

When we got back from the lumber yard with the marina owner's truck, it was already hot inside.  So we stuck the air conditioning unit we bought at that same hardware store yesterday in the cabin door for a temporary fix while we ate lunch.

Here it is hours later "properly" installed.  Linda did the fancy job of insulating it (it was a good excuse to stay inside and soak up that air conditioning).

In case you were wondering how it was being held up on the outside.

(Just part of why the lumber yard trip was necessary.)

Here is the other part of the reason the lumber yard trip was necessary.  However, obviously Ray has not done any building in a while.  On our first trial run of going up the stairs, both of us tripped.

Ray remedied that by taking out every other stair.  Linda has not had the heart to tell him that she still tripped going up them since he worked on them all afternoon in the 92 degree heat.

So far this morning we are getting things ready to hopefully get hauled out and put up on the hard to set up our summer residency.  That has included running the gas out of the generator and pumping out the black water holding tank.

Arrived in Demopolis

Why did we get up at five o'clock this morning and then not leave until 7:15?  Oh that's right, because we were socked in with fog!  Why does that always happen when we plan early departures.  We intended on leaving at 5:30 a.m.  Fog creates quite an optical illusion.  Bob called on the VHF radio to tell us there was a north bound tow right beside him.  Bob was anchored probably a football field distance behind us.  We could not see Bob in the fog.  Linda could faintly see the tow in the distance, but thought it was way behind us and Bob yet when all of the sudden the front barge he was pushing was right beside us.  Of course we announced on the VHF radio before the "Curtis Taylor" tow got to us that we were anchored outside the river channel there behind the red buoys.  He was kind enough to announce to other tow operators that we were there also.  Just as we were pulling out we heard other tows talking on the VHF radio.  The one was saying "Well if I passed them, I didn't see them in this fog and they didn't show up on my radar."  We immediately got on the VHF radio to announce to him, "Ashleigh", that we were just pulling out into the channel with our location.  It ends up he was right behind us.  So we kicked up a little extra speed today trying to catch "Curtis Taylor" who had about an hour head start on us, get some distance in front of "Ashleigh" so we wouldn't have to wait on both of them to get through Demopolis Lock before we could, and to run out as much gas as we thought we could so less will have to be siphoned out for the transition into diesel tanks.  We ended up having to wait over an hour for "Curtis Taylor" to get through Demopolis Lock, and then our lift seemed awfully slow, maybe because they are working on the lock.  Finally, at 3:45 p.m. we were on the last 35 minute home stretch to arrive at Demopolis Yacht Basin, our summer home.  Ray's brother Daryll had been waiting for us here for hours after kindly dropping off our new diesel engines and generator he picked up for us in Pensacola on his way home from his first hitch on his new job working offshore on tows in the Gulf of Mexico.  We spent a couple hours with him before he traveled on to get home.

We pulled up a muddy anchor again this morning out of Old Lock #1 at seven o'clock.  A baby alligator waved good bye to us as we exited.  By ten o'clock we were through Coffeeville Lock with the upper gauge reading normal pool.  Twenty minutes later we docked at Bobby's Fish Camp to take on 50 gallons of gas, 25 gallons in each tank.  That is the amount Ray thinks he will be comfortable with having enough to make it to Demopolis.  By eleven o'clock we were back underway.  It was an unusually quiet day on the river with the only tow seen or heard from was heading south and we passed "Honest Bob" before we even got to Coffeeville Lock.  We continued for a longer day than originally planned, but we wanted to get as many miles done today that we could to make a shorter day tomorrow for arrival in Demopolis.  At the same time, Ray's brother Daryll has picked up our new engines and generator from Pensacola to bring them to Demopolis for us.  So we ended up anchoring at 5:30 p.m. inside the red buoys at Statute Mile 162.3.  We immediately grilled shrimp from Ft. Walton Beach and potatoes for dinner.  We were playing a few hands of Rummy to pass the time before dark, when we planned on going to bed early for an early start tomorrow.  Then came a bunch of raucous from over on shore.  We were entertained listening to kids and adults with southern accents, watching them try to get four wheelers up hills, and playing guitar.  It was a beautiful dark night with just a sliver of a moon, lots of stars, and your voice echoing in the distance.  The music was actually quite good, so we sat out on the bow of the boat to listen.  In our chatter back and forth we learned that Jess got dropped off there for a few days to camp out, be by himself with just a four wheeler and the nearest gas station 20 miles away.  By the time he threatened to swim over to the boat to meet us, we decided we better dinghy over to shore instead.  He did not have a flashlight, so we helped him find everything he needed for the night and built him a fire to see by.  We were back on the boat by 11:00 p.m. when we heard him on shore hollering because he tipped the four wheeler over.  We confirmed that he was okay and went to bed for a surprisingly quiet night with not one single tow going by since nightfall.

At seven o'clock this morning we cranked up the engines only to find that the port engine temperature was rising quickly still.  So we left out of Three Rivers Lake on just the starboard engine.  Once we got out into the main Tombigbee channel we started the port engine again.  It seems to run cool while we are underway at our normal speed, but overheats at an idle.  Now Ray's theory is that maybe the belt is slipping on the water pump pulley.  Bob thinks it is the thermostat.  So they plan on checking both of those tomorrow after the engine room is cooled down.  We only encountered one tow today, down bound in a sharp curve of course.  We had to get way over to the inside of the green buoys just to stay out of his way as he was three barges wide.  It was "Ashleigh", the same tow we encountered several times last spring when we were all barely making way up stream against the flooding current.  We saw one dead alligator and one live one today.  However, it was a momentous day as Spike used his "cat tent" for the first time all day today!  I guess it just took him a while to discover it's usefulness.  Just after 1:00 p.m. we pulled in to anchor in the exact same spot we anchored in the fall on the way down at Old Lock #1.  Almost immediately we jumped in the dinghy and went to shore to take our trash and gather wood for the campfire tonight to cook dinner over.  Once we did that we were hot and thirsty so we returned to the boat.  Ray thought it was cooler on shore, so we went back and played a couple games of Yahtzee.  Around 5:00 p.m. we returned to the boat to gather all of items needed for dinner and picked up Bob and Barbara.  We had delicious Reuben sandwich hobo pies, with only one casualty.  Of course Linda made everyone a perfect sandwich, but then when it came to hers, she somehow dropped it.  Good thing we had enough ingredients to make more.  No doubt, it was s'mores for dessert!

We pulled up a muddy anchor this morning at seven o'clock.  By 7:30 we were waiting down stream of the 14 Mile Bridge for our second tow of the day already to come through first.  A half hour later we passed our third down bound tow.  It was a busy day of tow traffic as we passed several more without incident.  Just as we were approaching Three Rivers Lake, where we planned to anchor for the night there was an up bound tow and a down bound tow coming that we thought were planning to pass each other right there.  We mentioned this to "The Bar-B", but Bob thought both tows were ahead of us, so he slowed down.  We weren't sure until we saw the tow behind Bob, so we told him.  It turned into the joke of the night when Bob asked how we came to the conclusion that the tow was behind him.  Needless to say he sped it up a little bit.  This was our first time in this anchorage.  "The Bar-B" had been there on their maiden voyage, but could not remember it and said they did not take near as good of notes back then as they do now.  So we needled our way back along a narrow creek and went well beyond the 200 feet that was stated in the Skipper Bob Guidebook, but did not really find a comfortable spot.  In our time of idling around we noticed that the port engine was overheating, which has been giving us a little trouble, so we shut it off.  We finally dropped the anchor after deciding we didn't have much choice with no other anchorages close by other than just anchoring in the main Tombigbee channel.  Several small boats passed us with barely enough room once we were swinging around, so we asked them if there was actually a lake up in there farther.  They stated there was, but thought it was too shallow for us.  So Ray got in the dinghy and took our newly acquired portable depth finder to check it out.  Linda stayed behind just in case the boat ended up against the embankment or something.  Ray came back to inform us that there was nothing less than eight feet deep and knew where we needed to go as to not get into too shallow of water.  We cranked up the starboard engine, Ray pulled up the anchor, and Linda turned the boat around in the narrow channel on one engine as a first time experience.  We figured we might need to get used to it in order to make it the rest of the way to Demopolis.  When we got out into the "lake", it was much roomier and a lot more comfortable anchorage, making more sense as to the 12 boats the Skipper Bob Guidebook stated could fit in this anchorage and must have been misprinted and should have said to continue back 2000 feet.  The chart book and the chart plotter didn't look anything like the way the lake really was either, which didn't help.  We had dinner aboard "The Bar-B" and upon our return Ray decided to go ahead and check the impeller on the water pump and change the belt on the port engine to see if either of those might be the cause of our problem.

Yesterday the guys dropped the girls off in downtown Fairhope so they could finish shopping in the stores they missed the day before because they closed at 5:00.  The guys continued on to Foley in the courtesy car because "The Bar-B" needed a new battery charger.  By the time they got back they found us at Aurora's Restaurant having our first liquid refreshment.  We stayed there for a while because it was cheaper.  Near 6:00 p.m. we made our way over to the Gumbo Shack for the all you can eat craw fish.  Linda was the only one that indulged in them, although surprisingly enough, Bob actually tried one.  With the length of time it takes for a non-Cajun to eat two platefuls of those things, the owner was getting pretty entertained and gave Ray one of their hats just so he would remove his Georgia Bulldog hat.  So this morning we did not pull out of Eastern Shore Marina until 10:30 a.m. since Bob had to install his new battery charger and the girls made one last run to Publix.  Linda figured it would be her last "real" grocery store for a long time as the choices in Demopolis are very disappointing.  Getting through Mobile was uneventful and by 3:00 p.m. we were dropping anchor in Big Briar Creek, just off of Tensas Cut.  We spotted two alligators later in the evening.

So here is the "cat tent" I made for Spike.  He used to stay under the couch the whole time we are underway, but since we installed the inverter under there he doesn't like it as much.  Therefore he has come to lay in the covered litter box.  That's why I thought he might like this tent.  He has only been in it if I force him, or put treats in it.  He has also started laying behind the forward toilet while underway.  So I put the tent right next to him, but it didn't help.

We pulled anchor out of Ingram Bayou at 6:30 this morning.  "The Bar-B" stayed behind for about a half hour to give us time to stop for our last fill up of gasoline.  We did that at eight o'clock at Homeport Marina which is the site of LuLu's Restaurant in Orange Beach, Alabama.  It was close to perfect timing when we pulled away from the fuel dock with "The Bar-B" in sight, not too far back.  It gave us an excuse to go a little slower for a while to conserve this last full tank(s) of gasoline.  We are trying to calculate exactly how much we need to pull into Demopolis on empty since they will be converted to diesel tanks.  When we were heading north on Mobile Bay we could see an official boat coming towards us, so we figured here we go again.  This time it was U.S. Customs and Border Patrol with a German Shepard on board.  They took a good bit of time behind us, so I thought they were going to leave us alone.  I was bummed because I wanted to see the dog.  I guess they heard me because they did finally approach us.  We slowed it down enough that we just answered their questions without them boarding us.  Of course we mentioned that we had just been boarded by the Alabama Marine Police two days prior.  Back up to speed after that incident, we pulled into Eastern Shore Marina in Fairhope, Alabama around 1:30 p.m. to pull into the same covered slip we have been in the other two times we have been here.  This was "The Bar-B"s first time however.  It took us about an hour to get settled, pay our dockage which was cheaper than they quoted, get some ice, and take off for town in the courtesy van.  Linda and Barbara stopped at one store on the way to the Gumbo Shack (as seen on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives) while the guys went ahead.  We each had a cup of gumbo or jambalaya, which was huge for a cup and delicious to hold us over.  The girls continued shopping until disappointingly, most of the stores closed at 5:00 p.m.  We made our way to the grocery store, then to the Fly Creek Cafe, which is right across the creek from our boats, but it is two miles to get there by road.  Dinner there was somewhat disappointing, so we all decided right then an there to stay another night since it was so cheap to dock, the girls can shop at the stores they missed, and go back and get some more of the delicious food at the Gumbo Shack, plus they have all you can eat craw fish on Thursdays for $5.00!