November 23-30, 2009 Turner Marina, Mobile, AL

November 23-30, 2009

Turner Marina in Mobile, AL

Hi All,

We are held up again. This time it is with our starter. After replacing our port starter switch, we continued to have unreliable port engine starts. The mechanic at Turners was recommended to us and so far we have been pleased with his work. After looking into the starter concern he found that there is something in the actual starter that needs to be rebuilt. The last I saw of him on Tuesday afternoon he was leaving Grateful with our starter on his shoulder. Thanksgiving holiday has slowed both mail shipping and labor. He also discovered a loose water hose and a battered flywheel. He intends to use a dremel tool and smooth out the flywheel which will save us time and mucho money and hopefully keep us cruising for many more thousand miles.

We have had a great time while we have been here and Turner Marina is owned by gracious young people. This is the second marina where they call me, “Miss Carol” – I love it.

I did enjoy my first raw oysters – yes, you read it right – I ENJOYED them. However, I was told by those who know oysters that these were exceptionally sweet. I don’t think I could discern the sweetness, but they were good – No pearls though. By the way, Mark had a hamburger. He did venture out and tried the gumbo and liked it.

We have been staying busy with projects around the boat. I have worked on teak and now we are sanding and sealing the teak on the flybridge. Port has been through the preliminary haircut – which means pulling hair out of his ears, filing nails, and taking the first layer of hair off. Later he will get a bath and finishing touches – like nail polish. Port and I have found a little piece of sandy beach where he can retrieve a stick. He loves it especially after I was keeping him out of alligator-infested water of the lower Black Warrior-Tombigbee Waterway. (However, I just talked to one of the marina owners and found out that the biggest alligator on record was found a mile and a half north of here – 24.5 feet long!!!)

We have been watching the weather and if we don’t get out of here by Monday afternoon, we will probably have to stay until at least Thursday. Storms are blowing in from the south and the water will be rough with gale force winds from Monday late afternoon to Thursday. It is hard to be patient with the delays. Actually, it is Monday and the mechanic brought our starter back and installed plus the flywheel filed by noon, but Mark was working on our windshield wipers. That project was halted by a big rainstorm. Go figure.

Mark has been keeping the books and came up with the statistics. We have traveled 1570.5 miles from our home port of Afton, MN. We have taken on 1711 gallons of fuel. We have used 55 hours on the generator and it seems to be a fuel hog. When we don’t use the generator, we are averaging a tad better than 1 mile per gallon. Our best fuel price was $2.25, and the most we have paid is $2.98.

November 22, 2009 Bates Lake to Mobile

November 22, 2009

Bates Lake to Dog River in Mobile

We made it to Mobile!!!!!!

We were so excited today because we knew we were finally going to make it to big water. We had approximately 80 miles to go – part winding river and part marshland. We had rain, low clouds, but very little wind. We decided to stay at Turner Marina as recommended by Queen Ann’s Revenge in order to get some mechanical help with our inverter and starter switch.

The Mobile Harbor was very interesting, and fortunately it was not as busy as reported in our books. Hank from Queen Ann’s Revenge was our tour guide – he had been here last year. We were very excited to view the Navy’s newest ship utilizing stealth technology. Hank told us that there are only 35 crew members. We were curious about the red, white and blue super structure and what it did. The pictures tell the rest of our story.

After settling in, we went out to dinner with Linda, Fred, Hank and Ann. We have come to the land of great seafood. We will be here for a couple of days and then we plan to go east to Eastern Shore Marina in Fairhope. A couple who live in Fairhope have invited any “Loopers” to their house for Thanksgiving. It’s not the same as family, but it will be interesting and fun.

November 21, 2009 Old Lock #1 to Bates Lake

November 21, 2009

Old Lock #1 Park to Bates Lake

We can’t make it to Mobile Bay because it is over 100 miles away so we will again travel with Queen Ann’s Revenge and Young America to Bates Lake. Millennium Seas will try to go a little further so tomorrow won’t be such a long day. We traveled about 55 miles to another setting that during normal water levels may have been difficult for us to get in and out of.

We arrived at Bates Lake around 12:30. Lakes here are kind of small, but Bates was considerably bigger with the high water. One side of the lake was bordered with cottages on stilts and most landings were private. We were looking for a landing to use when going to shore with Port. We traveled the entire length of the lake past the cottages to a small point encircled by trees when we got a bit of a scare.

We were carefully turning around when unexpectedly we lost reverse on our port side. Mark was doing a lot of frantic shifting, I was doing a lot of frantic yelling as Grateful parked herself in the woods. Grateful was wedged into the trees all the way to our wooden sidedoors and we were still in forward. Mark moved so fast to the upper station with no luck with the shift levers, then he tore up the carpet and the hatch to the engine room. He was able to put Grateful into reverse from there and I realized that I needed to drive and shifted starboard into reverse so we could back out straight. Mark raced up to the controls because I was panicking again. He shut down the port engine and somehow managed to get us between the cottages on either side of the lake into a wider area. There we anchored and began to take stock of our damages.

We were strewn with leaves, Spanish moss, ants, spiders from the trees. The windshield on the upper drive station was in pieces, the portside gate bracket was gone and there were some minor scuffs on the port side. Young America had stayed close and after surveying the hull said we looked OK. What incredible good fortune.

Mark diagnosed the difficulty as a screw working itself free of the shift linkage disabling both upper and lower stations. While he repaired the damage, I busied myself with sweeping all the leaves off the boat and picking up the windshield. Once that was done we were finally able to talk about it and again realized how lucky we were. If this had happened anytime sooner we might have parked our pulpit in somebody’s livingroom. If the water hadn’t been so high we might have damaged props, shafts or other parts of the hull. The windshield was old, checked and we were considering replacing it at some point anyway. We were also able to talk about things we could have done differently, and maybe most importantly we were able to laugh about some of the crazy things we did.

The Bates Lake anchorage was peaceful in spite of all our excitement. The folks were friendly on shore – Port and I enjoyed our long walk. It rained until midnight, but our anchor held.

November 20, 2009 Bashi Creek to Old Lock #1 Park

November 20, 2009

Bashi Creek (mm145) to Old Lock #1 (mm100)

Mark and I had originally intended to start out very early and get as far we could, but our plans were foiled again by fog. So four out of the five boats that spent the night in Bashi Creek decided to stay together and stop at mile marker (mm) 100.0 at the Old Lock #1 Park. Mark and I are always trying to find a place with boat launches so that we can get Port to shore more easily and lessen the chances of encountering alligators.

Today we locked through the Coffeeville Lock & Dam and all cheered – it was our last one on the river system. The lock master let us know that the water level was still about 14-15 feet above normal pool. We also passed Bobby’s Fish Camp – it is the last stop for fuel so many cruisers stop there. Fuel is available, but the dock is for tie-up only. There have been times when boats are rafted together three deep. As we meandered down the waterway, we could see how high the water had been – silt clung to trees and shrubs. One of our travel companions commented that according to his calculations, the winding waterway added about 100 miles to our downstream journey to Mobile.

It was an easy travel day and we arrived at the Old Lock #1 Park at about 2:00. We were greeted by the “park host”. He said that a few days ago we would not have been able to tie up to the old lock wall because the water was too high. And at normal pool, the water is too low. It was a great place and Porter and I were able to walk ashore and play Frisbee for awhile. The Spanish moss in the trees was eerie.

Later in the afternoon, we all gathered on Young America (boat behind Grateful) for a celebration of our last lock and dam. We are traveling with Young America (Fred & Linda), Queen Ann’s Revenge (Hank & Ann), Millennium Seas (Ken & Cheryl). Lots of stories and laughter.

November 19, 2009

November 19, 2009

Demopolis to Bashi Creek

Waiting, waiting, waiting…. We are ready, but the fog was heavy. We all got started late and it was interesting to watch 9 boats leave the marina and head for the lock and dam. There were 10 boats in the Demopolis Lock & Dam including Island Girl from LaCrosse, WI (80 ft long).

Bashi Creek is about 70 miles downstream. In fact there are no marinas from Demopolis to Mobile so we were out for adventure. The waterway here is mostly river and so has twists and turns. It is chewing away at the banks and constantly changing. Often we would see people try to stall the erosion with rock and even tires cabled together. the waterway is still at least 8 feet above normal pool here.

A group of five boats arrived at Bashi Creek at 4:00 and settled in. Just as I was getting in the kayak to go ashore with Port, the fellow behind us warned me about alligators – No REALLY?????? Sure hope they aren’t hungry.