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.