Friday Oct 20th
We left Grand Harbor on Thursday and traveled to Florance Ms it was a nice short day and the ride was pleasant. When we left Grand Harbor the marina in Florence was not sure if they would have a slip for us with electric as they were quite full and because of the weather. boats were lingering longer than anticipated. Luckily, when we arrived they had electric for us, this was important as the temps have been wayyyyyy down the last couple of days, and it is always nice to have some heat. I say some heat as we are down to 1 unit on the boat that is working properly, there are 3 AC/heat units onboard. I had mentioned that while at GH we had someone come take a look at our unit in the Aft cabin and the unfortunate diagnose was it lived a 20 year life and needed to be put to rest. Now, anyone with a boat knows these boat things are pricey and when they called with a replacement price of $3000 for 1 unit installed. the captain went online to check things out himself. In the end he ordered a unit had it shipped to Rogersville AL and it would be waiting for us when we arrived. Oh, and the weather when we left GH was long pants, sweatshirts, jackets and gloves. Sure hope all goes well with the AC/heat unit Jim ordered.
Florence was a nice stop though be it a 1 night stand, we will be stopping there again on our way south in a couple of weeks. The next morning we would leave here with a flotilla of 8 boats all heading to the rendezvous. though a short day, we needed to go through 2 locks which can really slow things down, but traveling as a unit and talking in advance to the lockmaster the lock was open and waiting for our arrival. SWEET! And the second lock was just as nice as the lockmasters talked to each other so again the 2nd lock was open and waiting for us! Once at the 2nd lock we picked up some more boats so 2 boats needed to rafted up in order for us all to lock though together. We arrived at Joe Wheeler in a flotilla of 11 and were in our slip by noon, checked in and cocktails shortly after, docktails at 5pm and dinner at the lodge (9 of us) at 6:30.
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| Pickwick Belle |
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| Tee Pees on the Tennessee River |
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| At Florence we woke up to the start of a bass tournament 100 boats |
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| The Florence Flotilla 5 behind us |
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| 4 in front of us |
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| Joe Wheeler State Park we are finally here for the fall rendezvous these are the slips in front of the lodge. Theres Erika Lin pulling into her slip, after a year and a half we, or they, finally caught up to us. We first met Lynda and Bob at the Myrtle Beach rendezvous 2010 |
