Fairhope to Orange Beach AL

Today was the latest start ever for us, the winds were to lay down after 10am so we took SweetPea out for a test run to check out the work done.  The vibrations are gone so back to the marina to pay the piper, and get a pump out and finally move on.

Gotcha

what a show off

you can run but you can not hide

Smile

This is the beginning of the Gulf ICW

We caught up to Jeremiah and NautiNell at LuLu's  for a late lunch, this restaurant is owned by Lucy Buffet yes she is Jimmy's sister.  4 out of 6 of us had a cheeseburger in paradise.

This is the outside area, being 3 in the afternoon on a Wed. it was deserted.  Looks like a fun place though.  Theres a really nice bar under the tiki hut and they have live music here during the summer and on weekends.  Of course there was Jimmy Buffet music piped throughout the place.

Lunch at LuLu's

By the time we finished our late lunch it was getting dark we were planning on anchoring out but this marina was calling to us.  Besides it was suppose to be very cold tonight 40 brrrr.  Tomorrow we will move on again not sure how far we will travel but it certainly will be further than today.

SweetPea hauled out in Alabama for a check up

SweetPea has a checkup so out of the water she comes

Props checked.... lookin pretty good after 4500 miles since her last check up.  But Jim thought he was feeling a bit of a vibration when we were running the engines up the other day so with a closer look and a good shake we found that the cutlass bearings needed to be replaced. And since she is out of the water might as well change the Zincs since we are now in Salt water again and its been 8 months.

They had one heck of a time getting the props off.  Who knows when the last time the props were taken off, it may not have been since 2005 when the props were changed out after the re power.

They finally got them off and replaced the cutlass bearings.  They washed and waxed the hull and got rid of the mustache.  Shiny new zinc plate, and back in the water she goes.  All the other zincs were good.

Later the next day a mechanic came over to change out the impellers on the engines.  Since we again had no idea when they were last replaced and we have put 1000 hours on the engines we thought better safe than sorry, do it now as Preventive Maintenance rather than have a problem while crossing the Gulf.  Jim new he could change them himself but, one of the engines was going to be difficult with the placement.  This guy was in this position for more than an hour.  This is the first time we had a mechanic do work on the boat, Jim has always done it himself. So I won't complain.......too much.  Jim will do an oil change again on the engines before we cross the Gulf and change the oil and fuel filters at the same time.  He also wants to do and oil change and change out the impellers on the Genny.  But that can wait for another time as its still a bit early for that yet.

Thanksgiving with our harbour host in Fairhope Alabama

Bob and Vicki front and center

Today we were invited to celebrate Thanksgiving with Vicki and Bob Riggs who are the harbor hosts and Veteran loopers here in Fairhope Alabama.  Any loopers in the area was invited to attend, just bring a dish and they would open their home and supply turkey, ham and all the wine we could drink.  This is the 5th year the Riggs have opened their beautiful home for the loopers.  The shuttles began at 1pm from the marina and by 2pm everyone had arrived, dinner bell and prayer at 3pm.

Bob and Vicki's beautiful home

The girls

I really must agree

A good time was had by all!

Thank You Bob and Vicki it was very generous of you to welcome all of us to your home,  you made our holiday away from our loved ones very special.

Jim and I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Our last week as river rats?

We have spent nearly 3 months on the river system from Chicago to Mobile.  Too long?  Long enough is my answer!  This homemade sailing vessel (CharlieBrown) made of bamboo, plastic bottles and tarps was heading downbound, and barely moving, wonder where he was trying to get too.  Wherever it was it surely was slow going. 

Later in the same day we came across this raft named SlantyShanty, we have seen a few posts and pics of it on other blogs, on board is a young couple in their early 20's they are heading to New Orleans.  As we were passing by they had a VHF radio and asked if we had seen anyother rafts or homemade crafts up river, we mentioned the sailboat at mile marker 145 and they said they were trying to keep tabs on him.  They had last seen him at about the same mm a week ago.  This raft in the last week was averaging about 15 miles a day and was now about 100 miles from the sailboat.  An interesting journey for sure. They are called river rats by the tows, and not an uncommon site.  

Here is a look at our chartplotter as we meander down the Tenn-Tom.

This last week on the river is without marinas for over 200 miles so we have been on the hook for the past week rafting with others we are traveling with.  Here is Barb and Ken from Dallas TX on LoopDreams and Lynda and Bob from Mystic CT. on ErikaLin at one of our anchorages along the way.

Another night we rafted with our friends Linda and Jeff on Jeremiah along with 4 other boats, once all tied together it time for the pups to get to land.

That evening as always, its cocktail hours, we had a 5 boat raft on this night.  Lifestyles, CatNAround, Jeremiah, SweetPea and NautiNell. 

This is our first site of civilization, Mobile AL we have been without phone or internet for most of the week.

We traveled down the shipping canal in Mobile this is just about all we saw.

More of the same.

Ahhh, finally Mobile Bay, from here we cross the bay to our destination for the next week and where we will spend Thanksgiving with 34 other loopers in Fairhope Alabama. 

across the bay we go, it couldn't of been any smoother.

Land Ho!  Eastern Shores Marina in Fairhope.

We are very happy to be off the rivers and back in salt water.  We Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Its always something !

The Plan is to head on out of Demopolis tomorrow morning at sunrise, Hopefully there will be NO fog and the lock will be up working and waiting for us.  The Demopolis lock was down most of the day today for repairs. There is quite a group of us here, we just hope we get in the first lock down of the day from the marina.  Since Alabama received so much rain in the last few days we are hoping the water levels will be up enough to allow us to get into Bashi Creek and anchor for the night, if not it will be a long day of over 90 miles to Bobby's Fish Camp.

Since we have spent so much time here Jim took the opportunity to install the Hailer he had on the boat.

Of course SOMEONE needed to supervise and make sure everything was lined up.

Its always something right!  As Jim was enjoying his morning coffee and chatting with Lynda on ErikaLin they both smelt something burning.  Yup, that's our cable connection, luckily Jim was where he was and it happened during the day.  I don't even want to think what could of happened if it was night and everyone was asleep.

The electrical cords were resting on this cooler.  Jim replaced all the connections on the cord and took the time to clean the cockpit out and reorganised everything.  All is good now.

Weather delays, shallow anchorages and no marinas OH My!

Well here we sit, waiting for a weather window to open up, but things have gotten even more complicated in the last 24 hours. 

We are in Demopolis Al. located 225 miles or so from Mobile Bay,  from here to Mobile there is only one dock in which to tie up to,  NO marinas and only 2 places for a boat our size to drop an anchor, however, due to low pool (3 feet below low) last night we received a call from a group of boats that left the marina here.   The call came at 8 30PM, BrownEyedGirl and 3 others had just reached Bobby's Fish Camp 97 miles away, it took them 10 hours.  It was reported that the anchorages were too shallow for their boats to get into so they had no other choice but to go on another 20+ miles to Bobby's.  WOW, luckily there is only 1 lock but the weather was not the greatest yesterday with wind and rain on top of it all it must of been an extremely long day.. 
Today weather calls for rain, thunder and lightening, strong wind warnings severe at times with possible hail and tornado warnings!  OH MY!  I believe we will stay right where we are thank you.  However, when we do leave we are looking at a 97 miles, at least thanks to the report from BrownEyedGirl we can plan on it and pick up the pace as to NOT get stuck traveling in the dark, and I guess we will be blowing the carbon out of SweetPea.

Thanks for the heads up!

Today the 8 boats that are here will ponder over the situation, everyone can travel at different speeds some faster than others, there are 3 who are only able of about 8 mph max and the rest range from a max of 12 to 20mph. Since the 3 slower boats are true trawlers they MAY be able to use an anchorage because their props are protected.  Throw in a lock which takes 30 mins on a good day and whatever barges and no wake zones we come across, especially on some of the hairpins turns we will encounter, hmmm looks to be an interesting trip and some serious fuel burn.  Sure hope the lockmaster is good to us.

Half way down the Tenn-Tom and back in Alabama

We left Midway marina Thursday with the intention of traveling to Columbus a 60miles day with 4 locks, well it turned out to be more than was possible due to waiting on the locks and the sun setting earlier.  We ended up passing up Columbus and ended the day in Aberdeen.  It was an interesting entry way though very well marked.

Erika Lin leaving Aberdeen MS, I love this picture, it looks as though they are cruising into the trees, but they were actually following the markers. 

This is the office for the marina at Pirates Cove our next stop.

On Saturday we set out once again this time bypassing Columbus and headed into Pirates Cove a 51 mile day (trying to make up some time) the locks were much better to us on this day. Pirates Cove, though not much of a marina the people were extremely helpful and it was a quiet night for us, dinner on board and early to bed. We have been traveling with ErickaLin for the last week or so and today we picked up another boat while at Pirates Cove, Ken and Barb on LoopDreams they too were at the rendezvous at Joe Wheeler but we had not really met them until now, the 3 of us would be traveling together for the next few days and upon leaving this marina our next night would be anchoring as there are no marinas for over 90 miles.

Potty time for the pups

Party Time for the people
ErikaLin on SweetPea with LoopDreams
at our anchorage for the night Sumter Rec Area



Sunset at the anchorage



Sunrise the next morning

Theres LoopDreams
Ken and Barb
cruising by Sugar Bluffs

ErikaLin
Bob and Lynda

We are now in Demopolis Alabama and will be here for 2 nights as once again weather is not looking very promising. There are at least 15 Looper boats here, its like old home week..
When we do leave here we have 213 miles to Mobile AL and no real marinas along the way so we will be anchoring out, it should take 4 days we are hoping to make it in 3 we will see how that goes.

Time to head South again

The painted Bluff on the TN River heading down stream.  Well, we didn't make it to Chattanooga as original planned, weather turned cold and storms were forecasted for the next 2 or 3 days which would of been our travel days to Chattanooga, so, we decided to turn around and head south saving ourselves a week of travel.  And since we also have another change of plans, which is to go home for Thanksgiving, we needed the extra time to get to Mobile Al.  where we hope to leave SweetPea and head back to Massachusetts for the holiday.

This is the Wilson Lock, to give you an idea of the size of some of these locks, pictured here is ErikaLin who is a 40' Mainship and the boat behind her is The Good Life,  who is a 70 footer and owned by a New England Patriot, they are dwarfed by the size of the lock.  Also in this lock are 5 other boats all 40+ feet, this lock dropped us down 93 feet and all the remaining locks from here to Mobile will be lowering us down to sea level. Which totals a 518 feet we need to drop before we reach Mobile and more than 450 miles.

A rare photo of Just Jim and I, this was taken in Florence Alabama

We are now on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway (Tenn-Tom) which links the Tennessee River and Mobile Bay it will take us 234 miles to the Bay.  After 12 years of construction, at a total cost of 2 Billion the Tenn-Tom was completed and officially opened for commerce on January 10,1985.

The scenery can be quite spectacular, especially as the trees hold on to the beautiful fall color that still remains here.  This was the view in our anchorage for the night with NautiNell at Five fingers in Bay Springs.



Well not all trees are able to hold onto their leaves, more reason to head south!



We are now at Midway Marina in Fulton Mississippi, we will leave here in the morning (early) and hope to reach Columbus MS with daylight 5 locks and 60 miles.  We hope the lock masters are kind to us.

Side Note*  That boat in the lock with us "The Good Life" When we got to our next stop it was in the marina,  we were surprised to see it as she travels very fast and was a day ahead of us, and since it was being delivered to Florida by a hired captain even stranger it was sitting.  Well today we were reading that the NE patriot that owned her has been released from the pats, and the boat was sitting at the marina because the hired captain went aground in the fog hmmm, not a good week for Albert Haynesworth or "The Good Life"