On the road again…

October 8

Left Louisville yesterday with a small SUV filled with gear for the upcoming sprint to Florida after the AGLCA (American Great Loop Cruisers Association) Rendevous held at Joe Wheeler State Park on the Tennessee River in (where else?) Rogersville, Alabama. At this time there are probably 100ish boats circumnavigating the eastern US by boat. Many will converge at Joe Wheeler Park next week. Debbie and I will be among them. Plan is to have the boat safely in our slip in Burnt Store Marina where we have a home in time to get home for Thanksgiving.

We had to make a side trip to Soddy Daisy, Tn to pick up our props at Performance Propellers. Owner Tim Hackney met us at 7PM on a Sunday night. Where do you get this kind of service???

We finally get to the boat, unload the car, enter the boat and…the AC is not cooling and there is not much water coming out of the AC pump. Absolutely miserable night. Today replaced a macerator pump on our holding tank, flushed out the AC system after making a flushing contraption, and rebooted the autopilot. Remember earlier I mentioned a failed experiment where we tried to use a portable AC unit on the flybridge? Well it is still on the boat and we are glad of it. Brought it down to the saloon, placed the mounting plate our friend Dave Hobbs made for us in a window and voila, we had AC in the saloon. Flushing an AC system takes all day for all the junk to be cleaned out of the AC lines and upon our return home after dinner, IT WORKED!!!

When we got to Chattanooga and had such a hard time getting WB in a slip we met a guy who helped us get the boat in our assigned slip.

This is our new friend Brad Gillenwater, man that guy saved our bacon when we got to Chattanooga. Such a swell fellow that we are giving him this bottle on Tuesday evening.

Brad and his wife Christy own this beautiful 52 foot Hatteras yacht. Our friend Leslie Taylor was kind enough to do the artwork for the bottle. With Leslie’s brilliant artwork I am sure this bottle will end up in the Louvre too!

Last night after unloading the car and getting everything on board the boat I went to the airport to return the rental car we used to get here from Louisville. Rented another car for the next few days but Alamo did not have the Nissan Maxima I was supposed to get. Gal at the counter told me I could have an upgrade, a Chevy Camaro or a Dodge Challenger. Chose the Camaro cuz maybe there is a little red streak to the back of my neck. Young lady at the counter did not tell me it was the Super Sport model with 450 horsepower.

Holy cow this thing is fast, I mean reealllly fast.

We hired a diver to reinstall the props we damaged when we ran aground a few weeks back. It seems when we had the spare props reconditioned in Louisville…they weren’t. When we had them installed after the grounding, we still had a heavy vibration after installing the spare props. I am hoping the newly reconditioned propellers will solve the vibration issue. When properly reconditioned, a shop will give you before and after performance reports on your props. Great guy by the name of Cooper Jones did the reinstall. It took him every bit of 5 hours to pull the spare props and reinstall the original props. And he did it in 12 feet of water! Couple of photo’s of Cooper performing his magic:

These are not very good photo’s but Debbie and I were in the saloon when she happened to notice a HUGE tree coming down river and heading straight for the back of our boat. Where Cooper happened to be just under the surface working on the props. This thing was at least 3 feet in diameter and would have surely hit him. Due to Debbies keen eyes I was able to divert this thing with a boat pole.