Day Seven -  Sunday – Grand Harbor to Bay Springs

AURORA and I wave good-bye to my all-time favorite crew member

At 6:00 AM I wave goodbye to Kristine who has a long drive ahead of her back to MKE for a few welcome billable hours of work and a Green Bay Packer football game. For a person who has never been a boat person she seems sad and reluctant to leave. I think it comes as much of a surprise to her as it does to me.  She had expected to merely tolerate one more of RK’s weird adventures but instead, has found it exhilarating and enjoyable. Who’d of guessed?  

Captain Kris

Brett and I have poured over the charts and cruiser’s guides and set our goal for today to reach Bay Springs a mere 35 miles down the waterway and just before the Bay Springs Lock and Dam, our first together.  The first 25 miles will take us through the “cut” also sometimes referred to as “the ditch.”  It is a straight section that was dug out to connect Pickwick Lake with Bay Springs Lake and the south-flowing Tombigbee River.  Warnings abound that it is verboten to anchor anywhere along this section so my natural tendency to listen carefully for any engine aberrations is only increased tenfold. Our speed increases since we are now motoring with the current not against it as we were on the Tennessee River. Passing a barge and being passed by several faster pleasure craft does nothing to lessen the enjoyment of watching the egrets and herons ignore us while they hunt for their breakfast along the rip-rap lined shoreline only a few scant yards away.  Pulling up to the dock in Bay Springs Marina, we have a pleasant surprise.  James and Stacey (and Louie their dog) from GLASS SLIPPER are still at one of the slips. 

Several post ago I related how my disastrous mistake of running the engine out of fuel had caused us to stop at Clifton rather than going further.  It was serendipitous as we re-connected with both GLASS SLIPPER and VELA NARCOSIS for the following few days. They left a day ahead of us while Brett and I drove to and from Mobile and we had expected to miss their company the rest of the way south.  Now a mechanical problem has forced them to return to Bay Springs Marina after having transited the lock where they had lost reverse gear leaving the lock. So another mechanical issue has brought our two vessels together once again.  Is this some sort of sign? 

James has diagnosed the problem. Three out of four bolts have sheared off of his shaft connection. It is serious but if he can find stainless steel bolts of the correct size, (the sheared bolts were too short and only barely threaded into their respective nuts) and if the steel plate holding them can be re-bent to the proper shape, he would be good to go. It is a Sunday but the young man at the marina offers his car and we drive a couple of miles to what he referred to as a “great hardware store.” I accompany James and Stacey hoping to replenish the fresh vegetables on board but also hoping to find a piece of hose for a minor problem that has cropped up on AURORA.  Bay Springs is really an out of the way place and neither James nor I have any high expectations of finding size specific stainless nuts and bolts or the proper hose size.  Our hopes are not buoyed when we see that our destination is a Piggly-Wiggly grocery and ACE hardware combined in the same building.  But we are both shocked to find not only the exact repair materials we need but the groceries are fresh and plentiful.  Judging the book by its cover once again proves misleading.  James retreats to his boat for his repairs while Brett and I tackle a vexing issue on AURORA.  Those of you not interested in mechanical issues may want to skip the next long and boring paragraph. 

My main fuel tanks port and starboard hold 125 gallons each of diesel. While running however, I feed the engine from a 14 gallon day tank that I fill each day through a dual filtering system to insure I am always using clean fuel. Diesel engines do not use all the fuel supplied to the cylinders and in fact a good portion of the fuel is returned to the fuel tank, in my case, the port main tank.  Since we have now been running the engine for nearly a week, fuel is noticeably down in my starboard tank, the one I draw out of to fill my day tank each day.  However, the port main tank is still full!  In fact it almost looks as if it could overflow. If the unused fuel being returned to the tank has nowhere to go… it could conceivably stop my engine. For an unknown reason my two main tanks are not self leveling even though we have checked all the valves and connections. The only explanation is that the line leading from one tank to the other is clogged and not allowing fuel to flow from one main tank to the other. I want to pump 10 or 20 gallons of fuel out of the port tank into either the opposite tank or into 6 gallon jerry cans I keep below decks.  Disappointingly, Brett and I are unable to hand pump any fuel up the three feet from the tank to the deck and into any other containers. I do not have an electric pump on board that can do it either. Our temporary solution is to release any pressure build up in that clogged tank by opening the fill caps periodically. It will have to do until I can figure out a way to get fuel out of that port side tank.  As my friend, Big Jim has said to me many times back in Kentucky, “Roger, it’s a boat.”  Hey Big Jim… you’re right again, there will always be something that needs attention on a boat.