Day  Eight – Monday - Bay Springs to Smithville  

Halloween decorations in Bay Springs Marina

Sun-up and AURORA prepares to leave Bay Springs

            Locks, locks, locks.  For the next few days Brett and I will have much opportunity to practice our locking-through techniques with four on tap for today.  First will be Whitten Lock, followed by Montgomery Lock, Rankin Lock and finally, Fulton Lock.  Whitten, the first, is just a mile from our Bay Springs dock and after contacting the lockmaster and letting him know we are 15 minutes out, our mid-western twang must have alerted him to our orgins because his reply comes back with a smile we could hear even if we could not see it.  “Y’all come on in… we’ll be a-waitin’ for y’all.”  GLASS SLIPPER and AURORA share the lock with one other boat, James preferring to tie up on his port side while Brett and I prefer our starboard side tie.  As I maneuver AURORA close to the floating bollard and use reverse to stop the boat, Brett is standing right at midships with the line from our stern, takes two wraps on the bollard moves a few feet forward and efficiently secures the end of the line to that infamous forward cleat.  We are now secure both fore and aft in moments. It is amazingly quick when one has the proper length of line and a little hard earned knowledge from our Pickwick disaster. The lockmaster will not begin the water transfer until all boats in the lock have radioed him that they are secured to the wall so James and I report in as does the third boat. 

 

GLASS SLIPPER  port tied to wall

We drop 35 feet while the doors hold back the lake

Doors open and we exit Whitton Lock

Brett and I give each other the thumbs up sign as the water drains out of the lock and we rapidly go down with the receding water. That thumbs up signal brings back a humorous memory for me even if it was at the time, less so for Kristine.  We were driving the Dalmatian Coast Road in what was Yugoslavia at the time and decided to take the “road to Setenj.”  One guide book described it as scenic while another warned it was “adventurous.”  That was the draw for me because I love mountain roads.  Kris… not so much.  In fact she stashes pounds of chocolate in the glove compartment for the express use on RK’s forays on switchback, single lane scary roads.  This particular road climbs up the side of the mountain range and has no less than a dozen sharp switchbacks, none of which have shoulders or guardrails.  Kris’s knuckles are white as she clings to the door handle while stuffing large chunks of chocolate into her mouth.  Her logic is unassailable.  As she puts it, “If I am going to die on this road, I want to gobble as much chocolate as I can because it will never get to my thighs!”  The first few switchbacks go uneventfully but as I make the blind turn midway up the mountain, YIKES, directly a few yards in front of me is a huge tour bus taking up the entire road!  There is an old sailor proverb that says regardless of who has the legal right of way, tonnage rights will prevail.  And this tour bus has tonnage rights over our little rented Fiat.  I turn my head and begin backing down the road about a quarter of a mile until I find a small indentation in the face of the mountain where I can squeeze up against the rock face.  Kris is nearly apoplectic as chocolate disappears into her mouth by the handful.  As the bus slowly but carefully skirts the edge of the road to pass by us, the driver looks at me, gives me a great big smile and then holds up his hand with the thumbs up signal.  I smile at him and return the universal signal.  Kris breathes a huge sigh of relief as we resume our climb up the mountain side.  When we reach the next blind turn on the switchback, there is another tour bus right in front of me.  I repeat the nerve wracking backing-up to the very same indentation in the rock face as her chocolate supply rapidly disappears.  In this country, thumbs up is not the universal sign I had thought it to be… it is how one says, “There is one more bus behind me!”  Kris and I laugh about it now but she was not laughing at the time. 

Back on the Tombigbee, with GLASS SLIPPER repaired, we have the locks pretty much to ourselves today and make good time through the series of drops but decide to stop at Smithville for the night.  It is a tiny marina with one long pier that both of us tie up to and we follow the elderly gentleman up to the office to settle our overnight fees. In an effort to be polite I motion for James to go first with his credit card while I wait until he is finished.  The elderly man helping us is not the owner but simply a resident on the dock who helps out when needed.  Unfortunately, he punches in James’s $33 dollar fee as $333 dollars.  About 40 minutes later after James has talked to the credit card company and corrected the error, I sheepishly ask him to run my credit card as well.  The elderly gentleman is happy to let us do our own punching in of the numbers. James laughs at the snafu and says next time I can go first.  

 

Some boats are more tired than others

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.  

Day Six - Saturday - Grand Harbor  to Mobile, AL… and back  

Welcoming AURORA's new crew, Brett Bockhop

Brett and I arise early and as we walk past GLASS SLIPPER, her lights come on and we know from dinner last night that they and VELA NARCOSIS will be heading out today.  It is bittersweet because we have enjoyed their river knowledge and waterway companionship but they are anxious to move on and so we wave as we walk past their boat.  Climbing into our cars, him in his Camry and me in Kristine’s Mini Cooper, we head off for Mobile, Alabama 450 miles south on the Gulf of Mexico. We will pre-position his car at the marina and then come immediately back to Grand Harbor. In a week or two after getting AURORA to Turner Marina, we will drive his car back to Wisconsin. Just recently retired as a a Wisconsin DNR forest ranger, Brett has taken a part time job managing one of our state forests in the far northern wilds and would like to be back in the woods in early November.  Kris will be taking her Mini and driving back to MKE tomorrow morning while Brett and I head off down river with AURORA.  

Saturday traffic is light and we make slip arrangements, park his Camry in the lot and head back to Grand Harbor 450 miles north.  Brett did ask if the marina wanted a key to his car but they declined saying they had no need of it. The ride back is long but arriving at the boat around 8:30 PM we take note of the empty slip where James and Stacey’s boat had been berthed when we left early this morning.  More surprisingly, we find that AURORA is flanked by several large and expensive-looking boats including GOLDEN GIRL on the outside of our pier.  She is massive next to us, around 100 feet, with lights in the main salon revealing a chef and deckhand serving the main course to her owners. Both Brett and I glance up just a little jealously but when we step down into AURORA’s main salon, Kristine has set a table with bowls of hot chili, toasted garlic bread and a cold drink.  It occurs to me that we are receiving exactly the same service as that multi-million dollar vessel moored next to us and my penis envy evaporates like the steam arising from my bowl of chili.   

Penis envy averted... mostly!

Kris relates her day’s adventures including watching two other boats come in behind us and on the other side of the slip, both 10 to 15 feet larger than ours.  As she observed the two captains talking to each other, her thoughts ran to two men comparing penis size as they surreptitiously eyed each other‘s boat.  And then GOLDEN GIRL pulled up to the dock dwarfing both of their boats.  Serious penis envy must have ensued on their parts because they both stopped talking and disappeared below decks not to be seen again. A valuable life lesson... there is ALWAYS  someone smarter, richer, better looking than you.  Damn.... I really, REALLY hate that lesson!

Day Five - Friday -  Diamond Island to Grand Harbor 

          This is a big day for AURORA and me personally. Several milestones will be encountered this day.  First, and one that has given me the willies since I decided to take the boat south, it will be the first lock and dam for AURORA and me. I’ve been through the Panama Canal locks but only as an observer, not the captain of the vessel.   I’ve watched a dozen videos, read the instructive notes from the other loopers and I know the procedure.  However, as life has taught most of us, book learning is not necessarily useful knowledge. Hence my trepidation. Secondly, we will leave the Tennessee River above the dam and enter the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway also known as the Tenn-Tom.  And lastly, it will be Kristine’s last day aboard as she will return to MKE for work and earn a little money so I can continue my chosen lifestyle as a boat bum. We will also meet my pseudo-nephew, Brett, who will join me as crew for the final 2/3 of the Southern Sojourn.

          Kris and I pull up our anchor with a little breeze still pushing us around and watch as GLASS SLIPPER does the same.  Both of us do a few doughnuts (go around in a circle) while Dennis on VELA NARCOSIS hand over hand raises his anchor chain.  He is obviously tiring but the anchor is not giving up its hold on the bottom.  After ten minutes we get on the radio and Wanda tells us the anchor is hung up on something big underwater.  Another 20 minutes go by with no progress and James puts his dinghy down and goes over to see if he can help.  By now we can all see that Dennis has raised the anchor high enough to have a huge branch protruding from the front of his bow but he cannot raise it any further.  Whatever it is beneath the surface, it is big and very heavy.  Dennis is breathing heavy as well and Kris and I stay as close as we can to the stricken vessel but without a clue as to how we could be of help. 

VELA NARCOSIS fouled anchor

James, with the wind picking up and the surface getting choppy, has deftly maneuvered his dinghy so he now has a hold of the tree branch but still cannot raise the anchor any further. 

Branch of underwater log

Finally, the two of them realize the anchor chain has wrapped around the log. Inch by inch they move the chain around and unwrap it until finally it releases the huge log and VELA NARCOSIS is free and clear. James is our hero, having saved Dennis from jettisoning his main anchor and chain to get free.  It is an auspicious beginning to the day but not in a good way. Luckily, the 11 miles to the dam goes smoothly, if slowly, in the current racing past us down river. The dam is obviously releasing water downstream but following Dennis we approach the lock. It is one of the higher locks on the Inland River System rising 85 feet before releasing us into Pickwick Lake. But first…. the lock.  

I have prepared a line with which to tie off to the floating bollard that will rise with us as we go up with the filling lock.  Kristine is on deck with the line in hand, me at the wheel, both of us wearing lifejackets as per rules for all individuals on a boat while locking through. The technique is simple.  One, drive the boat close to the wall, two, wrap the line twice around the floating bollard and secure it to the boat’s midship cleat. (a cleat that is halfway between the front and rear of the boat)   Now the boat cannot float away from the wall.  Finally, try to keep the boat from rubbing against the wall and dirtying your rubber fenders.  Simple… except for one fact.  My midship cleat is NOT in the middle. It is only about a third of the way from the bow, nowhere near the middle and as the water rushes into the lock, my stern pushes away from the wall tightening the line forcing my bow into the wall.  Kris tries valiantly to hold the bow off the wall but the boat weighs15 tons and it is far beyond her strength or mine or anyone’s for that matter.  Our anchor scraps nosily along the wall as the AURORA rises making white gouges in the cement surface while my stern is ten feet away from the wall.  I try my best to keep the stern in with the engine but because it is over one of the welling up geysers of incoming water, we continue to point 45 degrees at the wall and leave anchor marks and loud screeching all 85 feet up to lake level.  My first locking is an absolute disaster because I did not look carefully at the placement of my “midship” cleat.  I feel embarrassed but mostly… just plain stupid.

Leaving the lock I cannot look in the direction of the lockmaster, merely thanking him by radio for our safe arrival in Pickwick Lake.  I know exactly how to solve this issue but it will wait until we dock at Grand Harbor in a couple of hours.  My two traveling companion boats did not apparently see this bit of entertainment so I will have to describe it again in minute detail for them. These are the stories that are never forgotten. Sunny days, quiet anchorages are wonderful but forgettable. It is dumb mishaps that make boater’s tales memorable. Tying up, Brett meets us at the dock and comes aboard AURORA for the first time. While Kris shows him his forward stateroom bunk and he stows his gear, I am busily splicing together two 20 foot pieces of dock line to make a new locking line that will reach from my stern cleat to the bollard, make two turns on it and then all the way forward to that infamous “midship” cleat forward.  This will attach the AURORA both forward and aft to the bollard. We have another dozen locks to pass through before we get to Mobile. Granted from here on out the water flows downstream towards the Gulf and all the succeeding locks will be going down rather than up, but I will not be caught unprepared a second time. James and Stacey and Dennis and Wanda and Kris and I along with Brett go out to dinner and with smiles all around, celebrate completing the first of the three legs on our Southern Sojourn.     

AURORA out of Pickwick Lock & Dam

   

Day  Four - Thursday - Clifton to Diamond Island Anchorage 

AURORA ready to leave Clifton Marina

          There are times when hurrying makes no sense. It has taken me about 30 years to learn this lesson.  There is a road that hugs the Adriatic Sea for several hundred miles along what is now Croatia but when I was driving it, was still known as Yugoslavia under Tito.  It is a daunting path mostly two lanes carved out of the mountain range on one side and precipitous drops to the sea on the other. This picture is new but when I was driving it there were no guardrails, just loose gravel and a lot of air all the way down to the rock-strewn shore. 

Adriatic Coast Freeway

Because it was the only coast road, it was heavily traveled by slow trucks of all dimensions and I reveled in pushing the under-powered Fiat rental car to its limits as I brazenly passed truck after truck on this narrow two lane deathtrap.  Youthfulness promulgates the denial of reality.  After a couple of hours of this daredevil foolishness, Kristine espied a scenic overlook ahead and demanded I stop so she could empty the contents of her stomach that threatened sudden release due to my insane driving. While she got her stomach under control, I watched at least thirty of the trucks that I had painstakingly passed, go by with more than a few of them blowing their horns, waving and laughing at me as they whizzed past our parked car. What was I thinking? We were vacationing and I had no earthly reason to be in a rush but being in a hurry is an affliction that percolates steadily in the young. Standing on that gravel shoulder watching those whizzing trucks was not my sea change moment, however. That lesson would take a few more years to take hold in my reasoning process.   

As AURORA pulls away from the dock at Clifton, we have a relatively short run to the Diamond Island anchorage and we all dial back the RPMs to match the slowest of our three boats, GLASS SLIPPER. There is no rush, no need to hurry today.  We want to arrive at Pickwick Lock and Dam in the morning in case of heavy barge traffic.  Commercial traffic has priority on the Inland Waterways and pleasure craft must wait for barge traffic to pass through the locks first. Arriving in the AM allows plenty of time to traverse the lock regardless of the traffic. The Diamond Island anchorage is only a ten or eleven mile run to the dam and even with the strong current below the dam reducing one’s speed by two or three knots, it assures one plenty of time to get through the lock.   

The run up river is uneventful and we three select our anchoring spots behind Diamond Island with Vela Narcosis going in first, me heading a bit further up and finally Glass Slipper sliding even further up river than AURORA. The sun sets on a most idyllic scene.  

Diamond Island

The previous night, James and Stacey had mentioned an ugly night they had spent a couple of years ago in this very same spot. Listening to the crickets and frogs dial up their evening symphony, it seems the perfect anchorage… off the main channel and well protected from anything but a north wind. 

       Whenever I am on the hook I sleep lightly being attuned to changes in the sound of the wind and the movement of the boat. Sure enough, at two in the morning, the wind has come up and it is out of the north.  It is not a strong wind but I get up to check our position regarding the close-by shore.  I have an all chain anchor rode and it is easily keeping us out of any trouble, but I notice in the moonlight that James is out in his dinghy.  He is setting a stern anchor to keep him away from the shoreline.  I know he’s using all rope for his main anchor and I am thankful for my heavy chain lying on the bottom holding our position. Although I get up a couple of more times before sunrise, we do not move very much in spite of the unexpected wind out of the north and I rest easier than I would have imagined under these conditions.  Perfectly content to not being in a hurry, I must have lost my youth somewhere along the way while I was not paying attention

Day Three – Wednesday-  Cuba Landing to Clifton Marina

            Dumb strikes again. I am not an anal individual by anyone’s standards and as a result I have learned the hard way over many years experience that boat procedures are critical to trouble free running.  It is a little like when a few days ago when I opined about leaving friends.  I mentioned several individuals, boat slip neighbors who had become fast friends.  The one person I did not mention was the one person instrumental in my decision to move the boat to Kentucky Dam Marina in the first place. Brenda is their office manager and in the fall of 2013 when I had driven down to the Kentucky Lake area to visit marinas and decide which would become the fresh water destination for AURORA the following spring, KDM was the first of a dozen marina visits.  Wow, this woman could market ice cubes in the Arctic.  I have never seen her without a smile and a kind word for whomever she was with at the moment.  Although we had visited a ton of marinas and were greeted by wonderful folks, I kept coming back to that woman, Brenda, who convinced me her marina was the best place for AURORA.  And she was right. 

            So what does this have to do with me and dumb?  It points directly to my dumb “caught–up-in-the-moment” nature.  I was so anxious to relate my sadness at leaving dock neighbors, I had forgotten to mention the very reason I had met those boat neighbors, the marina’s public face, Brenda Simpson.  Sorry Brenda.  I consider those lapses dumb and try desperately to limit them.  However,  I did not succeed in limiting them this morning in Cuba Landing.  

       Morning River Fog blankets our marina and the main river as well so we have a second cup of coffee to wait it out.  When it begins to clear, I start up the engine and wave to our two new sailboat friends who were headed out of the bay ahead of us.  As I untied the last dock line, our engine coughs and dies.  Quickly re-tying the lines, I climb into the pilot house and attempt to re-start the engine. No luck. With a sinking feeling I open up the engine room to investigate this very disturbing occurrence.  This is a single engine boat and no engine, no control, no go… anywhere.  At least I am still tied to the dock rather than dodging barges in the river channel.   As soon as I glance around, I realize that in my haste last evening to socialize, I neglected to follow through on my usual procedure to turn my fuel switch from the “fill day tank” to “run engine.”  I have run the engine out of fuel and in the process allowed air into the fuel lines and the engine.  The entire engine must be bled of air and fresh fuel fed into all the lines.  I have never bled the entire engine before.  I have bled the lines when I changed fuel filters but this is far more extensive.  With my engine manual spread across the main salon floor and a myriad of tools scattered about, Kris accesses the internet (thank heavens we are in coverage with her phone) and for the next two and a half hours I learn a new skill.  When the moment comes to try the engine again, I hesitate, hoping I have done everything correctly and not made a bad problem worse.  Kris hits the start button and I watch the air bubbles release from the loose connections, tighten them and then…  VROOOOM.  My old Perkins sparks to life with a smooth roar and I breathe a huge sigh of relief.    Dumb, dumb, and dumber for not following through my normal procedure and triple checking to make sure all was ready for the next day’s running regardless of the distractions.  Procedure IS important.  I wait another ten minutes to make sure everything is working properly and we finally pull away from the dock far later than we had intended. 

       Originally we had expected to travel to Riverstone but due to our late start have shortened our run, instead stopping at Clifton Marina where our new friends had already stopped for the night.  Clifton is a cozy marina with a narrow entrance and little maneuvering room for our single engine sans thrusters 40 footer but there were half a dozen folks patiently waiting for me to line up the boat and bring her in to the slip.  Among those waiting to receive docking lines were James and Dennis our new sailboat acquaintances.  Even after a few cold beers, no one reminded me of my stupid mistake.  I think we have found real friends and we three boats agree to pot along together to Pickwick Lock and Dam.   So we have a plan for day four and day three was ok in spite of my dumb forgetfulness.  At least I now know how to bleed the entire engine.  Progress. .. I think. 

Will never again question turtle on a fence post

Day Two – Tuesday- Paris Landing to Cuba Landing

            When one drives anywhere in Los Angeles one quickly becomes accustomed to a vexing phenomenon. Traffic slows, then stops. One makes the assumption there is a reason for it and as the car glacially crawls forward for an interminable amount of time, suddenly the jam clears and the open freeway beckons.  But there is no satisfaction for me because I want to know WHY we all had parked on that freeway for the past twenty minutes.  What caused that freeway parking lot?  I want to see a car and truck intertwined and dangling over the median, scattered fenders and bumpers strewn across four  lanes… flashing red lights…   but no.  There is nothing.  Nothing that satisfies my desire for a definitive answer.  I find this phenomenon highly frustrating in the extreme.  This morning a similar experience occurs when I start up my trusty old Perkins Diesel…. That d*#& tachometer immediately jumps to life.  Yesterday I ran all day without a tach guessing at my RPMs based on sound and speed. Now it is its normal solid steady self.  Not being well versed in electronics (or most any other useful skill set for that matter)  I had mentally prepared myself to do without the tach until I got to a place with an expert.  But now?  Now I will warily look at my tach with trepidation every single time I hit the starter switch.  One more vexing moment in a life with many questions and few answers.   

            Traveling at my cruising speed of seven or eight miles per hour, it is an uneventful 45 miles upriver to Cuba Landing.  It is however punctuated by our first big barge passing us “on the one.”  Whistle signals indicate passing intentions but in bright sunlight, radio communication is the preferred method.  “On the one” means the two approaching boats will pass each other port to port. (just like your car on a street)  “On the two” means they will pass starboard to starboard, a condition that sometime arises as a huge barge slides to the outside of a difficult turn in the river.  The skill level of a barge captain is a thing of beauty but passing him on port side would put one’s boat in very thin water if not in danger of being pushed up onto the bank by the unwieldy barges.  Something the barge captain doesn’t want to happen not because he worries about you or your boat, but because the paperwork would take him a week to complete!  In reality, after weeks of traversing the river channels and meeting and passing many barges both huge and small, every single captain was not only courteous to us tiny pleasure craft but downright helpful in making sure everyone was safe on the waterway.   True professionals.

First barge 

Arriving in the Cuba Landing Marina, we find it nearly empty and after scraping a little of Kristine’s varnish off of the port side rub rail maneuvering into a too tiny slip, we move the boat to a transient dock near the gas dock.  No one is around and the sign on the door says “closed Monday and Tuesday.”  If no one shows up before we leave in the morning I will stuff an envelope under the door with the slip rental fee.  It is far too early to tempt Karma by slipping out without paying even if no one is around.  While we tie up AURORA, the two sailboats we had passed the day before come into the same marina and drop an anchor in the bay.  When we take a walk through the wooded surroundings we run into GLASS SLIPPER’s owners.  James and Stacey (and Louie their family dog) who are from a marina just across Kentucky Lake from us and are also heading to warmer climes.  We laugh about being the only four Dems for a hundred miles in an otherwise sea of conservative red.  Once again my boater theory takes hold and we experience an immediate affinity for these two interesting folks and Louie, of course. We inquire of their next stop and they say Clifton Marina but we have plans to continue to a marina a few miles further up river. We invite them aboard to view AURORA (she is not a common style of boat in this part of the world and draws many a curious look) and they marvel at our warm teak interior even if it is messy.   Later that evening Kris and I discuss the fact that we may or may not see them again.  The boating lifestyle’s downside.    

Quiet and serene evening at Cuba Landing

        

Day One, Monday – Leave Taking - KDM to Paris Landing

I’ve been lucky enough in my life to have spent extended time in many different places around the world most of which I cannot even remember how to pronounce.  I have come to the realization that all places have their geographic charms even the harshest of terrains.  The Rub’a‘khali desert in Saudi Arabia (also known as the Empty Quarter) boasted magnificent mountains of bleached sand and an unrelenting but glowing sun.  Southeast Asia’s vibrant green delta vista wrapped itself around one’s horizons until even the sky took on hues of green.  The barren rocks protruding from patches of snow and ice in Point Barrow, Alaska reminded me of monstrous grains of salt and pepper spilled willy-nilly across a table top.  I have left them all and had neither regrets nor hesitation.  Leaving a place is never difficult for me.  No, leaving a place is not the problem. The real problem is leaving people.  It is this aspect of leave-taking that causes one’s eyes to mist over while a sharp twinge grips the psyche.  I would like to think that it is mutual, this pain of separation.  I know it always affects me and it certainly did so when the Mike and Melanie Dillard left a year ago last October.  I still miss Mike’s warped sense of humor and horrendous jokes.  It serves to remind me that it IS a shared pain between the leave-er and the leave-ee.  A couple of years ago I left Marina del Rey in Los Angeles after having moored the AURORA there for over 25 years.  The morning I was scheduled to take the boat to the yard to be hauled and loaded onto a trailer, this note had mysteriously appeared taped to my salon window overnight so that I would see it first thing when I got up to make my morning cappuccino. 

Some take it harder than others...

         

The note writer, a woman with whom I have had many a contentious political and religious argument, was expressing her opinion regarding my leave taking.  Strangely enough, I had long assumed she would be the one most pleased to see me gone and thus, an end to my constant challenging of her philosophical positions.

 Leaving Kentucky Dam Marina would be no different.  I joke about the culture shock suffered after the move from LA to Kentucky but one constant stood out.  The folks we met in KY were kind, gracious, and eager to welcome us to their corner of the world, the boats around Slip 327.  In my experience, boaters have a sixth sense about befriending strangers.  The connection is made quickly or not at all.  Possibly the transient nature of our boating lives forces us to make rapid decisions because tomorrow they may have moved on.  And today, AURORA is moving on.

How does one grasp the importance and the relevance of certain people in our lives?  How does one value the expertise of a Big Jim Simpson and his son Cody who never were at a loss to explain or help whenever I was stumped?  My only payment to them?  Supplying them with chuckles and outright laughter as they watched my bumbling mechanical efforts.  Or Parvin, a retired engineer who not only schooled me about river travel, but invited us into his home to watch Wisconsin beat Kentucky in the NCAA semi-finals, ruining their perfect basketball season.  He was worried about us going to a bar and getting mugged with our red jerseys amidst a sea of Kentucky blue.  His wife, Darlene, graciously introduced us to the vibrant local crafts market. My immediate boat neighbor, Mel who greeted us with smiles every time we came to the boat, taught Kristine how to fish and when she unknowingly broke a bone in her foot, was the expert who diagnosed it and gave her a protective boot until she got back to MKE and her doctors.  And of course, Gus, our dock curmudgeon, who roamed up and down the pier on his three –wheeled electric cart.  Gus’s demeanor screamed cynic but his sharp wit and sly smile belied that harsh exterior.  

Me and Gus, Pier 3 curmudgeons 

Friends all, and it was they who would force that unwelcome twinge as the AURORA slid out of Slip 327 for the last time in Kentucky Dam Marina.  True to his generous heart, Gus got up from his cart and waved to us as we glided out of his milieu and into our new adventure.  Mel on the other hand later professed to having overslept.  I took that as BS since his comment to me when I told him of my moving-on plans was a quite succinct, "Traitor!" Mel does not like good byes.

Good Bye Gus & KDM from Roger Kay on Vimeo.

We crossed Kentucky Lake to the Tennessee River main channel and pointed AURORA south.  As a reminder that nothing is ever perfect, in spite of a month in the boatyard correcting long overdue maintenance issues the past summer, my tachometer refused to register engine RPMs and I was sure it was AURORA smugly laughing and saying, “Take that, Mr. Ready to Cruise.”   Our first planned stop was Paris Landing a short 43 miles up river (the Tennessee flows north into the Ohio river, so we were moving south but UP river) .  Along the way we caught up to and slowly (very slowly) passed two sailboats, Glass Slipper and Vela Narcosis with whom my personal theory of making friends quickly would again prove prophetic.    

SOUTHWARD HO DECISIONS

Those of you who followed my musings regarding AURORA’s 1800 mile move from Marina del Rey to Kentucky Lake will recall my elation at finding a place that met several criteria.  First, a starting point for doing the Great Loop, second a place where a mild winter could offer a relief from the serious winter weather of our Milwaukee abode 100 yards off of Lake Michigan’s western shore, and lastly a place where we could explore  new summer vistas from our floating home away from home.  Alas, one for three may get you a great contract in the Major Leagues, but that average fell far short of expectations for our “Old Kentucky Home,” AURORA.  A big OOPS! 

During the summer of 2014 we installed two air conditioners, screens on every hatch, port and window, and spent more time inside the boat than out as the heat and humidity both hovered around 95 most of July, August and September which was perfect for the spider population.  Not so much for the human population. Strike one.  At Thanksgiving I decided I had better winterize the boat just in case the concept of a promised “mild” Kentucky winter proved erroneous.   Helping my boat neighbor Big Jim break the ice away from his hull was a wake-up call.  Actually that previous February night, the temp had fallen to ZERO and the entire bay was iced in solid. And the covered roof on the floating docks were covered in 14 inches of heavy snow that pushed the floating docks down about a foot and a half making the step up to my decks quite a stretch.  Strike two. 

Sunny day during the "mild" KY winter

Yes, that is snow on my aft deck

Obviously, the icemaker worked TOO well

Although we were assured that winter was an anomaly for this part of Kentucky, the summer of 2015 proved even hotter and more humid than the previous.  Strike Three.  I spent most of the summer in Milwaukee where 75 degrees and low humidity was the rule all summer long.  Facing the prospect of another cold Kentucky winter made me shiver even on an 80 degree September day on Kentucky Lake.  Winterize? Worry about ice damage to the hull? Constantly checking Paducah winter weather?  Not gonna happen.  Hence the decision was made to move AURORA south and start the Great Loop adventure slightly earlier than previously planned.  And so begins the next chapter of AURORA – EAST of EDEN.