It seems that if you boat (or do anything, I guess) long enough you'll run into a stretch of bad luck. You know, days when it seems you just can't catch a break...the boat gods are against everything you try to do. That's the funk I seem to be into right now. The good news is it never lasts too long and no one will listen to you complain while you're living on a "yacht"...except fellow boaters...they have to listen.
The night before we set out on this years adventure was beautiful with a classic "red sky at night" sunset that seemed to bode well for our journey.
The next day we got underway a bit late as we wanted to take our time after a long winter lay-up. Everything went smoothly and we waved goodbye to good friends we have made during out time at Goose Pond. Before long we were 20 miles down river and passing under the Main Channel bridge one last time.
We got to the Lake Guntersville Lock shortly after the bridge and got through with no delay. Since we were making such good time and everything was working well we decided to bypass our planned stop in Huntsville and continue on to Decatur, AL. We hoped to shorten up our second day which had some rain in the forecast. The sad news was the Hard Dock restaurant was closed since they had been open Monday for the holiday...maybe this was the first omen?
The next day came with a light rain in the morning. We didn't get away from the dock until 11:00 when things cleared up. Immediately outside of the marina is the very busy Decatur RR bridge which we needed to open. He said there was a train coming and we'd get through right after...45 minutes later the train finally showed up!
No big deal, the sky's were getting brighter and everything was going well. We had 2 options for the night and I was hoping for option #2 in Florence, AL which would put us through 2 more locks and make the next day easy. Well, we got to Joe Wheeler Lock with no other traffic in sight and he told us to tie up to the wall and wait, they were working on an electrical problem. So we waited...An hour and a half later I could see the afternoon showers and storms were starting to build ahead of us. I decided to go back to the state park and called the lock to let him know. Just then the gates began to open and he said to come on in. So in we went and down and out the other side in no time. Problem was, once out on lake Wilson the sky's turned that ugly shade of grey/green and I could see that we were about to run into a wall of rain. And we did...It was the ugliest weather I have ever experienced on a boat. The winds were so strong I thought the isinglass windows on the bridge were going to blow in, the deck chairs both flew up and got wedged in other parts of the boat (I don't know how we didn't loose them). There was zero visibility past the bow pulpit and radar was useless, just a big pink blob of rain. Thankfully we had been this way before and had track lines I could follow at idle speed, it was too dangerous to just stop as we were very near shore and probably would have been blown into it. And then the lightning started...it was about the only thing I could see outside the windows! 3 hours later we finally could see the sky getting brighter and make out the trees on the shoreline (OK, maybe it was 20 minutes but it felt like hours). I can honestly say that going through that lock was the dumbest move I've ever made in boating. Jill was kind enough to point out that there were no weather warnings issued until after we were in it.
Once through the storm it became clear and very calm. It was actually a very pleasant rest of the trip except for the constant kicking of myself for being such an idiot. We called Florence Marina and told them not to wait up for us, we knew where to go.
So we finally got to Florence and tied up about 7:30. It had been a very stressful day and I was ready for a beer! Once we got the boat plugged in there was no power...uh oh! Turns out Florence had "upgraded" to the new ELCI current protection since our last visit and we tripped it. Funny thing is we had been to these types of marinas before with no issue and it tripped with the boat breakers off. That's not supposed to happen. I just chalked it up to water being where it wasn't supposed to be from the storm. At least the restaurant was open and the beer was cold.
The next day was indeed easy as we traveled to Aqua Yacht near Iuka, MS. Our good friends on Best Mate were there and we were planning to travel together down the river to Green Turtle Bay. But first, a much needed off day. I did make a slight adjustment to the NEBO tracker (which seems to be working better) but other than that it was a kick back day.
Early Saturday morning we were off and headed toward Pickwick Lock which would be our last for awhile. Once close we were told to just hang out as there was a tow coming through and it would be a bit. As we idled in the lake I took a look out the back of the boat and there was a heavy sheen of oil on the water coming from our exhaust! It looked like we were floating over a wounded U-Boat!! We decided it was best to head back to Aqua to assess since there were no services where we were headed for a few days.
Once back and into a slip I found Diesel Don (remember him) standing on the dock because he was working on the boat in front of us. He looked in the water at the oil and said "turbo". I couldn't believe it would be since it's the one I had rebuilt last year! Luckily it was raining the next day and he couldn't work on a boat in the yard so he came to us. After going through the possible problems he decided to check the turbo first.
The red circle in the picture is the outlet from the "cool" side of the turbo...it was full of oil...Apparently we got a very bad rebuild job from the shop in Paducah last year. Well, it was good to get a quick answer to the problem. We took it to a different shop yesterday and by the afternoon found out that the housing was cracked! How does that happen?? Now we just sit and wait for parts. And its been raining for 3 days with one more in the forecast...hopefully I'll be out of my Boating Daze by the weekend!
Stand by for updates....
<edit> The sun just came out!! Thanks for listening to my rant....
