As We Go South

Leaving town

The first portion of this trip was just going back to Chattanooga.  My great friend Tom came from Maryland to experience the Navy, go to the game and go down the river,  We left on Sunday, Nov 16, and ran down river to Blue Springs Marina.  That's about half way and they were the only place that still had a restaurant open!  Then on Monday, we completed the trip to downtown Chattanooga.  Those two days were beautiful, sunny and actually quite warm for November.  Of course, not everything can be perfect, so to prove that, my brand new alternator failed on the way down!

The grass is turning brown so the "T" is a little hard to see.

Settled in at Blue Springs.

My plan was to spend two days in Chattanooga getting the engines serviced.  Now we had to add getting another alternator replacement to the list.  I've got a great mechanic there and Jerald did not disappoint at getting everything figured out and completed.  The only downside was that instead of leaving early on Thursday morning, it turned into a 1:30 in the afternoon departure.  Best laid plans as they say.  The late start combined with a delay at Nickajack lock got us into the dark and fog about 5 miles past the dam.  Allen got out on the bow and we crept into a spot where we could anchor the boat out of the channel behind Long Island (who knew TN had one of those?).

Allen working in the rain.

Friday started out about the same.  Again hoping for an early start, the fog didn't permit it.  Once again, Allen went to the bow and acted as the lookout as we idled along until the fog finally broke up.  The destination was Riverwalk Marina in Decatur, AL where we would meet Regina who was flying into the nearby Huntsville airport.  Along the way, a stop at Goose Pond Marina was required to get fuel.  That was when we discovered the bugs!  Apparently these things descended upon us while we were anchored.  There had to be about a 100 million tiny black bugs all over the boat which I attacked with bug spray.  We got to Riverwalk marina at about the same time as Regina's flight was landing.  The harbor master took Allen to the airport to pick up his rental car and Regina.  While he was doing that, I was getting everything connected for the evening and washing the boat!

The Admiral gave me a break.

When we woke up on Saturday morning, Allen headed back to Knoxville and we started out toward Wheeler lock.  The rain was finally gone and the sun was shining - for a while.  We were cruising down the river and suddenly the fog was back.  Only thing to do is just slow down, use the chart plotter to navigate and turn on the radar in hopes of seeing anyone else who ended up in this mess.  Fortunately, it cleared soon and we got to Wheeler lock and through with only a short delay.  Next comes Wilson lock.  This is the highest single lift lock east of the Rocky Mountains at about 100'.  We had to wait for a bit while they brought up a large tow boat and barges.  As we left, there was a boat similar to mine who led the way to our next stop at Aqua Yacht Harbor Marina. 

The upper door on Wilson lock is quite different.

Aqua Yacht is one of the 2 marinas at the top of the Tennessee - Tombigbee Waterway.  Turning off the Tennessee River to start the trip down was a little sad knowing we were finishing another piece of the Era that I talked about before.  In the past, I've always stopped at the other marina, so as we continue new things, I changed this time.  It was a nice location with very helpful staff.  They even had a little bar and grill at the marina where we got to watch the Vols win the game in Gainesville!!  How good can it get!!

From the Tennessee River to Mobile Bay, it is roughly 455 miles.  The other three times I've made this trip I have had to make stops at literally every fuel stop because the old boat didn't hold as much fuel as this one does.  I filled the tanks to the top at Aqua Yacht and off we went. Sunday the 23rd was our first day and we did pretty good.  The first lock is Whitten where we had to wait about 45 minutes.  Then we hit the the next 4 perfectly.  They were ready and waiting for us to arrive and go through.  But at the fifth one, our luck ran out.  A tow was coming up and we had to wait with some other boats.  I had hoped to get through 7 locks that day.  We completed 6 and found a spot to anchor about 15 miles short of Columbus Marina.  

Day 2 on the Tenn-Tom started with fog again.  We had to wait a bit before we could start and that caused a wait at Stennis lock.  After going through that lock, we made it on down through Armory and Aberdeen before suddenly developing an alternator problem.  I was getting warning alarms for overcurrent on both engines if I ran over 12 mph.  So for a little over 4 hours, we crept down the river to get to Kingfisher Marina.  I had planned to go there for fuel, but now I needed a mechanic.  Luckily they were able to get a guy there that night after we had arrived in the dark.  And even better, he found the problem and had it fixed in about an hour!

Day 3 on the Tenn-Tom began by getting fueled up for the remainder of the run south.  As I was filling up the tanks, the dock master mentioned that the lock had some unusual schedules and suggested that I give them a call.  So I called and the lock master said "If you can be here in 20 minutes, you can go through.  If not, it will be 3 hours."  Don't think I have ever gotten the boat moving that fast before!  I had wanted to do a little test run to be sure the alternator issue was fixed, but that turned out to be a race to the lock and fortunately, everything worked correctly.  We got through Demopolis lock as well as Coffeeville lock (the last one)while in and out of showers all day.  Finally about 4:30 the rain got so bad that we just had to stop and we were very close to an anchorage I had used before so into Three Rivers Lake we went.  Interesting place down a sort of long, narrow entry creek, but totally protected.

I think this is not in the right place!

Tenn-Tom day 4 started out nice and sunny.  I have never gotten down this far, this fast.  Now it's only about 100 miles to the bottom of Mobile Bay.  The cruise down the rest of the river was uneventful.  We arrived at the end of the Tenn-Tom about noon and entered Mobile Ship Channel.  Big ships are everywhere.  After the Channel, it's into the Bay.  The winds have been picking up and are blowing straight out of the south.  The top of the bay isn't too bad, but by the time we got mid-way, it was getting pretty choppy.  That was about the time that a Coast Guard cutter went roaring by leaving a 5 or 6 foot wake!  I'm pretty sure that we had to be airborne for a couple of seconds before slamming into the next one.  Then we had to make a turn that put us broadside to the wind generated waves, not a comfortable ride!  Bottom of the bay got better as we headed east toward the ICW.

For some reason this has been nicknamed the Dolly Parton bridge?

This guy is the one!!

Once on the ICW, we had about an hour and a half until w reached Pensacola.  That was pretty much a nice smooth trip until we got closer to the city.  The approach toward the city harbor was getting very choppy from winds.  The next few days are going to really be blowing, but since we are taking a little break for Thanksgiving all is good.  I'll start the next couple of legs over toward Carabelle, FL with a new first mate.  Regina goes back to work and my buddy Wayne will join me until we can get across the Gulf and down to Sarasota.

All my Tennessee flags are flying here in FL.

Back into salt water so routines change.  Boat gets a bath after every trip and we're surrounded by sport fishers!

The End of an Era

I had to borrow Regina's tee shirt

To borrow a phrase from Taylor Swift, I've reached the end of my Vol Navy Era.  The other day I was chatting with some old friends and the idea hit me to start a new Vol Navy fleet on the Atlantic coast.  It seems like there should be some Vol fans who have boats and live in the Charleston, Hilton Head, Savannah area.  Why couldn't we find a location to tie up or raft up for game day just like we do in Knoxville?  Maybe it's a crazy idea, but seems like it would be better than going to a sports bar to watch a game on tv in the middle of groups from five or six other schools also playing on tv.

The last game was Oklahoma.  That Saturday morning, the river was covered in fog and as the sun came up it was both eerie and beautiful.  After a couple of hours, the fog burned off and it went from a chilly morning to a beautiful warm day.  There was even a Oklahoma boat in the Navy!  These guys had come from somewhere on the Arkansas River to be here which was a 9 day trip.  We were all hoping that they would have a long, sad ride home, but the Vols managed to lose another game that they should have won.  I will always bleed orange, but these boys are trying to kill me!

The full moon rose early this week.

Last week, I moved the boat for the first time since I got here in September.  Fortunately, the crew from the Volunteer Landing Marina will deliver water and do pump outs for boats in the Navy.  I've had them visit my boat twice, but now it was time to top off the fuel tanks and get ready to start the trip downstream.  My fraternity brother, Allen, came to ride up with me.  After we got fueled up, I decided it was time to go to the source or headwaters of the Tennessee River.  From the marina to the convergence of the Holston and French Broad Rivers is only about 4 miles.  I've wanted to go up there for a while so we did it!  After that little trip, we got back to the Vol Navy docks where I turned the boat around and got a spot where I can easily get out.

Holston River to the left and French Broad to the right.

It's one week until the Homecoming Game.  That will be my last one this year so I've got to make the best of my last few days.  Yesterday, I went to the men's basketball game at Thompson-Boling.  I haven't been to a game there in several years so I was pleasantly surprised by the latest modifications that have been made.  That really is a great arena to watch a game, but if you get a seat near the top, you better take an oxygen bottle!  I spent the first half up high and then joined some friends down closer to court side for the second half.  Vols won handily over Northern Kentucky.  Looks like we just might have a really good team this year.

There's actually a lot more rows past here!

A little closer to the action!

Sunday, November 16 will be departure day.  My great friend from Maryland, who taught me how to be a boat captain, is going to be here for that trip back to Chattanooga.  Hopefully there are airplanes still flying with this government shutdown going on so he won't end up driving down here.  Contingency plans have been made so however it works out we will go down the river.  I've been wanting to show him our Navy and the beautiful scenery on the upper end of the Tennessee River ever since making my first trip up in 2013.

The last week of my time in Knoxville has gotten a bit challenging.  Mother Nature decided to send us an artic blast!  Two nights of temperatures in the low 20's..............that's enough to make you shiver.  Generator run times increased to keep the heat on and I even sat my alarm to get up at 2 AM to start it and warm things up. Now to finish out the week, I'm going to the Wednesday night basketball game, then to another frat brother's home to do laundry one last time on Thursday, final (no such thing) boat repair on Friday morning (totally unplanned), annual dinner with friends at Ye Old Steakhouse on Friday night and Homecoming game on Saturday.  The forecast says sunny and almost 70 degrees so the last sailgate should be just about perfect for a November day.

Looks like it should be St Patrick's Day!!

The crew at the boat for pregame.

Pipes & Drums perform with The Pride.

The next update will come from somewhere downstream.  I'll be in Chattanooga for a couple of days to do oil and filter changes.  Then it's about 1,600 miles to North Palm Beach for an extended stay.  Hoping for good weather and fair winds - don't have to worry about tides until I get close to Mobile Bay.

Living Under The Bridge

Did that get your attention?  A few years back I brought the boat up and when asked where I lived that was my answer.  I didn't exactly live under the Henley Street bridge, but I was very close to it!  This year I'm closer to the old railway bridge than Henley.  A bit of trivia - did you know that the stone piers supporting the railway bridge were constructed in 1850?  It was a wooden bridge until 1903 when the structure was changed to steel.  The steel structure you see there today was placed in 1940!

We decided to leave Chattanooga on Labor Day to start the trip to Knoxville.  It's 130 miles from Gold Point Marina in Chattanooga to Ft Loudon Marina plus 2 locks to transit.  That takes about 8 hours to do.  On September 2, we left Ft Loudoun and traveled the last 45 miles to our spot on the Vol Navy dock.  Regina suggested that we come up a bit earlier than originally planned and it was a good thing that we did!  I got the last open spot on the inside, right beside our friends on Miss Tenn-A-Sea and Cheers Dude. This will be our location until we leave in mid-November.

Made the news on WVLT

Most people's reaction to living on a boat is "WOW that must be so much fun".  Well, I got to admit that I do enjoy it.  Probably more than Regina does.  But it isn't always fun.  With the move to South Carolina, we hadn't used the boat much this summer.  If we had been around, I think we might have discovered a few things that could have been addressed sooner.  On the way up, I began having issues starting the starboard engine.  Turns out that the alternator on that engine failed and I had old batteries.  Seems like the surveyor should have noted that my main batteries were 6 years old, but he didn't.  So the first few weeks here have been spent replacing batteries, installing an invertor, trying to figure out why the air horn trips the circuit breaker, replacing the starboard alternator, replacing the shore power cord, setting up the generator with it's own battery, trying to get the outboard motor on the dinghy to run and servicing the generator.  I still need to get some electronics updated, but haven't been able to make any progress on that. So these are the not so fun parts!

Finally got the new name on the boat

The Vol Navy has made a a great showing so far.  Lots of boats came early to get a good spot for Georgia weekend.  It's so much fun to get back together with old friends and meet some new ones.  Tailgating on the river is a different experience.  We've had bands, tv shows and lots of boat parties and that's just the first three games.

It has been a few weeks since I started this post.  The season has progressed and I left to go back to South Carolina for about 10 days.  In the past, I never did anything like that because the refrigerators and freezer onboard were always full of food which would have spoiled pretty quickly!  This year there wasn't much so I just emptied everything and turned off all the power.  My friends live on their boat which is right beside me, so I felt confident that everything would be fine and it was!

Can't have a post without a night time bridge picture.

Part of the Navy is always at Calhoun's.

For the Arkansas game, we were invited to go sit in the Chancellor Emeritus skybox on the east side.  I've been in one of UT's skyboxes on the west side many years ago, but nowhere else.  That was back in the early 2000's and it was a very formal, jacket and tie, kind of event.  Thankfully, all that has changed - at least on the other side of the field - and it was a very casual atmosphere.  We went down to on the field at half time to get an up close view of the band which was a lot of fun.  Game was a bit too close, but the Vols got a "W" so all was well.

There are only two more home games before I leave to start the voyage to South Carolina.  My new electronics are installed so that is a blessing.  Almost everything else that needed updating or repair is done or will be in the next couple of weeks.  Now I can focus on learning how to operate my new chart plotter!  Seems like it might be a little more complicated than expected.

If you happen to be walking down the Greenway beside the river and end up under the bridge, stop by and say hello!

A New Beginning

Moving day

It has been almost six years since my last blog.  When I finished that one I was pretty sure it would be the last, but I have a few friends who have continued to push me to do it again.  Adventures and explorations are starting to begin again and this might be a good thing to add to the mix.  We'll just have to see how it works out!

So many things have changed since 2019.  I have a hard time keeping up with them and keeping them in the correct order or sometimes, even remembering exactly when they happened.  I'm sure it must be because of Covid or global warming - you have to find some ridiculous idea to blame things on - right!!  But let's keep it real, at the point in life that I have reached, I believe most people have settled down, found their groove, are enjoying the "golden years" and are planning the next early bird special.  Well, somehow, I missed the memo.

During Covid, most of my buddies in Marietta were still meeting at our local bar and grill for our regular happy hours.  None of us got sick.  Governor Kemp of Georgia one day announced that anyone over 60 should stay in their house and not leave.  Well, I left and went to Tennessee to live on my boat.  Chattanooga didn't have Covid and we continued on as normal a path as possible. This also got me closer to Knoxville and I visited Mom regularly.  The place where she lived had big warning signs on the doors, but they never kept me out and I was able to get Mom out to restaurants and rides through the countryside.  Her favorite, besides dinners at Ruth's Chris, was to go to Gatlinburg.

We got shots!  That's one thing that I wish I could undo.  But what was the alternative?  You had to show your card to get into some restaurants or on a plane!  We sat six feet apart, sometimes even outside.  People wore masks riding alone it their car, jogging and probably sleeping.  We were brainwashed.  Yes, I know people died, but that happens every year during flu season.  Finally, we're pretty much back to "normal".

During all of that craziness, I went to Alys Beach in Florida for a wedding and I met a girl.  She was officiating the wedding.  After the mother of the bride almost gave me a heart attack screaming out het name, she sat across from me at the rehearsal dinner.  Her name is Regina - how was that even possible - it's not a common name and yet there she was.  We started dating not too long after that even though she was living in Augusta, Georgia - far away from my home in Marietta.

In the summer of 2022, I sold the home in Marietta where the first Regina and I had lived and raised our daughter, Brittany.  It had been 29 years since we had bought that house.  Oh my, the things I found as I worked on getting it ready to sell and moving out.  But where was I going?  I had been hurting for somewhere to live since Covid hit.  Everything was selling the day it was listed and I didn't like any of the houses anyway.  Then one day, my realtor took me up on Signal Mountain and I found a house.  It hadn't been listed yet and that's probably the only reason I was able to buy it.  

Signal Mountain home

I should have consulted with the new Regina before I bought that house.  It was a nice house, but it had a huge, well over an acre, lot and was on top of a mountain!  I was still having a rough time and the need to get away from Marietta was just too strong.  Thankfully, she was understanding and we ultimately got engaged and she moved from her little Augusta bungalow to the top of the mountain.  We joined the golf and country club, played on the boat, spent one fall in the Vol Navy living onboard, traveled abroad, but the top of a mountain can be tough - especially in the winter!  So we started talking about moving somewhere else, but where was the big question.

Living on the boat for 3 months, began to inspire another change.  Mine was a 2007 Sea Ray 40 Motoryacht.  That's a boat with a master bedroom in the rear of the boat and lots of steps to get in and then down inside.  I've had it since 2013 and I've gotten tired of steps too!  So we started talking about maybe getting a different style that had more social space and less steps.  Lots of choices, but which one and where could we find one - more questions.

Blue Ayes on Chickamauga Lake

Mom continued to do well.  We celebrated birthdays and went out for pedicures and dinners.  She was moving slower and wouldn't object to getting a ride on her roller/walker, but she could still climb in the car to go out!  Regina had gone back to work with her former boss from the Golf Channel to launch the new TGL league in January 2025.  We were going back and forth between Chattanooga, Orlando and Palm Beach Gardens.  I was in Orlando when the call came that Mom's blood oxygen level was dangerously low.  It took until the next day for me to get to UT Hospital.  After meeting the doctors and hearing the diagnosis, it was obvious that we were very close to the end.  Maybe you read my Facebook post - 39,251 days - 107 years, 5 months, 6 days.  She lived an amazing life and I was blessed to have her as long as I did, but you are never prepared to lose your Mom.

After Mom's passing, the realities of my own life became glaringly apparent. We spent days/months talking about doing things and wouldn't it nice to change this or that.  One of those days, I said "enough talk, time to do something".  We met with our realtors and listed the house with no idea of where we were going.  A boat broker friend listed his 2006 Sea Ray 52 Sundancer and I called him to discuss a trade.  The house was under contract in 10 days, I had a "new" boat and we still needed to find a home.  Regina's family lives in Charleston, I've always dreamed about doing more cruising on the east coast and luckily, we found a beautiful place in Bluffton, SC.  Now if the pieces all fall into place, I'll keep the boat at a marina on Hilton Head Island about 20 minutes away.

Bluffton, SC home

With new beginnings and new adventures comes good times and bad, happy times and sad.  So many changes.  The move was a nightmare from the depths of hell.  I've said never again before.  This time I mean it.  We'll be back in Chattanooga in a couple of weeks to get the boat and ultimately get it here.  But first, one last season in the Vol Navy.  I'm really going to miss all my friends there.  Knoxville in the fall is a special place and I've had season tickets for football since around 1995.  In mid-November, it will be time to start the trip to Florida.  We'll stop in North Palm Beach for TGL season 2.  When that's done, it will be time to head north, up the east coast, to Hilton Head and back to our new home.

Time will tell how this all works out and if I feel like there is a story to write.  I'm hoping/thinking that there should be.  After all boat trips are always adventures.  By the time we reach Hilton Head from Knoxville, we will have traveled about 2,100 miles on the water.  Can't wait to get started!