What Happened?

Poof - Summer is gone and football season has arrived!  Now that just doesn't seem possible.   The last time I did a post - at RPA we were having our corporate retreat in Chattanooga, the boat was being pulled to check out the bottom and summer was just getting ready to begin.  Today we are on the way back to Knoxville to rejoin the Vol Navy. In between, we had a very busy summer with several trips, the Riverbend concerts and not as many weekends on the boat as expected.  I got a number of improvements made like satellite TV, new cleats and battery monitors and some of the electronics that weren't working repaired.  Got to get this baby ready to travel!

However, now it's Vol Navy time. This year we are moving to Louisville Landing for the season which means that the trip on game weekends will be shorter. The marina is also easier to get to than Choto was last year. No diesel fuel there, but we can fuel up downtown when needed. I'm hopeful that this is going to be as good a place as it seems after visiting and checking out the facilities.  It looks like it's well kept, clean and most important flat!  The mountain at Choto with no dock carts was not so much fun.

The trip from Chattanooga to Knoxville is 176 miles - 76 more miles than driving up the interstate. Leg one is 60 miles to Watts Bar Dam where we will anchor out for the night. Day two will be 70 miles to Fort Loudon Marina for an overnight. On Friday, we have to stop at Louisville to find our slip location and then book it to Calhoun's and find a raft up spot. My guess is that there will already be a lot of boats already there to claim their space for Boomsday and the ball game.

For years I had dreamed of someday being a part of the Navy.  There were recent years when it seemed that there was no chance of ever making it happen.  Our experiences last year of getting the boat, learning about not just driving it but maintaining it and doing football season with the Navy was amazing. As we begin this portion of season two, I am sure it going to be as much fun if not more. We made new friends on the docks at Calhoun's  and I must believe they will be back again. Every weekend there are old friends, frat brothers and new acquaintances at the party. Someone asked what time the shenanigans will begin this weekend. It almost feels as if they already have.

Time to start the next phase of season two. Let's hope for better days for the Vols. Go Big Orange!!

The First Year

Each year Memorial Day signals the beginning of summer, but last year it was the beginning of our first year of owning a boat. If you kept up, you read about our adventure crossing the Gulf, coming up the Tenn-Tom and the Tennessee River to Chattanooga. After spending the summer boating around Chickamauga and downtown, we went up river to Knoxville for football season with the Vol Navy.  Survived an insane winter and got ready for spring to arrive.

Before going any further, I must again say that I am forever indebted to my long time friend Tom. He came from Maryland to make the trip from Louisiana with us. There is no way we could have done it without him and there could have been no better Captain to be our "trainer" to get us ready to be on our own after the trip was finished. On that 850 mile trip, we did it all - including 19 locks over 10 days. Trial by fire has never had a more clear meaning!  Wouldn't have traded the experience for anything.

Now we start year two and what better way than for our daughter to come from Houston to spend a week with us. We have spent the last five days on the boat with Brittany having a great time. On day one, we went up stream to Amigos Mexican restaurant at Island Cove Marina. This was the first time we had taken the boat into the restaurant dock. It was pretty easy as no one was there when we arrived so we could pick our spot on the somewhat small but adequate dock for our short stay. Day two was spent on the hook at Booker T slew where we just chilled and grilled out. Our dock neighbors Doc and Liz rafted us with us for the day and brought a batch of Hillbilly Juice - whoa that stuffs' got some kick!

The next two days we spent on Bluff Dock in downtown Chattanooga. First day we rode the free shuttle to the old train station. There is a model train museum at the Choo Choo that is worth a visit. We didn't get to see the inside of a train car, but the gift shop visit made up for it.  The next day, we spent about 4 hours at the Aquarium. Britt had been there but Reg and I had not. Well worth the time to do it. I had no idea what a great job Chattanooga had done in developing this cornerstone of the waterfront.

On Memorial Day, we left the dock a little past noon and took a little cruise toward Moccasin Bend. We checked the river view of a new residential development that is being started downtown that should be very nice. After that we headed for the lock as the last boat in a group of five which included a large houseboat. Those folks were actually grilling on their top deck as we "locked up".  The smell of burgers on the grill while in the lock is just not fair if you're not going to share!  Someone needs to make a rule about that - who am I supposed to call?

Now the holiday is over and Brittany is back in Texas. Riverbend starts the first weekend of June and we will be back for that. This ten day music festival on the waterfront is so much fun that, after we discovered it, we have not missed one since. At any given time, at least five different groups are performing.  Whatever kind of music you enjoy, there will be something for you. Just wish we had known about it sooner!

Happy summer!  Do something that you have always wanted to do and don't put it off. There are no guarantees of another day.

The Missing Video

I don't usually do posts close together, but part of my last one was supposed to be the actual video of the boat going back into the water.  Now on my desktop computer,  you can actually see the video, but on my iPad - only a blank space.  The last time I included a video I had to get one of the really smart guys (thanks Ben) that works for me to make it play.  That is always a solution, but one of these days I'm going to retire and my tech help isn't going to be around - a relatively frightening thought!!  What if I have to keep working just to get tech support??  Medical insurance is supposed to be the reason to do that!!  This just isn't right, but I digress.  The mystery of adding a video that shows up and plays on an iPad has been added to my bag of tricks for future blog posts.  Look out - now I'm dangerous.

Hope you find this interesting.  The initial screw up allowed me to create a video of the entire relaunch process.  Amazing how they can zip it back in the water so quickly!  Oh, be sure and check out how shiny the Erwin guys polished up the sides.  You can see your face in the reflection.


Until next time..............

Spring in Chattanooga

Winter 2014 has finally ended, but certainly not without a fight. Freezing temperatures didn't go away until the end of March. Now that everything is getting back to "normal" operation, I think I can safely say that we survived our first cold weather boat season!  My friends up north still don't have their boats back in the water and we have already spent two weekends out on the hook. Even before that we locked down to go do a Saturday night in downtown Chattanooga - more about that later.

So spring means that all the heaters have been moved off the boat and taken home. All the jugs of oil, transmission fluid and coolant have been poured into their respective engine location. Isinglass has been cleaned and polished. The boat has been pulled to check the bottom paint, zincs and props.  Hull sides polished and waxed. Water line repainted. Pollen washed off and replaced with new pollen everyday we're here!!  This has to stop already!!

All through last football season we recognized that having just regular "air" broadcast TV was going to be an issue. So when March Madness came along the problem continued. So on one of those "near the final 4" weekends, we took that trip downtown to watch games. Now locking thru to go downtown is no huge deal after as many times as we have done it, but on this particular day we had 25 mph winds out of the south. That means wind straight on the bow in the lock which makes the boat really hard to hold on the floating bollard. That 30 minute fight felt like two hours. Once out of the lock, the river was white capping all the way downtown.  We had to call for help from the marina to get tied up on the dock downtown. This trauma resulted in me ordering a stellite system for the boat the next week. Now we have the same DirecTV channels on board as we have at home. Problem solved!!

Another interesting thing I've been working on is changing out the halogen light bulbs with LED's. A bunch of people have told me what a good thing to do that would be.  The LED bulbs use a fraction of the amperage that halogen do.  All those people also told me how expensive those LED light fixtures were as well. What made no sense to me was why they didn't just change the bulb in the existing fixture. There began my challenge.  Some bulbs turned out to be easy - others not so much. Did you know that LED bulbs have a positive/negative and will not work if not connected accordingly?  I sure didn't but they certainly do.  That can mean just reversing the bulb in the fixture or it can mean changing the fixture wiring.  The bulbs can also be bigger than the old kind and you have to hunt for similar sized ones. Got most of them figured out but still got a couple more to go.

Last week was when the boat was out of the water. I was in Chattanooga anyway for our company retreat so I came up early on Wednesday morning to see what that looked like. Quite different is probably the best description. All the work was finished by Friday afternoon so I got to see it go back in the water. You got to watch that video!  The service guys did a great job and zipped that thing in like it was a 16 foot ski boat, just crazy.

Erwin Marine was having a little dock party last Friday night and everyone was telling us how they saw the boat out on the "hard" and wanted to how what was going on. Now it was interesting how suddenly everyone at the whole marina knew it was our boat and were suddenly our new best friends and just had to have the details. Seemed really strange to me. Later Regina told me that our friend Barry had explained it to her. So it seems that most of these folks don't ever get their boats out of the water unless something is really wrong and what they were actually wanting to know was what we had hit and how bad we had screwed it up!  Sorry to let you down - just making sure it's all still good.

This weekend has been like early summer. Saturday and Sunday have both been above 80. Now the water is not warm enough to even think about jumping in for a southern boy.  Maybe by the end of May or hopefully sooner.  Let's just get to the end of pollen season and let the adventures begin!

 

It's winter - now what??

After returning to Chattanooga following Thanksgiving, we virtually didn't see the boat again until after New Years.  There was one quick drive up and back in mid-December to add another bilge heater, but that was it.  December always has too many things going on from our anniversary, parties, trip to Houston, Christmas, daughter's birthday and then New Years' with all the celebration and football. Anyway the month went by very quickly.

January arrived with record cold temperatures and, having no experience with what to expect, I watched the weather and the internet reports every hour I was awake.  In trying to prepare for the weather normally expected, I contacted everyone I knew who had done it before to get pointers.  We had added heaters to a boat that had never seen a freezing temperature before and ran one of the on-board units for a little extra oomph.  It worked and all seems to be fine.  Not only did we have 5 degree temperatures, the river even froze in the marina.  (Great ice breaker video Ben!!)  One of our friends on the dock stayed on his boat and broke the icicles off discharge ports in the worst of it.  Thanks Barry - I owe you for that!!

The one thing that this cold weather is good for is getting ready for warm weather.  That means doing my winter chores.  So far the fuel tanks are topped off, oil in both engines and the generator has been changed, a leaking water hose on the generator has been replaced and covers have been installed on the hull intake vents.  There is a stock of anti-freeze and transmission fluid in the forward stateroom that still has to be exchanged for the old stuff.  Of course these are things that I have never done before, so each chore from here on is an adventure.  I believe that the coolant exchange will be next just because it will get rid of 16 gallon bottles to de-clutter the space.

Our friends who have boats always told us that there would always be things to do on-board.  Its true!!  My list of things that need to be done or that we want to do, change or correct grows with each visit.  Little things that you would expect to be easy seldom are because of the way things are put together.  As the old saying goes "you just can't get there from here"!!  A trained spider monkey would be a great pet if he/she could twist a wrench or splice a wire.  If anyone out there has such a critter or if you happen to be double jointed and are willing to work in exchange for some boating fun, let me know.

So until it gets warmer, I'll be in the bilge!!  See you in the Spring.

 

 The Erwin Marine ice breaker at work.  Just think - we could have been on a cruise ship in Antarctica!!

My new vent covers custom made by Sabrina.

 

End of the season & back

Our first season in the Vol Navy went by too quickly in many ways.  All the people we met and the fun of being on the river was more than could have ever been imagined.  The time it takes to get to Knoxville for gameday and the time it takes to get back home after it's over were also more than could have ever been imagined.  Next year we hope to be able to shorten that somewhat.

The last two home games obviously didn't go as hoped.  Auburn comes into the season ranked as low as the Vols and look how that has turned out.  We did however have a nice weekend.  Friday was a beautiful day for coming up river and Saturday was forecast to be another sunny day.  Somehow it didn't quite work out that way, but the gray day didn't result in rain which was great.  There were as many AU fans on the boat that day as people in the correct shade of orange.  The party was much better than the game!!

On Friday before the last home game, we had come up river early in the rain to catch a UT men's basketball game.  We were the only boat at Calhoun's so docking was prime.  Our bball game was a W so nice start for the weekend.  Temperatures were falling and a 7 PM kickoff on Saturday meant it would be a cold evening.  The Vandy game was one that we all hoped the team would pull out for a chance at a bowl game, but one red flag at 48 seconds to go changed that around.  Sunday provided another bright sunny day for the last trip to Choto before going back to Chattanooga.

Until this year, I had never had to think about the logistics of moving a boat.  Planning the trip back down river took quite a bit of that.  There's the car that needs to be at the marina in Chattanooga to get us back to Marietta, but we still need to drive to Knoxville.  A one way rental car solved that and my frat brother Mike helped me turn that in and get back to the boat.  It was about 26 degrees that morning and we needed fuel, water and a pump-out.  Ft Loudon Marina was the planned location to get all that done.  It took a bit longer than expected as no one was at the fuel dock, but we got everything done and headed for the lock at about 11AM.

Needless to say, we hadn't been in a lock since the trip up in August and now headed down stream one new twist comes into play.  I like to lock thru with the port side on the dock wall.  That's the way I learned so it's just more comfortable.  But the two locks we have to go back through only have bollards on one side and that means a starboard tie up.  We adapted without incident and were reminded that locking down is smoother than locking up because the chamber is draining and there are no whirlpools created like when the chamber is filling. 

Friday ended at Blue Springs Marina where we stayed over night,  Nice place, but hard to find off the channel.  We had a spot right in the "front row" - all by ourselves - for the evening.   The day had warmed up.  We grilled and had dinner on the bridge before the sun set and the temperature went back down into the mid-20's.

We had a bit of a surprise on Saturday morning.  Turns out the marina location is very close to the Central Time Zone and our clocks all corrected to CST.  That made us an hour late leaving, but we didn't know it until the clocks started shifting back to EST.  It took a phone call to figure out what was happening.  Now we needed to make up time and that resulted in a bit of adventure.

The south end of Ft Loudon Lake has several short cuts that trim off places where the river literally doubles back on itself.  One of those is about 11 miles upstream from Watts Bar Dam.  It is well marked on the chart plotter and in the chart book as well - if you get the book out to check it.  Well it would cut off about 5 miles and that would be a big help.  As we approached the inlet, Regina says "this is just like when we used go off trail skiing" and little did we know that we were about to go into the woods.  At first, the cut thru looked pretty good.  Not huge but water depth was fine.  Then we turned into the final section and the channel width went down to less than 30' and the water depth was suddenly reading 2.3'!!  I NEED no less than 3.0' and here we are with no way out.  Somehow we get through.  My depth finder must have some fluff in the numbers because we didn't even stir up any mud.  Won't be doing that again anytime soon!!

Watts Bar had the lock ready for us about 10 minutes after we got there.  Down we go and when we exit we are back to Chickamauga Lake with 59 miles to go to our marina.  This part of the river is virtually undeveloped and we go almost 30 miles before seeing anything other than fisherman and wildlife.  There is a large bird sanctuary in that area and along the river were hundreds of egrets as well as other sea birds.

It was great to come back into our marina near the dam.  We were hailed on the radio by another couple on our dock who were out for a little ride.  By 4:30, the boat was back in it's slip and it was time to find a location to go watch the Vols play Kentucky.  Seemed like an eternity since our last win, but that game ended well as did our first experience with the Navy.  Go Big Orange - Blue Ayes is back home.

GA and SC

I was told the other day that I was a month behind. "Why?  What do you mean?"  I had to ask. The answer was that I was a month behind writing about our boating adventures. When I started writing this little blog, it was just to document the trip from Louisiana. It never occurred to me that anyone would actually want to read this so I am quite amazed and humbled to find that this created a following. That being the case, time to catch up.

We've been to all of Tennessee's home games so far, right in the middle of the Vol Navy, and have have a great time.  It never ceases to amaze how friendly boat people are. Each weekend new people become our neighbors and new acquaintances.  Everyone has new stories and tips. Different places to visit. Who would have ever imagined.

Our daughter came up from Houston to go to the Georgia game. It was great to get to spend some time with her. She had not seen the boat and I think she had fun on the river. The first weekend of October was beautiful. Blue skies and warm weather.  Marine-Max of Chattanooga sponsored a trip up the river for the game and when we arrived the Navy numbers had grown dramatically. As we motored in looking for spot to tie up, our dock neighbors from Erwin were yelling at us from their boat. We got to catch up with them and others we hadn't seen since moving north in August.

The last two weeks have been heart-breakers and heart-stoppers.  The Vols were so close to beating Georgia it stunned the crowd and everyone just sat staring in disappointment. The exact opposite happened at the next game as UT won over South Carolina as time expired.  This time no one left the stadium because of the celebration.  The broken panorama is sort of an indication of how the place was shaking.  It is beginning to seem as though, just maybe, the Vols are starting to turn things around.

For both weekends we have had lots of old friends, frat brothers and even a visit by my Mom (96 years young) who drove in to see her granddaughter. You never know where you will be until arriving at the dock area and sometimes getting to and from the boat isn't easy. Some of our friends who came at the Georgia game had to crawl across ten boats to get to ours. At least no one from our group went into the water which did not apply to the Dawg fan who managed to fall backwards off our neighbor's swim platform loosing his hat and one shoe!!  Watching those float down the river was more than just a little humorous.

Our only problem lately arose when we returned after an especially long Georgia game day to find our batteries had discharged to the point the generator would not start.  Jump starting a boat is something I had never thought much about until that night. Again people came from so many places to help. I learned about starter packs and how to use jumper cables from bow thruster batteries. It took a while, but we got it cracked up and all was well after that.  Guess I won't be shutting down the generator again when leaving for the game!!

As the weather begins to get colder, it's time to start figuring out how to keep things warm. It was 48 degrees outside when we got up Sunday morning.  The inside temperature was 61. Certainly makes you want to stay under  the covers, but we found that the boat warms up pretty quickly with the heaters on, so now it's just a matter of learning how to set them. The morning was beautiful with fog on the water and the sun shining brightly. The river was close to being as smooth as glass and the ride back to our temporary marina was nice and relaxing. Can't wait to get back for the next game - only two home games remain until it will be time to make the trip back to Chattanooga.