#2 Ohio River Cruise

  Departure minus 12 days. .

Seems as though I missed a day already. . Was down with some virus yesterday and didn’t get out of bed. Better today and the journey actually begins today. Going up to Joe Wheeler where we keep the boat and bring it down to Florence. That’s normally a 3-4 hour run with two dams to lock through.  Tomorrow we take the boat down to Iuka Mississippi  where we will get it hauled and do a bottom job. That’s about a 50 mile run a and will take most of the day. Will be out of the water for about a week and assuming there is no problem with the boat we will be out of here the next weekend and on our way.  That’s more like 9 or 10 days to departure.

Things  are falling into place. Found a farm that will donkey-sit for four months. That was the biggest problem that I had to deal with. Will begin hauling them down there this week. Carol has found someone to pick up our mail and open everything and go through it for us so we can pay the bills. House and yard are taken care of so that’s not a problem,

Yesterday I ordered a new electronic chart plotter  which should be here next week. I can install it on the way. It has all of the latest cartography of the inland rivers.  The last of the paper charts and cruising guides  arrived in the mail  yesterday so we have all of the navigational items we need.

We are going to stay on the boat tonight and tomorrow in Iuka so we can determine if there’s anything else to do to the boat before departure.

 

 

 

 

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#1 Ohio River Cruise

 #1  Departure minus 14 days

This is the first time I have used this blog in years and I have forgotten how it all works. Carol and I have just returned from Wisconsin where we drove to deliver Little Toot to its new owner. Have been gone for 8 days and its good to be home.

 

For the first time in a good while we have a few dollars in our hands. Got to thinking about my bucket list and the Ohio River has alwys been at the top but its a long trip and with the cost of diesel fuel, a relatively expensive one. For the first  time the trip seemed to be within reach. As we were driving north and actually crossed the Ohio I was wondering when the best time to start up the river would be. Springtime brings rain and floods from the winter run-off and debris in the river.. Summertime is hot and humid. Fall is good but winter comes quickly and you have to be south before the river freezes. I decided to call my friend Fred Meyers in Florence who has written the definitive cruising guides to the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. Fred’s advice was that right now was the best time to go and three or four times during the  conversation he reiterated….do it now….don’t wait till next year…do it while you can. With that in mind, I bounced this off my wife Carol and got no strenuous objections. We both knew there were some obstacles to overcome but in the end we decided they were more like excuses that real obstacles. First we needed a bottom job on the boat. No problem…that’s just a mater of time and money and now we had the money. Called and scheduled the bottom job at the boat yard. Problem solved! New we had to take care of the house and yard. Another phone call took care of that and we had someone to mow the grass and take care of the house. Next the mail was an issue and how to get the bills. We’ll talk to Tommy the mail man tomorrow and figure out the best way to get the mail forwarded. We didn’t have any charts of the Ohio River and some were out of print. While  driving home we were searching the internet for a source for the charts. Found a rather obscure chart and map store in Nashville and after a phone call,  discovered they had all of the charts we needed even the ones out of print, so with a slight detour in Nashville we had all of the charts we needed.The only problem remaining is what to do with the donkies. Probably will have to take them somewhere secure where they can graze. There are some unknowns here but are working on  them.

Tomorrow we get started getting the boat ready…provisioning, spare parts inventory, filters, oil changes, servicing batteries and general pm on both engines and generators. Will likely bring the boat down to Florence next day or two in order to make things a little easier. The fresh water pump is down and I need to pull it out and fix it. Not a big job but a lot easier if the boat is here.

 

Will do frequent posts until time of departure and hopefully daily after we leave.

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