Bye-Bye Rivers, Hello Saltwater!

Sunday, November 2, 2014

This morning there was a thin layer of ice on the boat.  I’m not kidding!  Brrr!!  And we have no heat on the boat when we're at anchor.  We got up around six-thirty, put on four layers of warm clothing and shoved off through the mist for another long day on the rivers.  We had made the decision to press hard these last few days and just get it done.  There was not much to see on this portion of the Tenn-Tom, just endless sameness, and the water was low, making access to the few safe anchorages difficult.  We actually gave the bottom of the boat a "light sanding" yesterday trying to access one of them.  No damage was done and Jeff got the boat floating again by simply reversing, giving it some throttle and slowly backing off the surprise sandbar.

An Alabama Inushuk?

Today we’ll see the end of the river portion of our journey. We’re almost at the entrance of Mobile bay on the Gulf of Mexico.  Tomorrow will start a new chapter so this seems like a good time to stop and reflect a bit.  We have been “on the road” for two and a half months and have finished close to one third of the entire distance we will travel before we finish our loop and arrive back home.  Seventy-seven days and about two thousand miles at about seven knots. Putt-putt-putt.

The witch of As the Crow Flies

We’ve made so many happy memories and have had tons of fun. For the most part it’s been pretty much what we expected.  We’ve seen sights that we knew were ahead of us when we started the trip but still gave a shiver down our spines when we saw them for real.  We both think there have been more challenges than we expected: colder than average temperatures, rougher than average water conditions; mechanical issues; learning to live in the confined space of a boat. The learning curve has been steep and we’re not through yet, but like any challenges they come with huge rewards.

We’ve met all sorts of interesting folks and made many new friends, seen sights, marveled at nature and been scared silly (Susan many times, and Jeff twice. Once by the snake and once by David the dog, who likes to be called Dave, but that’s another story).  We’ve laughed a whole lot, almost cried a couple of times (my Walmart haircut!), gained confidence, learned to work as a team in difficult times and have become even better friends than we were before we started.  It has indeed been a great start to our Gran Vida year.

Brrrrrrrr

Highlights so far:

1.     Chicago

2.  Nashville

3.     Our first gater sighting.

4.     Being awestruck constantly by our beautiful planet.

Equipment we’ve added or wish we had chosen or so glad we did:

1.     AIS on the VHF radio would have been very helpful. If we were doing it again, we'd get one.

2.     A little DC crockpot (available on Amazon) has been great!  Dinner cooks while we drive AND heats the cabin!!

3.     A really good dingy.  It makes life so much easier.  We're glad we splurged on the dingy.

4.     A damn good camera with telephoto lens. Happy to have one.

5.     A heater that doesn’t require batteries (we were REALLY missing that this morning!)

6.     The AC/DC fridge is great! (we were cooler people before – as in a box with ice.  Not referring to our social skills). Love my fridge!

7.     Someday we may like to add air conditioning but so far that has not been a problem.  Hopefully soon.

8.     Southern dictionary.  Even though we speak the same language it's sometimes hard to understand what people down here are saying, eh?

Note from Jeff:  Check out the name! They spelt it wrong.  As Dad would say " Like the bird".
And after laughing with the tow driver about the name he said " Be safe, the next tow is called Honest Bob", 
(my late father's first name).  Sweet start to my day.

windy river

The delta - the end of the river system for us.