On the road again!! Finally. Time for an update about the repairs we sustained to complete the project begun at Clifton TN.

We left Clifton TN on a foggy cold morning that turned into a nice day.

Vacation homes along the water

River stuff, water, banks, hardly any boats or people, some birds. You get the picture.

More vacation homes

Grant's headquarters 

Shiloh Battlefield

Shiloh Battlefield - see the memorials?

Its like these folks think the river will flood or something...

The chicken, having a great day

Bald eagles circling

We passed Shiloh Battlefield, a solemn Civil War memorial park we visited last time. Grant's Headquarters is located upriver a bit next to an Antebellum home. 

Fake owl doesn't work at Pickwick Lock to keep away
sea gulls either

We picked up speed as we got closer to Pickwick Lock to accommodate our late start, making it smoothly through the lock without any problems at all.

Getting close to Pickwick Lock 

At the end of Pickwick Lake we had two options. Turn left and we could go to Chattanooga TN. 

Nice but we’ve done that. Turn left and we get to the two major marinas at the top of the state of Mississippi and bottom of Tennessee. We stayed at both on our Great Loop in 2012.

The view from Aqua Yacht Harbor

Grand Harbor Resort and Marina

First we passed Grand Harbor, a lovely resort community with a high rise condo complex ringed with covered floating docks. It has all the posh elements you can imagine: pool, restaurant, and rocking chairs. We stayed here last time and used the courtesy cars to visit the Shiloh Battlefield.

The magic truck where Don
keeps the good stuff
- like Clark Kent's
telephone phone booth

Beyond Grand Harbor is Aqua Yacht Harbor, pretty fancy itself with a pool, restaurant, covered docks with about 700 boat slips and the best showers I think I have ever experienced. It took a shower every single day! My hair has never been so shiny!

Aqua Yacht Harbor has a top ranked service shop with a 25k pound lift and a 100k pound lift, a paint shop, and full mechanical services. Our mechanic Diesel Don (we discovered people actually call him that) has a home nearby because he spends so much time here even though he is based on Gulf Shores AL.

Picture 1

Don did enough work on Good Karma to get us safely out of Clifton TN which has no services. He could do the rest of the work more comfortably at Aqua Yacht Harbor. This was the place for us. 

We arrived in Aqua Yacht Harbor (AYH) on Tuesday evening. This beautiful marina is a sophisticated home to large boats whose owners come from Memphis, Nashville and points south. 

There must be a Carver dealership somewhere near here because about half the boats were Carvers. We did see one beautiful Hatteras and a few houseboats mixed in with small boats and sailboats.

We tied up on the gas dock on Tuesday evening for a much needed pump out. Remember the toilets backed up in Clifton before we left? That meant we sat with our knees crossed all day until arriving at AYH. Well, one of us did. Kermit used the mobile facilities on the side of the boat while we traveled. Very convenient for him.

Promptly on Wednesday morning mechanics came down and drove Good Karma around the marina to the lifts to remove the propellers and take a look at the bottom. The bottom looks very clean. It has some green scum from sitting for so long at Clifton. That scum will come off as we continue to travel. The mechanics removed the props for repair and tuning and installed new line cutters so we can cut through those darned crab pots in Florida.

The pictures here illustrate how they moved the big girl while she did not have propellers. It was pretty clever. 

Diesel Don and a grandson came on Wednesday to assess the situation and get any parts they thought they might needs. They returned to work all day on Thursday and Friday. Here is what they did:

• Changed coolant on both engines and generator
• Changed impellers on both engines and generator
• Adjusted the timing on port engine injectors so it smokes very little
• Fixed toilet
• Showed us how to fix toilet airlocks so we don’t have toilets backing up any more
• Fixed a fuel leak on generator fuel pump
• Changed all fuel filters on Raycors and generator

Don working

By end of day Friday, it was very clear how little work had been done when we picked up the boat in Sturgeon Bay. This despite paying for that work to be completed over the summer. Here are just two examples we can think of right now.

This impeller is supposed to
have even blades - it doesn't

Impellers: "Dr. Detroit", the mechanic in Sturgeon Bay who is supposedly so good, said he changed impellers and changed oil and coolant on engines and generators. But that was not true. The impellers were so worn that only 3 blades remained. Don dug out the broken pieces from inside the engine. No wonder the engines ran rough. Clearly the impellers had not been changed. Don said the oil had not been changed for at least five years.

Generator: Dr. Detroit in Sturgeon Bay said he inspected the generator and it was fine. It was not fine. Flywheel and starter motor on generator are missing teeth and need to be replaced. It is hard to image that he even looked. Don said his grandsons who are just learning the business would have caught that problem.

They burn leaves here!
AHHHH.... smelled wonderful

Propellers: The propellers were supposed to be removed in Sturgeon Bay and checked to be sure they were tuned. They guy up in Sturgeon Bay said the props were close but he adjusted them a little. We paid for that work to be done. It was obvious when Aqua Yacht Harbor removed the propellers that no work had been done on the props. Three of the blades on the starboard prop were way out of balance. One of the blade on the port prop was at least one inch off. This would have been more than enough to cause the vibration we felt. Clearly no work was done in Sturgeon Bay. Aqua Yacht Harbor did the evaluation and repair in one day for a very reasonable price.

We have nothing but bad things to say about the mechanics in Sturgeon Bay. They did not do what they said they would do and what little work they actually did had to be redone in Milwaukee and Tennessee. Very disappointing not to mention time and money we will never get back. The worst part is, aside from telling everyone we know, we have no recourse. The money and time and gone.

I worked - shocker

Eagle One waiting for
Kris and Rick to arrive

“Dr. Detroit”, the mechanic in Sturgeon Bay, has never sent us a bill for his inspection or repair services. We are very glad of that. It is the only bright spot we hold on to. Woe to him if he does send a bill. Kermit plans to send him a bill for the work done in Milwaukee and Tennessee. If the work had been done properly in Sturgeon Bay we would not have had all these problems. Some issues, like the transmissions pumps, were unavoidable but the rest could have been addressed in Wisconsin.

Kermit washed the boat 

We made some new friends in AYH. Bill and Bobbie on First Forty are stuck in AYH with an injector problem unique to their Yanmar engine. Unfortunately, the parts house sent the wrong part, which clearly did not solve the problem. Getting a replacement part has been heck. They could have been on the road a week ago but for that wrong part. Now they plan on spending Christmas in AYH. It would have been nice to travel with them.

The Outpost Restaurant

We used the courtesy car to visit the local grocery, a small shop jam packed with everything we could possibly need and more. We even found the special holiday peppermint mocha creamer Sherry Greenleaf recommended! Don recommended the Krey bologna so Kermit made sandwiches for the guys Thursday and Friday. I demurred. Bologna is not my thing.

We had docktails and two dinners with Bill and Bobbie. I think we were the only folks in the marina other than the mechanics. The first meal was at the AYH restaurant. Bobbie had the special spicy Redfish and I had fried shrimp.

Us at the Outpost

The second meal was at a lovely little place in Counce, the other side of Pickwick TN called The Outpost. This restaurant is a mission service of a local church located in a really quaint wooden building just covered with carvings. We sat opposite the wood burning fireplace and enjoyed BBQ and ice tea. We had to have dessert – homemade carrot cake for Bill and Kermit, I had a Ding Dong Cake (just like it sounds) and Bobbie had a caramel coconut cheesecake thing that was divine. These desserts were absolutely homemade. That chocolate cake tasted just like Mom used to make!

We left AYH at dawn on Saturday December 22, almost the longest day of the year. It is quite cold. Frost covered the decks and turned the lines into rock. The concrete floating docks were not a problem but the wooden walkways were a challenge. The Corps of Engineers is pulling water out so fast you can almost see the water go down. When we arrived the ramps had a slight incline. Today when we left the ramps tilted at about a 45 degree angle. Thank goodness the marina installed horizontal sticks or who knows where we would have slid off to!

Full moon on Winter Solstice

We departed at dawn. Almost no one but Bill and Bobbie inhabit the marina. The entire staff took off for the holiday on Friday 12/21 at noon and won’t reappear until January 2. Nice for them but it sure turns a huge marina into a ghost town.

That white stuff is ice // frost

Even though it is cold, it is a clear and beautiful day as we head south on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway that starts just south of AYH on Pickwick Lake. As Skipper Bob’s Guidebook says, it “beings the long downhill run to Mobile Bay. When southbound, you will lock down 341’ over the distance of 450.4 miles to Mobile and all river currents will be with you.”

It is COLD

So you can stay with us, we measure distance by nautical miles. Aqua Yacht Harbor, our starting point, is M448.8. Mobile is 0.

We will travel through 10 locks over the next few days. We created a plan with about five different options depending on how much distance we want to cover and how quickly we get through locks. Today we will likely stop at Midway at M393.5 which means we plan to cover 57 miles and three locks today.

Ice - we had to fold
up the power cords

As you can tell by the timing of this note, we plan to travel over Christmas. We have no choice given the delays encountered from boat repairs. Our options range from shorter days (but a longer trip) that gets us to Mobile next Saturday December 29 to an option with longer days that gets us to Mobile on Wednesday December 26. The real outcome is probably somewhere in the middle.

Merry Christmas to everyone! We wish we could be with you. We hung twinkle lights everywhere so we feel festive. We brought our presents with us. Marissa's presents arrived on Thursday. We will have a happy Christmas thinking about all of you.

We will keep you updated on Facebook in the meantime!!