Our Plan...Today.

 They say that a sailors plans are written in the sand at low tide. We have been living examples of that saying. We have been waiting here in the marina in Demopolis since being put back in the water on the 3rd of November waiting for all of the factors to align that will allow us to start our 250+ mile trip to Gulfport, Mississippi. 

It seems that all is looking good for a departure on Wednesday of next week, November 18. The hurricanes have left the Gulf of Mexico, although there is a new one in the Caribbean, but it is predicted to stay south. We will watch it closely before we depart. The marina at Gulfport is now open and is ready to accept boats. All we have to do is add some more fuel and do our final provisioning. 

It should take us about a week to make the trip to Gulfport. We will spend about 4 nights on the river and then one or two in a marina in Mobile Bay. We should be arriving there on about Thanksgiving if all goes as planned. 

We have been trying to stay busy while we have been in the marina. We have now completed the teak project and we are very happy with it. We put 5 coats on all of the topside teak. We will just have to see how it looks in 6 months. 

We celebrated Kim's Birthday last Saturday. We made a drive up to Tuscaloosa. We bought a heavy duty sewing machine and then went out to lunch. Kim has some plans to work on some upholstery and canvas here on the boat. So far, she seems to be enjoying the new machine. 

We took the boat out on the river for a shake down cruise. It has been since last May that we have had the boat out, so I felt like I wanted to make sure all is good. We ran upriver for about an hour and then came back down. The good news is all looked perfect and I think we are as ready as we can get for the trip down the river. 

I try to stay active by taking a two mile walk each morning. The days have been near perfect with 70 degree daytime highs and 50 degree nights. We really have liked it here, but we are also so ready to get moving. While I have been out walking I took a few shots of what is going on around here.

This is a shot of the fuel dock with a couple of "Tows" taking on fuel

This is a bit upstream, where the Tows leave the barges while they go and take on fuel. 

Well, that is about it for this entry. I hope my next entry will be from the river.