Change of Plans in Demopolis

We have spent more time in Demopolis, Alabama than any other place since we have been on the boat. We were planning this to be a short stay before we moved further north, but plans changed. We arrived in Demopolis on May 30th. We were tired from the 6-day trip, so it was nice to have a quiet weekend to relax and get rested up for the work ahead. We had our first potluck dinner on Saturday night and really enjoyed talking to some old friends and many new ones. 

We rented a car in Demopolis on June 3rd and drove 3 hours to Gulfport. Kim drove the truck back to Demopolis and I drove the rent car back. We had a small refrigerator and window unit air conditioner in the truck that we had brought from the ranch. Both systems do not work on the boat when we are out of the water. The AC makes life possible in the yard and we can refrigerate a small amount of food. 

We were planning to haul SHIFT out of the water on Tuesday, June 4th. We would then clean the bottom and then do a light sand and be back in the water by Friday. 

As it turned out, when we got her out of the water the bottom was covered in small barnacles. This hard growth must be scraped off. It was during this process that I noticed that there was some significant play in the cutlass bearing. This is the bearing that keeps the prop shaft centered on the stern of the boat. You can see the play in the bearing in the video below.

Kim and I got to it and in about an hour of hard work, we were ready to be taken over to our slip in the yard. Fred and Rico got us blocked up and we were ready to go to work.  We started the sanding process that afternoon. I did some research because I have never removed a cutlass bearing. All indications were that it is a fairly difficult job, but I decided to go for it. 

Over the next three days we sanded the entire bottom of the boat. I also disconnected the prop shaft from the motor. I was able to then remove the stern tube from the transom. I ordered a replacement bearing and had it shipped in. I took the stern tube to a local machine shop to have them remove the bearing and then press the new one in place.

This is the hull after we scraped it. I forgot to take a picture before we got moved into the yard. Each one of those white dots was a barnacle. 

We both took turns with the sander. It was hard, dirty work. We were covered by blue powder. We looked like Mama and Papa Smurf.

This shows the before and after the work with the sander. We bought a respirator to keep our lungs protected from the caustic paint and barnacles. 

In this shot you can see the prop after I spent a couple of hours cleaning it. There is a missing zinc on the end of the prop. That fell off somewhere between Marathon and Gulfport. The good news is we had put another one on the shaft just in front of the prop. 

It is HOT in Alabama this time of year, so we fell into a routine where we got up at about 5:00am and worked until about noon. It was just too hot to do much after noon. It quickly became apparent that we would not be done in 4 days. The Yard owner and lift operator would be on vacation the following week, so we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would be in the yard for 2 weeks. We came out on June 4th and were ready to go back in the water on June 18th. 

Here is a shot of our spot in the yard. We borrowed the scaffolding to help with work on the upper hull. The stairs were great. Much better than a ladder. 

After lots of preparation work it was time to paint the hull.

This is Kim in a paint suit. We both got geared up and put two coats of paint on in about 4 hours. 

We think it came out looking good. 

The tape had not been removed in this shot, but you can see the improvement. 

This is a shot with the stern tube removed. 

I spent one day installing the stern tube and another day installing and servicing the feathering prop.

I am happy with the outcome. There is no play in the new bearing at all. You can see the zinc on the end of the prop that was missing in the previous shot. 

We then took the time to wax the hull with the help of the scaffolding and apply a new blue stripe. 

Here is a shot of the new stripe. It was gold before, but much of it had been worn away. It is not exactly the color that we wanted, but we now like it.

On Monday June 17th the yard came and put us in the slings, so that we could paint under our pads and blocks.

We finished the final sanding and paint work and we were ready to go back in the water.

SHIFT on the move. It is always scary to see our home moving in the lift. 

The water is low right now, so here she is over the well about 15 feet off the water. 

On the way down. Rico on the left was a big help while we were in the yard. 

Big sigh of relief as SHIFT settled in the water. 

We had a small issue with the front sling slipping a little bit. The slings are tied together, so all was good, but it still didn't help the nerves. 

I did not like to see that on my brand new wax job, but I was able to get it looking good after we got in our slip.

Here we are back in our slip in the marina. It felt so good to have all of that work done.

I also changed out the packing on the shaft seal while we had it apart. I have spent the last couple of days fine tuning the packing nut tightness. I think we are now ready to begin the rest of our trip up the waterways to Kentucky Lake. On June 20th, we again rented a car and drove it and the truck the 6 hours to Kentucky Lake. We rented our slip and left the truck. We got back to the boat about 11pm. 

I am writing this on June 21st. Our plan is to depart early on the 22nd and head north. The trip should take between 7 to 10 days. In my next entry I will begin telling that story. 

North to Demopolis, Alabama

 It has been over a month since I wrote in this blog. As I wrote in my last entry, we made it to Gulfport, MS on April 18th and prepared the boat to leave for a while as we waited for the lock in Demopolis to reopen. We left Gulfport on April 23rd in the truck and drove to Russellville, Arkansas to see our son and grandsons.

We took Connor and Cameron out to dinner and then went for a walk at one of the beautiful parks in the area.  

We stayed the night in Russellville and were able to visit with our friends Dick and Cathy the following morning. It is always good to catch up with them. 

We then made the drive up to Missouri and got to see more of the grandkids at Shannon's house. Then we headed to the ranch in Mansfield. All was good with the trailer at the ranch. That is always a concern. We settled in and promptly came down with a bad cold. I recovered just enough to make it to my friend Noah's wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony at a very nice venue. It was great to see a number of friends and family and to enjoy the happy occasion. 

What a great looking couple. Noah and Lauren.

After getting over my cold, I started spending much of my time riding my dirt bike with friends at the ranch.  I still love to ride my bike and we have way too much fun. 

Here is a shot I took to commemorate a ride that Max and I took on his 71st birthday. We had a blast on a perfect weather day.

Next up was the High School Graduation of our granddaughter Isabella. That included her final band concert, the senior awards ceremony and then the actual graduation ceremony. 

Isabella receiving her rose as a graduating senior.

Is playing her flute. She hopes to continue playing in college.

We are so proud Isabella. She is NHS, and recieved a number of awards and scholarships. This young lady will change the world. She has decided to go to Cedarville University in Ohio to study Civil engineering. 

We returned to the boat in Gulfport on May 23rd. I had asked for recommendations from the marina for a diver to clean the bottom of the boat. The one I reached told me that he would charge me $250 for the first visit. That is about double what I normally pay. I made the mistake of agreeing to the price. He came out on the 24th and told me he couldn't clean the bottom it was too bad. He cleaned the prop and running gear and only worked for a half hour. I questioned him and I became frustrated. I just paid him and he left. I got ripped off and went and told the marina to never recommend him again. It was a frustrating experience, and I could have handled it better, but it was a bad start to the trip. I was now very concerned how slow we would go and how much extra fuel we would use. 

The lock at Demopolis was now open and we had a perfect weather window to go. So, we rushed to get ready and sailed out of Gulfport Harbor on Saturday, May 25th. That was the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, but we would be in mostly open water, so we didn't think the pleasure boat traffic would be too bad. 

We sailed 48nm to Dauphin Island. It was great to have the motor off all day and have a great day for sailing up the Mississippi Sound. 

Beautiful sailing conditions out on Mississippi Sound

We were up and moving before sunrise on the 26th heading into Mobile Bay. The wind picked up a bit and we had between 15 and 20 knots right on our stern. 

Lots of commercial traffic to keep track of as we sailed into Mobile Bay.

We kept our mainsail up as we entered the Mobile River and sailed right through downtown Mobile. We did finally start the motor and cruised along at over 6 knots with both wind and current behind us. We anchored our second night at Big Bayou Canot, just 10 miles north of Mobile. We did see a fair amount of pleasure boaters enjoying the long weekend. 

The wind died off on Monday and we cruised north at between 4 and 5 knots against the current in the Mobile then Tensas and finally the Tombigbee Rivers.

Sunrise over the calm water of the Mobile River.

 

There were sections of the river that we had all to ourselves and then we saw some sandbars that were loaded with boats and people enjoying their final day of the long weekend on the river.

We stopped at Three Rivers Lake on our third night as a strong thunderstorm approached. We had great protection in the very small lake, but the storm mostly missed us anyway. We had some nearby lightning and a few strong showers, but no heavy wind or hail. We motored 48.8 nm that third day and were now at mile mark 64.6 on the river. The river mile marks are in statue miles. We measure our progress in nautical miles. We averaged only 4.3 knots on the day. 

A very calm river on Tuesday May 28th

The river was totally different on May 28th. There was zero wind and all of the people on the river had gone back to work. It was a very long and eventful day. We motored into about a knot of current most of the day. We had to open a railroad lift bridge that took about a half hour of waiting. I think they forgot about us after they told us we had to wait for a passing train. Then at the end of the day we went through the Coffeeville lock. Our first of the trip. We made it to our anchorage at Okatuppa Creek at about 6:30 pm after a 54.4nm day. We only averaged 4.2 knots. We were a bit tired and very ready to stop. 

This was our anchorage after our 4th day of the trip at river mile 124. It was very quiet and calm. This was just a bit north of the lock at Coffeeville and there was very little current. 

We had a very nice sunset after the long day.

We put all of our solar powered lights on deck to give us as much visibility to the passing tows at night. We awoke the next morning to find the deck covered with small gnats. Kim spent an hour cleaning that up as I motored north. The 5th day did have less current and no bridges or locks. We saw lots of alligators in the water and many beautiful birds. It was my favorite day. 

Another beautiful calm day on the river

We stopped at one of our favorite anchorages on our final night. We Made it 45.8 nm at an average of 4.7 knots against the lighter current.  Mile 177 is right in a 90 degree turn and normally has plenty of room. The river is very low, so we had to get into about 6 feet of water and set two anchors to hold us out of the main channel. It rained a bit overnight and we did not see any tows come down the river, so it was a good night.

We had some rain predicted on our final day, but that just kept it cloudy and much cooler. We even put on jackets for part of the trip. We made it to the Demopolis lock at about 1 pm and locked through without issues. It was then a short 3mile motor up to Kingfisher Bay Marina. We went 33.8 nm the last day.

This will be our home for a couple of weeks. We are scheduled to haul out on Tuesday, June 4th. We will stay on the hard for 4 days. It will be interesting to see how bad the bottom really looks after the incident with the diver in Gulfport. Our speed up the river was acceptable, and we only used 40 gallons of fuel. I am happy with that. We will clean and then sand the bottom. Then we will give it two coats of bottom paint. I also need to service my feathering prop and replace the packing on the shaft seal. It should be a busy 4 days. We will rent a car tomorrow and drive to Gulfport to get out truck and bring it up to Demopolis. Our life can be a bit complicated. 

We are expecting to leave Demopolis around the 15th of June and head to Kentucky Lake. This will be a new experience for us. We have never been north of Demopolis on the Tenn-Tomm. Come back to see how that part of the trip goes.