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Mississippi- why do you hate me – part II

More from Mississippi…

After wrapping up writing the first part of this post, we checked the weather and realized we were in for some more thunderstorms. Julie and I took Willie for one last walk of the evening, and as we got back to the boat, we could feel the change in the air. By 10:00, it was booming out – big winds, rain, etc. Really, a great show. Since our dock was really well protected, we were very comfortable in the storm (it was just very loud and bright). 

The next day… We get up really early again to get through the lock and have time to walk around a small town about 5 hours away. We shove off at 6:45, and this time, however, the lock-gods are with us. We make it through without a hitch. Has our luck in Mississippi finally turned? Turns out – no….   

To get to this town (Columbus MS),  we need to turn off the main channel into a smaller one. The guidebook warns that the water can get shallow at the junction – as low as 6 ft. Since we draw only 3 ½ feet, we’re cautious, but feel comfortable going in. Any guesses what happens next? You got it, as I’m driving in, I see the depth sounder go from 6’ to 2.5 ft in about 2 seconds…. Smack dab into a sandbar (more like a mudbar – if that’s really a ‘thing’). Either way, we’re stuck. We try our trusty anchor trick – no luck (we can spin the boat – but we’re not going anywhere). Ugh… Good thing we bought tow insurance. A call to TowBoat US and about an hour or so later, the towboat arrives. He tells us that he pulled a 56’ boat off this same spot a few days earlier. Not sure if we was telling me this to make me feel any better – but if he was, it worked. At least I’m not the only idiot to get stuck here. Fortunately, the getting unstuck process goes smoothly – and we’re on our way. Only 20 miles to Alabama (fingers crossed).


Note:  As I hit send on this post, we’re at a comfortable anchorage in Alabama… sweet (temporary) home Alabama!

 

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Changes

                                                 Changes                       

                                            By: Lucy Vannini

                There are lots of difference when you live on a boat. No matter how hard you try, it won’t be the same as a house. Some things you wish you have but you don’t, some things are way harder. There are lots of different tweaks and changes you have to make when you live on a boat. Changing your lifestyle completely one might say. The benefits overweigh all the cost another might say. On a house you can’t swing on a hammock over the water, on a boat you can’t walk to school everyday with friends. You can decide what you think, but first let me explain life on a boat versus one on a house.

                Changes are hard. They sometimes make you sad. Everyday routines vary a lot depending where and what you live on.  Yes, we all live on Earth, yes we all live on the same ground, but how we do it, is the key. It makes everyone special, I am going to start by talking about how that affects me.

                               

                Morning is about the same. You wake up. What you do differs though. In a boat you normally wake up do all the morning things; brush teeth, comb hair, etc. When you get up, you don’t have to rush to be out of the door by 8 o’clock but you do have to start school at a reasonable time. Yes, sometimes reasonable time stretches when we wake up at 11 o’clock the day after we started early. In the morning on a boat there is a lot more freedom to when you start things as long as you finish.

                Mid-day (school time). School. It is like a octopus in the waves. It always is there sucking on to you. But….you can make school more fun then the word “school.”  Homeschooling is like regular school plus lots more attention and freedom minus spending some time with your friends. An average school day on homeschooling is about 3-4 hours versus the long and ever lasting 7 hour school days. So, in my opinion that’s a plus. Another difference is that in homeschooling you can work wherever you want and can take more breaks. You can also play music, chew gum, and more things that you wouldn’t  necessarily be allowed to do in public school.

            Being able to move. I would have never thought before I moved on a boat that your home could get stuck in a sandbar or tangled up in riverweed. Being able to move your home wherever you want is fun! You can be in Alabama one day, and Florida the next. There are always new fun experiences in the new places. You can see lots of differences in what you do in just two states. Although some places aren’t as great as others, you can always not spend as much time there, and spend more time in fun places.

             Cooking, whether you are on a boat or house you still cook, you can cook the same things. The difference is how easy it is. Houses are easier to cook in, but boats give you more opportunities to cook things all the way from scratch. For example an dinner at your house might be pizza for example. So, you can just Domino’s and get it delivered. But on a boat you can make the crust and sauce and add toppings. On a boat you can make things from scratch that are better because you don’t get the option of ordering pizza to your boat.

     Friends.  They are special. You miss them. On a boat it is a little different making friends. Basically any kids you meet become  you friends pretty quick. On the river, there was one other kid that we barely even met,  we were with them for two days. We didn’t have that much time to meet each other unfortunately. So, once we get to the Caribbean, we will get to meet new people and kids. Both from the islands, and boaters. Basically, once we become friends with the boaters we can maybe change our path according to where they are going. So right now, I haven’t met that many friends.

     There are lots of differences when you live on a boat. No matter how hard you try, it won’t be the same as living on a house. Some things you wish you had but you don’t, some things are way harder. There are lots of different tweaks and changes you have to make when you live on a boat. Changing your lifestyle completely, one  might say. The benefits overweigh the cost, another might say. On a house you can’t swing over the water on a hammock, but on a boat  you can’t walk to school with friends every day with your friends. Happiness is not a destination, it is a journey.

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Mississippi – why do you hate me? A two part series

A Post by Mark
Note – I didn’t originally plan this to be a two-parter, but Mississippi was the gift that kept on giving.  Part II tomorrow…

Part I

As I write this, we just experienced a beautiful sunset and stunning moon-rise from a free dock in a great little harbor. 


The 24 hours preceding it were maybe the toughest yet. Here’s the story…

Thursday afternoon, we head into our planned anchorage – a (supposedly) dog friendly spot (i.e. easy to get Willie on and off the boat). We’re struggling a bit to figure out how to get from the channel we’re in to the anchorage – as the directions in the guidebook seem a bit conflicting with what we’re seeing. Alas – we spot the small channel that leads from the main channel towards the shore. As we are heading right down the middle of the channel, we run into a bed of river-weeds (I assume that’s what you call seaweed in a river?). The boat stops dead in its tracks. We check the depth – plenty of water. We’re caught in the weeds. I try to back the boat up – nothing… the weeds are wrapped around the propellers. I try to go back and forth to free-up the props – the port (left) engine / prop seems to be working better, but the starboard (right) one is not doing anything – other than starting to emit a bunch of white smoke. This isn’t good… Luckily, Julie is smarter than me (not exactly a newsflash…) – and has the solution. We end up getting our stern anchor and tossing it out so we can pull the boat out of the weeds. After two tosses and a trip about 40 ft from the boat in our dinghy to drop the anchor further out, we pull ourselves out using the anchor and are free of the weeds. The port engine seems to be fine now, but the starboard one is not happy – so we shut it down for now. We limp ahead and find another way into the anchorage. Once we are settled, its time to go swimming under the boat to clear the weeds from the propellers. Even with a wetsuit, the water was chilly. Its also muddy – so going under the boat is pitch-black. I feel my way around and am able to clean out the weeds. I unwind a lot of stuff – so I’m encouraged that the engines should run better the next day. At this point, its starting to get dark – so I need to get a move-on to get Willie to the shore for a quick walk / potty break. Sally, Willie, and I hop into the dinghy and head to shore. Between the weeds (which the dinghy can’t penetrate) and really shallow sand bars, we can’t get near the shore. We end up stopping on a marshy sandbar and try to walk Willie up and down the tiny bit of solid land trying to get him to go to the bathroom. Based on how this story is going so far, I’m guessing you know how this went (not good). After what felt like forever, we had to give-up – as it was past dusk and now dark. Back to the boat – time to check the engines – belt tension, oil levels, coolant levels, etc. I start with the starboard one. I open the engine compartment to find oil everywhere – yikes. Then I see the oil cap is off – and realize that when I checked the engine the day before and topped off the oil, I forgot to put the cap back on. After a round of expletives, I get out the degreaser and clean up the engine. Once everything is cleaned back up, I check the other engine (all good), clean myself up, and have a great dinner (rice, bean, and cheese enchiladas).

After a smooth night at anchor, we woke up early and were moving by sunrise. Our goal was to get through the first lock of the day early so we wouldn’t get held up at the lock and could get Willie to a dock by about noon to go for his walk. We are close to the lock – and in the motoring to it, the engines both seem to run well – except that the starboard engine is still smoking more than it should. We get to the lock – only to find out that the lockmaster is holding the lock for 7 other boats (where was this guy when we got stuck in the rain a few days ago!). Ugh… almost an hour later, we finally get through the lock. As we’re going, the boat equivalent of the “Check Engine” light comes on for – you guessed it – the starboard engine. Message – high coolant temperature. Ugh… We shut it down, Julie hops up to the steering wheel, and I head down to see what’s up. I’m expecting to find that we broke the belt that drives the water pump (that has happened before – I know how to change that pretty quickly). I open up the engine which is under our bed – so I’m tossing bedding everywhere. All belts look fine. We start it up again so I can watch the engine – and the light is now off. Hmm… what to do. We run the engine for a bit longer – all looks good in the compartment – but Julie notices that there is a lot less water coming out of the starboard engine than the port one. The way the radiators in the engines are cooled is by outside water coming into the engine and being ‘spurted’ out of the boat. So, we shut it down again and I pull apart the water pump to see if its OK. I get it apart and notice that it is a ‘little’ broken (basically, it is pretty worn – but likely not the cause of the problem). I have the right spare parts and rebuild the pump – but as I feared, it didn’t fix the problem. I get everything put back together about 10 or 15 min before the next lock. Our plan now is to get to a dock so we can figure out our water blockage. By now, all 7 of the boats have passed us (as we’re only running one engine)- so we’re now last in like to get through the next lock. When we get to the lock, there is a barge in a portion of the lock – so not all of us will be able to lock through. This turns out to be somewhat of a blessing – as we see a small marina just to the side of the lock that we pull into. Willie is beyond happy at this stop as well. Julie and Sally took him for a walk – and without getting into the details, let me tell you that he needed to go!

Now – years of watching MacGyver finally paid off (and maybe engineering school too – but I’m giving most the credit to MacGyver – although, unfortunately, no chewing gum or duct tape was used in this repair).

Here’s the story… we figure something is blocking our water intake – probably the lousy weeds from the day before. Unlike a lot of other boats (and all other ones I’ve been on before), there is no water strainer that you can easily clear out and be on your way. To clear this blockage, we need to backflush the system. How the heck are we going to do this? There are certainly no tools at this marina we just pulled into (it was very run-down and a bit depressing). So, we pull out a 5 gallon Home Depot bucket and our small 12 volt pump. A random fitting and a hose clamp later, we have the output of the pump connected to the water intake hose and are pumping 5 gallons of water backwards out the intake. A second bucketful of water later, the intake was clear as can be. We put everything back together, started up the engine – and all was good. The check engine light was off, the right amount of water was coming out of the engine, and not a trace of smoke was coming out of the exhaust. Unbelievable! The day was turning around!

We end up going through the lock – only missing one ‘turn’ of the lock – and are on our way. Less than an hour later, we hit a small – but really strong storm.  For context, there have been possible thunderstorms in the forecast for each of the past three days- but haven’t had any. Until today…  While the lightning never gets too close, the wind and rain did  – complete wash-out conditions a handful of times. Really not a lot of fun. Luckily, the really bad conditions were relatively short-lived and we were able to get to full-speed again shortly. Because of our wait at the first lock, our running one engine for a while and our slowdown during the storm – we weren’t going to be able to make it to our preferred anchorage – which is just downstream of the next lock. Instead, we stop at a free dock before the lock – which turned out to be a great spot. 

To be continued..,

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OK EVERYONE SOME PRETTY SCARY THINGS HAPPENED! THINGS NOT TO DO!

Number 1.
Never ever, ever, drive into the weeds even if it is  20 Ft deep

Number 2.
Always leave at least 5 Ft of wiggle room for your depth.

WARNING: SOME THINGS MIGHT BE A LITTLE EXAGGERATED!

 

So imagine you are motoring on down the Ten Toms and it is time to anchor. We start going to narrow path with some splotches of seaweed grossness stuff, ‘xcept it isn’t seaweed because it is growing in the river. Anyway, it is long and green and it kinda looked like green mermaid hair from the stories. We kept on going in not realizing we were slowing down. SUDDENLY, BAM, we stopped dead in our tracks. I looked around stunned by the loss of movement and went to ask Dad what happened. And when he said we were stuck, I saw a tow coming! Don’t you worry though because we didn’t get stuck in the channel, a barge wouldn’t be able to get unstuck very easily. So imagine us, practically in the middle of nowhere on our boat with white smoke puffing out of the starboard (right) engine. It wasn’t just a couple of puffs every so often, no, it was huge puffs with oil coming out in slugs. So you are probably thinking right now, are you still there, no way! We got out, thanks to Mom’s idea of using the anchor! WHAT A LONG DAY, IT COULDN’T GET ANY WORSE!

WELLLLLLLLLLL, I was wrong! It did get worse, way worse!
Mississippi has a curse with us I am telling you. SPOILER ALERT: Thank gosh we made it out of Mississippi! Anyway, we are going along our destination, a marina, that just closed down, what luck. So we are going to go stop at a little anchorage in a cute town and walk around then get back on the water. So as we approached there, I was writing a letter and going on like so until, “CREEEEEEEEEEESHUCCCCHHHHHHH” and a jolt. Well, you can imagine how I felt then. I got my life jacket and shoes on in a hurry and ran out on the deck.
“What in the world was that?” I asked, somewhat terrified.
My answer was we are on the ground and we might need a tow boat. OH NO! I thought, this can’t be good. We tried and tried with all of our strategies! We didn’t budge. We decided it would be best to call a tow. Fortunately the wait was only an hour. So we decided to eat lunch, don’t worry our luck was with us. We ate a good and successful lunch. The tow boat came, I was inside with Willie, I heard some occasional shouting but everything turned out okay!

Wish us better luck, until next time,
the one and only
Lucy

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Overview

Hello again,
Now that we are almost all the way down the rivers and on our way to the ocean I thought it would be nice to do a lil overview on my experiences so far. First of all, it has been an incredible journey and I wouldn’t trade this for anything. However, it’s been challenging. Personally leaving is always the worst. And like most trips this one was not too fun. I met some amazing people this summer and saying goodbye to them was definitely hard. We spent 3 years in our past house and some people we met I know I will stay in touch with forever and ever. Another big change was the house. With a few weeks of school left, the one and a half hour commute was not too fun. All of my teachers were very supportive and I am so lucky to have had them. This past summer was spent with lots of family and friends. Couldn’t have asked for anything better. To all of my friends who are reading this, I am so lucky to have met you and I can’t wait to see you at high school or whenever our paths may cross again. I’m only me because of you guys. Can’t thank you enough. To all of my famILY, I love you guys so so so much and without the constant reassurance, laughter, and love I don’t know where I would be right now.
Now onto the rivers. Oh man so much has happened. However, I think we have done a relatively nice job at keeping this blog updated. We have met so many incredibly nice people and I’ve been to so many different and new places. All of this being spent with some of my favorite people ever. I have had so much fun and have learned so much about locks, Asian carp, stray cats, mashing of rice and lentils, and YMCA showers. I am looking forward to the deep blue sea and all of the adventures that follow. Can’t wait to update you from salted water.

“Our lives changed like the weather but a legend never dies.” -Jimmy Buffett, Last Mango in Paris

Cya when I see ya,
Heidi

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Making the best out of a cold, grey day

A post by Mark

Note: I wrote this a few days ago – just got a good enough cell signal to import the pics. On to the post…

Today was a great day (still is)! 
24 hours ago, it didn’t look so promising – making today all that much better… Here’s the story 

Yesterday, we made the 30-mile journey up the Cumberland River – from the junction of the Cumberland and Ohio rivers to the Green Turtle Bay marina just past the Barkley Dam in KY. It’s a really pretty ride – narrow, curvy, and scenic. According to the guidebooks, the 30 mile trip ‘should’ take a little less than 5 hours. This is important – as we were trying to get to the Marina (a luxury for us these days) before the weather turned. The day before, it was absolutely gorgeous – in the 70’s and sunny. Yesterday morning, the temperature started to drop – and the forecast was to get really cold and rainy around 2:00. Knowing this, we left at sunrise (about 7:15) – so, we felt like we were in pretty good shape to be at the marina – maybe even have the laundry done and a nice hot shower – before the weather turned nasty.

Well – we were wrong. Instead of the typical 1-2 knots of current in the river, we faced 3-4 knots coming right at us. Apparently, the dams started releasing more water to drop the lakes to their winter levels. In the winter, the lakes and rivers are drained a few feet lower than the summer levels so they can accept the increased water from the spring thaw. This additional water flow from the dams created the extra current which added an additional 1 1/2 to 2 hours to our journey.

Fast forward a few hours, we’re in a string of 4 PCs (pleasure crafts – as they are known by the tow captains and lockmasters). We’re spread over ~ a mile or two – or 20 – 30 min of running time. We’re 3rd in the line – so we figure we’re in a great spot to get through the lock quickly, as they generally group PCs together – and we’re close enough that they’ll wait for us. It’s still looking good to get into the marina before the rain. 

Again – we were wrong. The boat behind us slowed down – turns out they had an engine issue and was running on one engine. Because of that gap, the lockmaster decided to lock-through the two boats in front of us first – meaning our boat and the boat behind us had to wait about 45 min to an hour to get through next. Normally – not a big deal, as an hour wait for a lock is pretty good. However, this meant that we were waiting outside the lock at 2:00 – and, unfortunately for us, the forecasters were very accurate on the timing of the rain. The cold front arrived at 2:00 on the dot – and along with it, a significant drop in temperature, kicked-up wind, and cold, hard rain. So, we pulled into the marina around 3:30 in a downpour and 40 degree weather. Burr… 

We eventually dried out, warmed up, got greatly appreciated showers and clean clothes. 

Next, the conversation shift to ‘what to do tomorrow ‘. We have 3 options- 1) take a ‘day off’ and enjoy the marina, the mediocre wifi, the electricity (and thus,the heater), and take a walk into town. 2) Head out for a short day on the water (about an hour or so) and stop in the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area to go for a hike, or 3)  power through and keep making progress towards warmer weather. 

By the end of the evening, we’re still undecided (although #3 was looking less and less likely). 

This morning, we woke up to really cold weather – so cold that there was ice on the docks. Hmmm – is leaving this morning really such a good idea? Should we just stay put, keep our heater plugged-in, and walk around the town? Around 8 AM, Julie and I decide to borrow the marina’s courtesy car and head into town to get a few groceries and see what there could be to do if we stay put. Grand Rivers KY is a cute little town. It would be fun to walk around – but probably for an hour or two. Thinking that we’d be ‘done’ by noon or so, we decided to stick with ‘plan A’ and to head to the Land Between the Lakes.

Around noon, we pulled into Pisgah Bay and anchored just off the shore by a boat ramp. After an easy dinghy ride to a dock, we hopped out and went for a 4 or 5 mile hike through really pretty, hilly, truly ‘woodsy’ terrain. It was great – here’s some photographic proof!

 


A walk in the woods

The crew by an old navigation buoy

Julie and Mark having fun 

 
We even found a playground with a swingset
Willie had a great day too. He really liked being in the woods for a long walk. To top it all off – Willie saw his fist deer (and his 2nd through 5th). He was intrigued – I think he made a connection with other skittish 4-legged creatures. Watching him watch the deer was really funny. I wish we had pictures – but it was too fun to watch him to look away get the camera.  

He was exhausted after all the excitement. 
 
We ended the day with some hot soup and warm bread, listened to a few chapters of Tom Sawyer, and a great night sleep (wearing just about all the cold weather clothes we have – as the temperature dropped even further last night). Good thing we brought our sleeping bags, hats, etc.

All in all – a great day – and one that very easily could have been a dull, cold, dreary one had we stayed put.
Glad we made the right call!

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Hi

Hi everyone reading this,

This is Lucy! To start off I am going to explain how all is now. It honestly seems like we have been living on our boat forever and we havenever been anywhere else. IWe hve finally got everything down-school, anchoring, docking, etc for the most part! It is really hard to believe that when I am writing this we are rigth here in Tennessee! TENNESSEE! It seems that we are just going from place to place so fast. Well, if you think about it though, we are going EXTREMELY slow compared to a car! So lets do some math-if you haven’t had enough after this I can always hook you up! It seems tht we alway have a math problem to solve on the boat! Back to topic……..

the average a car goes is about 60 mph, right

well here we are going 6-7 mph!

So if you do that math you can find that we actually go about 10x slower in a boat then a car!! Now going in cars seem unsafe-WAY TO FAST!!!!!!!!!!

But it is still hard for me to take in that we are going to another place everyday and we will be in Florida in about 2 weeks. The traveling part is so cool- even though it is cold. Taking about cold…….

WEATHER:

So in a house you normally just check the weather each day or for the week to decide small choices. “Will I wear shorts or pants today?” “Capris maybe” or bigger things like, “Will softball be canceled?” “Can I walk or bike to school today?”

Well if you every decided to move on a boat, first off your parents have to quit their jobs then you can make bigger descions abou the weather!!! Also you can stand outside and steer in the rain- what Dad has bravely been doing! I probally should sound more convincing…If you stop at marina’s we can plug in our heater and have wifi!!! Just kidding! We all are excited to get some warmweather soon!

Imagine this, you are sitting down in your hammock at the end of  a hard day of either school or work. The sun glistens down on the trees and makes them glow an orangey, rustic color. You gently swing back and forth the wind softly against you. You read a book, or write a blog post, or write in your journal or whatever you want!

Those parts of the day are my favorite, they are priceless.

I decided to end my post with a quote

 

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Hey friendos! I recently realized how much time has passed since I last wrote. I’m not gonna make this too long because everyone else has been doing a fantastic job explaining our adventures so far. In addition to flying off swings, getting extremely scared by fish, and school work, we have had a blast. It’s hard to believe that it’s only been two weeks with these crazy people. There was one night in Ottawa where after a nice day of rain and exploring the town we went grocery shopping and I realized how crazy we really are. To most this is a pretty simple task, get in the car, drive to store, buy good food, put food in car, drive home. Right? Well, when you don’t have a car it gets a lil more exciting. We walked to the store, with our rain gear on. And rain gear is not only a rain jacket. Oh no haha we are covered head to toe in rain gear. So the family in the rain pants and coats makes it to the store. We find and purchase food like normal and then we start walking home. With all of our groceries in hand. It’s a relatively short walk but with all of our food it seems a little longer. As we began crossing the park nearest to the boat, mom had the wonderful idea of a lil arm workout. 1, 2, 3, LIFT! 10 more secondssss. Hold! Urgggggg. You got this! So here we are, a family of five walking through a park, lifting grocery bags above our head. Quite the sight. We are that family now, and we love it.

“If we couldn’t laugh we would all go insane.” -Jimmy Buffett

Till next time,

Heidi