NM Today: 38
NM Total: 2671 (3074 statute miles)
Locks Today: 2
Locks Total: 90
When we walked up to use the "head" (restroom) one last time last night, the parking lot at the park was empty except for one lone truck parked off in the back somewhere. When we walked up to the "head" this morning, there were trucks with boats on trailers filling the parking lot to overflowing. Seems there is a fishing tournament every Saturday in Decatur at Ingall's Harbor, and as soon as the sun is up they are there dropping their boats into the water via the super wide boat ramp near where we had docked our boat. Thankfully Clark had the forethought to dock far away from the parking lot where we would not be disturbed by boats on the boat ramp though, at the time, he was thinking in terms of a handful of boats - not a parking lot full.
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| Parking Lot (partial view) Filled with Trailer-pulling trucks and extra wide Boat Ramp at Ingall's Harbor |
Because rain was predicted and we had a ways to go, we decided that we needed to get moving today as early as possible, so we dropped the lines and shoved off. Then I made Clark's breakfast and took it up to him. Then I made my own breakfast and sat down below and had a leisurely meal with my romance novel by my side. After breakfast I decided to call my friend Maris (Heather's mother) to RSVP for the baby shower she is hosting, and we ended up talking for a good long time before I finally decided that I really needed to go up and find out if the captain needed anything from his first mate.
I took over the helm while he went down below for a quick break. That's when the day started getting interesting! It was Halloween after all, and the boat decided it had a Trick for us and not a Treat!
We have indicator lights on the boat to tell us when something is working - a yellow light for water running, a blue light for bilge pump, and a red light for the head flushing. Normally we want all indicator lights off. Typically when someone uses the head both the red and the yellow lights come on. That happened today, but when Clark came back up top the red light was off but the yellow light was still on, so I asked him why. He went to investigate and found water pouring into the bottom of the boat. Yikes!! That really gets the heart rate going!! No captain wants to see water flowing into the bottom of his / her boat in a steady stream.
Since the yellow light was on, he turned off the water pump, but the water just kept coming. Fortunately that turned out to be only a temporary situation, however, as eventually the water flow reduced and then stopped. Seems that, even after turning off the water, a lot of it continued draining from the source before it finally stopped flowing into the boat. After some rational thinking about where the water was flowing (the stern of the boat) and what might be the associated source (only thing back there is the shower hose), he checked and found that a hose had disconnected itself from the shower fixture which allowed water to flow freely and empty our water tank into the bottom of the boat.
While all this was going on, I continued to pilot the boat towards the Joe Wheeler Lock blissfully ignorant of the true situation down below and Clark's activities. I started to get concerned however when he had not yet reappeared and I found myself getting closer and closer to the lock. I called the lockmaster on the VHF radio to check on the lock status, and he responded that he would have the doors open and I could come "right on in". Normally that is great timing and something to be hoped for, but the closer I got, the more unsettled I got - primarily because the fenders and lines were not yet set in lock-through position and I could not be two places at once.
Thankfully Clark did reappear before I reached the lock doors. He quickly gave me the run down on the water flow issues down below. He told me the situation was contained and took over the helm for locking through while I ran down and did the fenders and line. As I went to do my lock duty, I saw the shower fixture hanging out and items from the storage area in the stern sitting on deck, so I knew he had more work to do.
After we completed our locking activity, I once again took over the helm and Clark went back down to finish removing the water from the boat (he started a siphon going before we locked through) and clean up everything he had torn apart to get to the root of the problem. Considering what he had to do, he returned quickly. Honestly I was amazed at how fast he assessed the situation, determined the root of the problem, corrected the issue, and cleaned up the mess made fixing it. No wonder his name is Clark - like Superman!
After the "water in the boat" drill everything returned to normal except for the fact that we now had an almost completely empty water tank -- that water drained out fast!! We had debated where we would stay for the night - marina or anchorage. With basically all of our water gone, the decision was made for us - marina!
With all the excitement, I must say that the morning went by in a blur. Where normally I am killing time as we move along, today I was busy driving the boat and working the lock, so the time flew by a lot faster than usual.
We had two locks today -- Joe Wheeler first and Wilson lock second. Wilson lock is the oldest TVA hydroelectric dam and lock. Construction completed in 1924, so it was actually built before the TVA came into existence but was later adopted by them. The lock has a 94 foot lift making it the highest lift lock east of the Rocky Mountains. The 94 foot ride down, since we are now heading downstream, was the fastest drop in a lock I have ever experienced. When they pull the plug on that lock, the water must really pour out in a hurry because we dropped fast. Both Clark and I were amazed at the speed with which we went down. It was a great ride!!!
We did have two not-so-great things going on with Wilson lock, however. First it was pouring rain when we got there and second we had an hour wait to lock through because a slow tow got there before us.
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| Slow Tow (big white box-like object) clogging up Wilson Lock on Tennessee River added over an hour to our travel time today due to the wait while he locked through in front of us |
The lockmaster allowed us to tie up to the wall at the lock while we waited. We did so, and because it was lunch time, I made sandwiches and we ate lunch while we waited for the lock to be ready for us. After the whistle blew indicating we could enter and we got ourselves secured to the floating bollard, we noticed two people standing up on the lock wall waving hello. I thought they were waving at the other boat in the lock with us. They were waving at us.
Since we did not wave back, they called Clark on the phone. It turned out to be friends of his from about 40 years ago that he had been texting with. They knew we were at the lock so they drove over to see us lock through. Afterwards they came to the marina where we stayed tonight and took us out for dinner and then took me to the supermarket so I could get some much-needed supplies. We got back to the boat at 10:30. I cheated and set my watch back as soon as I got on board so I could pretend we got back at 9:30. I still needed to put away groceries and write my blog entry and I did not want to be up past midnight.
We plan to head out early again tomorrow. If all goes as planned, our next stop will put us back on the official Great Loop. From there we start heading south to hopefully warmer weather. The next two days are expected to be miserable with plenty of rain - not my favorite way to travel, but at least we do not have any locks to go through before our next stop.
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