Tuesday, January 16th

Good evening folks. It looks like we can only get out every other day, and today is the day. Yesterday was one of those funny bad days. it rained all day. It was the 100% chance of rain day we have been out running ever since we left Kentucky Lake Marina. We were glad we were putting all those locks between us and the Ohio River.

We got a call from our river Angel Mike. He informed us that with all the rain they were having the river was expected to rise 10 to 15 feet over night. He said his parking lot would be under water. I'm glad we chose the Tenn. Tom instead of the Mississippi River to head south. All that water has to go somewhere.

We did 6 locks and dropped 265'. With the overcast skies it was dark before we knew it and had to fool around trying to anchor in the dark. Well we ran aground 3 times before we got settled in. she's a strong boat and pulled herself off each time. Pat made chicken cacciatore for dinner; it was excellent.

This morning was the morning from hell. Mercedes quit about 4Am. I got up around 5, got dressed and went down to restart. She cranked right up so I went into the galley and started the coffee. Lionel comes down the stairs just as Mercedes shuts down again. We look at each other and decide we might as well service her so we got to work and changed the fuel filter, oiled her up, topped off the coolant and fired her up. She was happy.

It's still only 5:30 ish so Lionel Whips up some pancakes for breakfast we brew another pot of coffee. It looks like we are going to get away at the first crack of light. I wake up the wheel house, fire up the Cats, we are ready to go. The anchor is up in record time only to find it snagged on the biggest cable you have ever seen. This was at least a 1 inch tow cable and it's wrapped around the flukes of the anchor. Lionel gets help on the foredeck and we start doing circles in the river. It's not very wide and we had already run aground the night before. We played with it for about an hour and ended up slowly going down stream with this cable dragging down both sides of the boat. We finally rigged a hook and line to the cable to lift it off the anchor then do a pirouette with the boat to leave the cable up stream, when it cleared the hook we let it go line and all. Lionel commented that he hopes we have enough line on board so we can throw 20 or so feet away every morning. So much for our early start.

The day has not been lost though. We did get in about 60 miles. We chose a spot to spend the night well in advance of dark. The hook went down about 4:30. Lionel did Ribs on the grill. Patrick made home made apple sauce. Life is good.

Tomorrow we hit Demopolis Alabama We will tie up at a marina. Fuel up, do some shopping, and relax a bit before the run to Mobile.

Capt. Bob