Touch of Class

Today we have 59 miles and 4 locks.  We lost our friends from Admiral’s Choice back at Demopolis, they left earlier than we did.  We left this morning from Columbus marina at 6:20, it was only 53°.  We spent most of the day following a tow and regulating our speed so we didn’t end up sitting for hours waiting for him to get thru the 4 locks.  We did see this super long house boat on the shore.

Big Honkin House Boat

Gary figured it was over 100 feet long.

We made it to Midway marina by 6:30.  Good thing we called ahead to let them know we were coming because they closed the marina at 5.  The guy was nice enough to stay and wait for us.  All in all it wasn’t a bad ride, a little poky following the tow but we made it none the less.  We celebrated with a few beers and some nice conversation with the other live aboards from that marina.  Then it is nighty night at 9 for another early day tomorrow.

We left the anchorage bright and early at 6:30, it was 58° on the 27^th.   Very nice day again, but it must have been a pretty boring ride as I took no pictures :).   We did go thru Coffeeville lock that day.  They were supposed to lift us 34 feet and they only lifted us 4.  I guess the water is up a little, huh?

We arrived at Bobby’s fish camp about 4:30.  Bobby’s is literally just a big dock on the bank.  But it is the only show in town so beggars can’t be choosers.  Bobby’s offers a fantastic cat fish dinner that they serve Thursday thru Sunday.  But darn if we didn’t miss it again :(.  We never seem to get there when they are cooking their cat fish.  There is still the trip down south in the fall, maybe we’ll get lucky then.  Well anyway, when we got to Bobby’s 120 foot dock, there was a sail boat parked about 1/3 of the way up the dock.  Our traveling partners pulled in front of the sail boat and tied up.  The only place for us to tie up is behind the sailboat.  Unfortunately our ass end is going to be hanging in the wind and I won’t be able to get off to tie up.  Good thing the Captain is a good driver because he had to fight the current and sneak in very close to the sail boat without hitting the guys that were working on it.  “Thank you” Admiral’s Choice for helping us tie up.  I don’t know what we would have done.  After we are all tied up,the only way we could get off the boat was to exit our port side, we’ll have to use our 6 foot step ladder.  (The Touch of Class is so well stocked 🙂 ).

The sail boat in front of us was having motor trouble and had a couple of guys working on the outboard motor right as we pulled up.  We were so close to the sail boat, the guys had to watch their heads when they stood up so they didn’t smack their heads on our bow pulpit.  Whoops, sorry guys :).

We spent a quiet night on the dock and the Captain of Admiral’s Choice came over for a few snacks and a drink so we could get to know each other a little better.  The next morning the folks from Admiral’s Choice gave us a lift with our lines in the morning, thank goodness!  We had sun in the morning  of the 28th as we set out.  We had a big ride that day,  97.5 miles.  With the current we had to drive at 1600 RPM’s using both engines in order to maintain our 7.4 knots to get to our destination that day of Demopolis, or Kingfisher Marina, around 4.  We need to take on more fuel at Demopolis.  Demopolis fuels all the tug boats in the area so we know their fuel is very fresh and they usually have a good price.

As we traveler our new friends on Admiral’s Choice passed us and took this really nice picture of us.

The Touch of Class, all ready for the locks

You don’t get pictures of your boat underway very often so we were glad they were able to text it to us.  We drove carefully and watched for debris.  Luckily there wasn’t too much we had to worry about in that department.  We did make it to Demopolis by 4 and were able to fueled up, $2.70 a gallon.  Wow!  That is the cheapest by far!  Oh boy, filler up :)!

After we were done fueling, we went around the corner to Kingfisher Marina to tie up for the night.  The lines were barely tied when I was off the boat for a nice hot shower and laundry detail.  They have a very nice bathhouse/laundry facility here.  While we stayed there, we met these couple of older guys who bought this boat just to take it down to Mobile.

Cheese Heads heading South

Apparently they have done this a few times in the past.  They buy a boat, take it south and then sell it.  They were Packer fans.  Once they saw we were from Minnesota they thought there was going to be some trash talking going on on the dock, but I told them not to worry.  No Viking fans on this boat, we were fans of nothing sports related.  They couldn’t believe their ears!  I guess we are quite an anomaly 🙂

On the 29^th we left Demopolis at 6:45, it was 55°.  Again, another beautiful day.  We had 60 miles and 1 lock to go thru today.  Should be a snap :).  The Admiral took the first turn at the wheel

Admiral driving

We did pass this house that had a bunch of stuff on the side

What kind of siding is that?

You guys should be glad I have a zoom on my camera so I can get you these good shots LOL

Antlers

Antlers….the guy must be a good hunter.  Anyone in Minnesota want to try this motif on their house?

We got to our anchorage about 4:00, we like to leave early and arrive early.  That way if we run into any trouble with the locks, we still make it to our destination before it gets dark.  This anchorage is one we refer to as the cow anchorage.  The official name is Windham Landing.  We really like it here.  Plenty of room to swing.  This time not only could we hear the cows but we could see them.  We also heard what sounded like someone crop dusting in a plane, ya know the noise they make nnnnnnooooooowwwwww as they fly down close to the field.  But then we heard two of them at the same time.  Maybe they were practicing for barn burnings :). We never did get to see any of the planes :(.

The next morning on the 30^th we left the anchorage at 6:15.  It was 50 degrees this morning and a little foggy  but not enough to delay us.  As we were driving along I saw this dark circle in the water, I navigated the boat around the dark object and looked closely at it when I drove by to see what it was.  Oh man!  It wasn’t anything but the shadow from the balls on the overhead wires.  What a dope.  Oh well, better to be safe than sorry!

We did ran into some snow on the river though

Snow? In April?

Hee, hee.  And I could tell we had crossed over from Alabama to Mississippi when I saw this on the shore of a peninsula

Bar B Q and folding chairs

And not a boat in sight.  Well we made it to Columbus Marina by 2:00, a 49 mile ride, with no problems.  A trip to the grocery store is in order and then a nap!

We left Dog River marina early today and found more interesting stuff to look at in Mobile Bay.  Luckily there was no fog this time and as it was Sunday morning, so there wasn’t that much traffic either.  We did see this boat in a floating barge being repaired

Big Ship in for Repair

See the little guy next to it?

Little man

Now that is what I call a Big Boat!  Then we saw this Oil Platform

Oil Platform

It was the first time I has seen one up close.  See the big anchors they use to anchor it to the sea floor?

Big Anchor

Bunch of anchors on each leg

Uncle John huh?  I wonder if they serve pancakes on there? 🙂

Wow!  That is a big wheel

Huge Prop

See the little men up in the lift?  I’d hate to have to pay the bill to replace that puppy.

And look at this monster

Monster

He reminds me of those birds that you put next to a glass filled with water, they would tip over, get their beaks wet and then stand back up.  They would do that for hours!  Am I showing my age by that statement????

We saw some Coasties out patrolling, looking for the boats and people that were missing

Coast Guard on Patrol

We heard the Coast Guard “Pon Pon’s” for the next 3 days.  About every hour they ran the announcement about the man over board and the 5 people missing from an overturned vessel.  Apparently they continue to  repeat these until the people are found.  Very sad situation for those waiting to hear about their loved ones.

As we traveled along thru Mobile Bay, there was a boat that pulled in behind us.  It was a 46 foot carver called Admiral’s Choice.  They ended up traveling with us for a few days

Admiral’s Choice

Of course everyone knows who the Admiral is don’t we? Hee hee.

Well we made it to our first stop today, an anchorage called Alabama Cut off.   Here is a picture of our traveling buddy all tucked in for the night

Anchor buddy

So with everyone tucked in for the night, it is nighty night from the Touch of Class.

First of all, this will be my 100 post to our blog.  I hope you all have enjoyed our adventures and there will be more to come this year while we explore Tennessee. 

Well we finally made it to our new home for the next 7 months, and here is how we got there.

We left Orange Beach Marina on April 24^th.  We had checked the weather and the wind on Mobile bay.  Looked like smooth sailing for the next week.  We said “goodbye” to Orange Beach and the really cool big house at the end of our road

House at Orange Beach

We had smooth waters sailing to Dog River, our first stop.  When we got there we filled up at $3.13 a gallon and took our free night dockage.  We heard that a big storm was coming tomorrow night and the water levels were pretty high on the Tenn-Tom so we decided to stay and not leave till Sunday A.M.  All morning on Saturday we watched sail boats leave the harbor.  Apparently there were 130 boats sailing in a Regatta that day.  Looked like a beautiful day until about 4:30 when it started to get dark.  The storm was coming.  Luckily Gary had put out some extra lines because there were 60 to 70 MPH winds.  Our boat was being pushed sideways by the wind and the rain was whipping.  Unfortunately we didn’t put up the Bimini, we watched as the tubing collapsed back on the radar arch and the Bimini flapped around in the wind

Holy Crap!  We were keeping our fingers crossed it didn’t tear off.  We listened on the marine band radio as people were calling to the coast guard for assistance.  We listened as one boat reported they found a dead body.  The storm was pretty bad, when all was said and done there were 2 deaths and 5 missing plus 4 dozen boats in distress.  We still don’t understand why people went out in that weather.  At least we were lucky, Gary checked the Bimini after the storm was over and there were no tears in the cloth and only one bar was slightly bent.  That was a close one and lesson learned, take the Bimini down in a storm.   Kind of ironic too because we installed a chart plotter on the fly bridge so we could sit up there while we drove to Chattanooga and now we don’t have a Bimini to sit under anymore. Best laid plans.

We watched as sail boats were towed into the marina

Sail boat being towed in

This one didn’t have any gas, apparently they go with little to no gas so they can sail faster, I guess that’s why his sails got ripped to shreds

Ragged sails

Well we enjoyed the beautiful sunset that night

Beautiful Sunset

We are now getting ready for our trip to our summer destination, Chattanooga, TN.  We dropped our car off there this past weekend.  No car troubles this time :).  Here are some pictures of the new digs

Our Dock

I hope we don’t forget the code to get in 🙂

Gary walking down the dock last Fall

Nice Wide dock with wide fingers.

This dock seems to have more light than Aqua.  That will be a nice change

Private Island

They even have a private island that you can rent for parties.  Should be a fun new place to live.  We already got a bunch of brochures for things to check out and see.

We’ll be leaving here, hopefully by the end of the week.  We are keeping an eye on the weather and the flood stages.  We have to wait for the waters to go down on the Tenn-Tom before we leave.  It is just easier and safer to travel if we do.

It will end up being a 1500 mile round trip to get us back here next winter.  We are hoping to take a side trip up past Knoxville, on the little Tennessee by the foot hills of the Smokey Mountains.  You’ll have to stay tuned for the updates on our travels back up the Tenn-Tom to Chattanooga.

We have stayed here longer than we had last year.  Here are some comparison pictures of our walking trails

Walking Trail 2015

Heading down the trail 2014

Quite a difference in the greenery huh?

Here is one final tip about our neighboring boat

We  were chatting with the Captain one day, and he told us they have twin 2400 MTU’s on board.  The boat can go 40 knots, that is 46 MPH!  Holy Hoot!  They drove from Keywest to here in 12 hours!  Man, I bet that was a ride :).  Quite impressive.

Then a final note on the Fishing Boats and their fighting chairs.  I found out what the chrome bars by the arms on those chairs, that they wrap with rope, like these, are used for.

Fighting Chair

Close up of fighting Chair

See the fishing rod holders?  Those bars are to hold the fishing rods and the rope is to keep from scratching the rod or the chrome.  I asked :).

One more little tid bit.  Do you ever wonder how they get the pictures for Google Maps?

Google car

Cool huh?

Well that is enough of the meaningless tid bits.  I hope you stay tuned for our adventure up the Tenn-Tom and Tennessee rivers.  Safe travels to all and may the wind be always at your back.

We were able to take that trip to Pensacola by boat this time.  We had beautiful weather

As we drove down the intercostal we were greeted by Harry the bird.  See him wave to us?

The Coasties were out too

There were plenty of dolphin sightings

The Blue Angels were practicing their flights and ended up flying right over us

So cool!  See the refection of the air planes in the boat?

We saw two sunken boats on  our way

A Navy Ship

and a few other boats along the way

A Light house

We even had some lunch on the road

Unfortuneately, the seas were a little to rough for the Smoke Man

Poor Smoky

Will he ever get his sea legs?

Then the newest member of our crew did all the talking to the vessels that were hailing us

There were a few communication problems, but he did OK 🙂

We pulled into Palafox Marina, it was pretty windy but our able Captain got us to the dock without issue and no damage 🙂  And of course Captain Ron, the Dock Master (yes, that was his real name), was there to help us tie up.

We explored Pensacola and found some great resteraunts to eat at.  Even a coffee shop!  I was soooo excited, they don’t have many of those around down here :(.

While we were walking down by the bay we saw these big bumpers on the side of the sea wall

I bet there was some huge boats that pulled in here at one time, look at the size of the cleats for them to tie to

And who is that handsome man?????

Now that they put the fence up, that pretty much puts the kabosh on that.

Then there was this guy hanging from a generator, 

Worker with his hard hat on

whoops, guess not, just some stuff dangling from the generator

Just goes to show I still have an active imagination or I better get my eyes checked 🙂

Of course what would a trip be without the photo-op of the Touch of Class?

Look how little we look behind this Viking, ours looks like a toy.  Do you see that taller building in the back ground.  Last time they had a hurricane there all the boats were smashed up against  the wall in front of that building.

This is why we get out of dodge during the hurricane season 🙂

It was pretty quite on the boat after the smallest crew member went to bed.  Can you tell there was no TV or cable at this marina?

Their feet are all crossed the same way too.

We had a great time in Pensacola and a smooth ride back to Orange Beach.  For those of you wondering how far it was, it was about the same distance as a trip from Sunnyside to Prescott.  So nice, short but enjoyable trip.  The short trip helped sooth our itchy feet syndrome.  That should tide us over until we leave in a few weeks.

When we got back we took the little boat off the roof.  First time since we had the hoist adjusted.  We are happy to report that the adjustment was spot on and the arm of the hoist didn’t fall and break off when we dropped the boat into the water.  That would have been a real bummer.

We decided to let the kids take the first ride out, after a little instruction, of course.

Gary giving instructions

After a few hours of touring around they brought it back so we could give it a shot.  I figured, what the heck, they didn’t have any troubles, we should be fine.

So we finally got to see down those canals by us that I had always wanted to travel down.

Boats in the canal

House in the canal

We found that once canal lead us back out into the bay where we could plane off.

We got planed off!

Nice overcast day for me

We made it back with no troubles, then we would test the lifting of the hoist but first…

Hoisting up the boat

Flushing the motor

With the salt water down here you have to be careful to wash the salt off everything.  The old Touch of Class even carries the muffs to put on the outboard to flush out the engine on the little boat.  All went well and it hoisted real nice and in the correct spot.  That was well worth the money.

Whatcha doing Papa?

The next generation watches on so they can do the job when they get bigger 🙂

When all was said and done, it was a busy day for all of us.

The kids all left shortly after that.  We had fun and enjoyed their visit.  Plus we have the memories to remind us of their visit 🙂

Just like a plaster hand print 🙂

Spoiler Alert – – – Spoiler Alert

This blog is going to be filled with pictures of my cute Grandson and his parents, if you don’t want to look at my cute Grandson, might as well stop reading now…..just don’t tell me :’-(.

My daughter, her husband and their cute son came for a visit last week.  We had lots of fun and had many new experiences.  We watched new eating techniques

Lunch at the breakfast bar

We learned how to relax after a long hard day

Happy Hour 🙂

Our first traumatic bath in a cooler

Bath in a Cooler

See what fun we are having tormenting our kid?

No, No, No!

Our had our first skinned knee

Running to fast can get you boo boos 😦

A day at the park

I like playing with Mommy

Where does this go?

Ready

Set

Goooooooo!

Wheeeeeee!

Our first taste of lemon (come on you parents out there, how many remember giving their babies a lemon and laughing as the baby made the funny face and then shuddered their body all the way down to their toes?  I know we did!)

Oh boy, an orange

A lemon, icky!

A day at the beach

This is how we make a sand castle

I think Mommy and Daddy had more fun with the sand than he did

Then…..the Easter Bunny came so we had our first Easter on the boat (with an Easter Bunny visit 🙂 

We did lots of fun stuff, played lots of games, drank ice-cold beer and played cards at night.  Smoky supervised

No peaking at others cards!

Sometimes the day was just too much

Man, I’m tired. I think I’ll just sleep here

One of the hi-lights of the trip was our trip to Pensacola, by boat!  That story another day.

We were able to watch one of the sport fisherman boats  gear themselves up for a big fishing trip.  They worked for 3 days getting the boat ready to go.  Filling it with supplies, fuel, ice.  Then they had to put out all the fishing rods and other paraphernalia they needed. They were planning on traveling 120 miles out for a fishing trip with the owners. They had some very impressive and expensive fishing rods.

Colorful line

Nice Rods, see the covers?

We never could figure out what these were for.  Maybe they filled them with ice?

What????

They use this thing to help reel in the lines on their outriggers.

Outrigger helper

See the electric cord?  Apparently they troll with some big bait using the outriggers to get the fish to come to their boat.

Here is the fighting chair

Fighting Chair 

It has two chrome grabbers

Chrome bars

They had a guy come down to tie on the line that covers the chrome bars.  I don’t really know what they are for but I bet when you are fighting to get the fish in and you need some extra leverage, the line on the chrome bars will keep them from getting slippery.

So the Captain and his crew waited for the owners and their friends to show up.  They were supposed to leave at 7 PM.  The owners showed up at 8:30, but they are the owners so they can do whatever they want, right?  They ended up leaving shortly after that and they returned about 11 the next morning.  220 mile round trip and they didn’t catch a thing.  Let’s see, assuming they get 1 mile per gallon, it cost them 220 X $2.85 = $627.00, just for fuel.  I think I’ll keep buying my fish at the grocery store :).

Happy St. Patrick’s Day and a revised Irish Blessing for those that boat

I’ve had a few requests for a tour of the marina so here it is. We’ll start at one end and work our way around the marina so you can get an idea of what it looks like.

As we leave the boat out our back transom

This is right behind our boat, we backed into the slip

Behind us

This is looking down our only finger

As you can see they have no cleats on this dock, which is quite common around here.  That took a little getting used to on my part, learning how to tie to a piling instead of a cleat.  So, I basically tie any way I can to make sure the boat doesn’t go anywhere and then Gary comes and tweaks the ropes.

This is my little buddies Watering dish 🙂

Looking down our pier to the right

We are the last slip on the dock so we have a little walk to shore, but nothing like the walk we used to have at Aqua.

5 Mil Boat with 5 fishing poles

This boat is in the middle of the outside dock.  Look at these reels

They go for about $1000, and they even have covers!

We think BearTrax should stock them 😉

Almost to the end of the dock

Here is the bath house

At this point, although there are other boats with couples aboard, they have all left them here to go back to their houses.  So I pretty much have the woman’s heads/showers all to myself.

Laundry and Carts

Laundry costs are not too bad, $1.50 for wash and $1.00 for dry.  These are brand new machines as their other ones got flooded out last year.  They are large, so it only takes a couple of loads to do the laundry.  It is hard to fold your unmentionables with all those men hanging around there though :).  They also have carts that we can use to haul stuff down to the boat which comes in very handy.

Parking lot

Up in the parking lot they have storage sheds for all the big boats.  Kind of like dock boxes but much bigger.

Sanders Yacht Service

Walking down the drive you’ll come to Sanders Yacht Service.  They have two service centers.  This one is for their “little” boats, the other one, on the ICW is where the big boats go to be serviced.  Like our million dollar neighbor.

90 Footer

The marina also has a common area where they have picnic tables under cover.  We have had a few “docktail” parties here in the past

Covered picnic area

As we round the corner of the drive, going toward the street entrance to the marina, we see they have removed the covers from the palm trees, must be a sign of warmer weather to come.  The little shack there is used by people who have para-sailing, jet skies, dolphin watching etc for you to try out.  They usually don’t open till right before we leave.

Rounding the corner

To the right of us is Fishers Restaurant

Fishers

The bottom is pretty casual and the upstairs is suppose to be white linen.  Needless to say we have never been upstairs 🙂

Down the walk to the Ships Store

Then you turn right and go down the walk to the ships store.  You can see Fishers has some seating on the left.

Fish cleaning station

They have a nice big fish cleaning station by the ships store.  They also have a smaller one at the end of our dock.  Now we just need some fish to clean 😉

And here is the ships store

Ships Store at Orange Beach

They also have a Realtor and a boat broker on site in case you feel the need.

Green Grass

In case you have forgotten what this is, it’s green grass :).

As we go around the right of the ships store we see my buddies boat

Little Buddy

you can even see the tip of ours sticking out.

Back of Ships Store

They have a nice little spot at the back of the ships store that is in the shade most of the day.  When we sit in our pilot house, we can see it from our windows.

This is a building off to the left of the gas dock.  Apparently, during the summer when they have the big fishing tournaments, the boats line up for hours with their catches to get them weighed here.  Sometimes it takes well into the night to get everyone weighed.  It is apparently, quite a mad house…..sounds like fun :).

They have more docks to the left of the ships store, some commercial, some not.  As you can see the majority of the boats here are sport fishermen’s

Sport Fisher boats

and the roofs are high enough to handle their very high tuna towers

If you follow the dock all the way to the the enterance of the marina, there is a house with a small sandy beach.  Apparently the owner of the marina owns this house.  If you walk this dock at night you’ll see they have 3 buoys marking the entrance to the channel leading in to the marina.  One bouy is a “No Wake” and the other two are the red and green markers.  Pretty cool that they light up (although I think the red one needs a new bulb 🙂 ).

No Wake

Green bouy

Red Bouy

On nice days, there is quite a bit of boat activity here.  The slip that we have, which is across from the gas dock and right off the main channel is really nice to watch the comings and goings of every boat in the marina.

So now you have the tour, in case you can’t come and visit us while we are here.  But if you’re in the area, be sure to stop by.  We always have something on ice :).

Well, last time I left you, we had a leak under the sink.  After 24 hours and a few more tightening turns with the wrench, the leak finally stopped.  We are so happy!  The carpet has fully dried and Gary put that back down.  I was able to review my inventory under the sink and toss out anything that was expired or things we just hadn’t used in the past, 22 months since we moved aboard the boat.  Now it is all neat and orderly again.

Stateroom Back in Order

Under sink, all cleaned out.

I have gotten several ideas for getting rid of the ink stain and I will try them and let you know how that goes.  But the best news of all…..our new couch arrived!  Whoopie!  Since its arrive I have come to find out Gary never liked the old couch 😦

Here is the old very colorful couch

Who couldn’t like this multi color art piece?  Of course I did and that is really all that matters, isn’t it? 🙂

I hope Gary likes the color of the new one, it kind of looks like this 

On the day it arrived, the rain had stopped for a while, lucky us.  So first it was bye bye old couch

Old cushions on the dock

All ready for the new one

Here comes the new one

Lets get it over the transom

Good thing we have such nice wide doors

There it is!  Nice and Beachy.

Both Gary and Smokie approve 🙂

It is perfect for afternoon naps and kitty snoozes, so I guess we did good.