Log 38; Day 126; 9/24/2008

Log 38
Day 126
Wednesday, September 24, 2008

7:10 AM CDT
Location: Green Turtle Bay Marina, Grand Rivers, KY
Weather: 61* with calm winds; forecast is for sunny and 89* and a 10% chance of rain

Another beautiful morning on Headquarters. The sun is just coming up over the marina now and, while it’s cool, it’s wonderful. As I mentioned yesterday...the extended forecast “for the foreseeable future” is for more of the same. Cool nights; warm days; no rain. Great for cruising. I didn’t go back and look at all the logs, but it seems to me that most of the logs (so far) have started out with how great the weather is.

Yesterday turned out to be a day of improving things. We got up early to get the boat ready for the mechanic to come aboard and go out for a sea trial to see what the clanking was at the back of the boat. We were told he would be there at 8:15 and at 9 o’clock (when he wasn’t there) I went to the service department to see what the story was. It seems the mechanic was late for work and they told me he would be there in 30 to 45 minutes. So Deb decided to put in a couple loads of laundry...and as it turned out got all the laundry done...improvement #1.
Although the mechanic showed up a little late (11:30 instead of 9:30) he had the problem diagnosed in 15 minutes and fixed in 45 minutes. It turned out to be the starboard rudder was a little loose, and we (I helped him) lifted up the rudder with a pry bar...dropped down the top collar a little bit and tightened it up...and no more clanking noise. Improvement #2.
The other thing we improved yesterday was our DirecTV. Too long of a story of why we can’t get certain channels...but one we could not get was ABC. No big deal normally, except that the NASCAR races are now on ABC, so my need to find a fix has been heightened. To help find an answer I went to the Great Loop blog I follow, and it turns out several people have had this problem. What some smart person figured out is that if you have a New York address you will be allowed to get NY local channels (including ABC) and for some reason it works with our satellite TV no matter where you are. So...I Goggled NY marinas...found one that had an address that made sense...and called DirecTV. It took me a couple of times to find an agent that would do what I wanted, but when I did, I told him I wanted to move my “installation” address to this New York address, and keep my billing address the same. He said no problem...and 5 minutes later we were getting ABC on our TV’s. Improvement #3...can’t wait to watch the race on Sunday!!

Today...Deb is going to Paducah (with a courtesy car from the marina) to Kroger to get some things she could not get locally. She is also looking into getting her hair cut a local beauty parlor (that should be interesting...wonder how she will look with a Dolly Parton hair do). I am going to give the boat an outside cleaning, and then I need to spend a few hours planning our trip from here to Mobile. There are a number of reservations I need to make in order to be sure to keep us on track. I also need to make some reservations for the next few nights...at this point we have none, and we plan to leave here and head south in the morning.

I’ll keep you posted.

BK.