Nov 1-3

Nov1-- The water fog was rather dense as we arose. The days are getting shorter by leaps and bounds every day. Don makes coffee about 6am and it is still very dark out. The rest of us roll out about 6:30 or 7 am. Nowhere to go as long as it is foggy. We are in a cove and we can see the river but we want to make sure the river is clear of fog before we depart. The sun works wonders when it comes up to burn off the low lying clouds and fog banks. Guntersville lock is only a mile away. Departure time is 10:30 am and the lock lowering was pretty routine although we had to travel to the far end of the lock before we found a working bollard. The ones at midlock had sunk. Another short day. A beautiful ride downriver. A little current to help us. Traveling about 8.5-9mph depending on the current. Arrival time at Ditto Landing was 1pm. Very sunny and pleasant--68 degrees. Ditto Landing was one of our stops on the way up the River to Chattanooga. It is right outside of Huntsville. I got the folding bike out and extended an invitation to the rest of the crew to go for a ride-but no takers. The marina has a very nice bike trail and I had a very pleasant bike ride. Everybody was hungry for pizza so we had pizza delivery. The trees are changing a little more every day.
November 2. We thought about having another short day, but decided to make it a long day. The anchorages for the next 55 miles are rather limited. Knot Home left sometime after us and decided to anchor after about 30 miles. They went up a buoyed creek to find an anchorage. Not in the guide book so they were exploring!. The one marina on the way was reported to be not to accommodating so we continued on to our planned destination of Joe Wheeler Park. This is where the looper rendezvous was held. The journey again was very delightful. New scenery for Don & Sharon. The day got warmer. No fog this morning. Arrival 3:30pm . 2181 statute miles covered and 1250 gallons of fuel used.

November 3 . A planned layover for a couple of days. The rest of the crew went to town to provision. The maintenance man at the lodge was kind enough to take them to Rogersville Al which is about eight very hilly miles away. I stayed behind to change oil in the engines. There is a built in pump on board which evacuates the oil from the engines and the generator. It also transfers the new oil from the containers back into the engines and generator. We are talking 6 gallons of oil, so the pump makes the job a lot easier. Oil filter changing is pretty simple too. The filter on the port engine is very accessible. The starboard engine is also easy, since I installed a remote filter, otherwise you would need to hire a midget to change the filter. They even have a place to dispose of the used oil here. Yanmar recommends changing the oil every 250 hours and the hour meters read just shy of that since we left home on July 31. By the way, I have not had to add oil since we left home. The fuel filters (the life line of a diesel engine) were also checked. They have a provision for draining water and gunk from the bottom of the filter. I also have a vacuum gauge installed, which indicates when the filters are starting to get plugged. All is well after draining a little water and gunk. Sausage on the grill tonight