M/V ILLUSIONS                               TX TO WV TO TX CRUISE      

TX TO WV TO TX CRUISE TRIP 5 LOGS Nashville, TN to Houston, TX October 20 – 29, 2001 Houston, TX to Nashville, TN, Saturday, October 20, 2001      Angela and I flew to Nashville, rented a car, and went to the boat and dropped our luggage.  We had received some disappointing news from Cedar Creek Yacht Club in Mt. Juliet, TN.  First, we asked them to check our refrigerator.  After a second request, they did, and found it had been off for more than a few days.  Some work had been done to the electrical pedestal at the dock, and in the process they also put a lock on it.  The people we were talking to had to find a key, and when they finally got it open, they found the circuit breaker inside had tripped.  All of our food in the refrigerator and freezer was spoiled.      Second, we were told a few days before arrival that an electrical problem had occurred at the shore power inlets to the boat, almost causing a fire.  We had made some repairs to our shore power cables right after we arrived; Jerry Gunter had done a good job for us.  It’s always surprised me how long it takes for a circuit breaker to trip when there is a short in a shore power cord.      Anyway, the staff at Cedar Creek cleaned out our refrigerator and put some baking soda in open-top containers inside.  Jerry Gunter got some new connectors and inlets for the boat and got our electricity back on for us.  We could not get water at the Guest Dock – it had been turned off for the winter; so we drove the boat out of the marina and around the corner to the fuel and dry storage dock to get water.  We had lunch and bought groceries and arranged everything on the boat, preparing to take it back home to Texas. Lay Day in Nashville, TN, Sunday, October 21, 2001      At home Angela grows orchids, and she occasionally tries to get me to take her to an orchid show.  There was one being held in Nashville, and I couldn’t get out of taking her.  It was held at Cheekwood, an estate belonging to the City of Nashville located on its southwest side.  We drove over there and saw the orchid show from 11am until about 12:30, and then we toured the mansion.  The following is generally what we were told about the mansion.      The estate had belonged to the Leslie Cheek family; they had owned the Maxwell House Coffee business.  They sold it in 1928 for about $38 million and built the estate; the mansion opened in 1932.  Saving $5 million or so of the sale proceeds to live on, Mr. Cheek invested $33 million and became the third stockholder in a little-known new firm known as I.B.M.  I doubted I would be able to bet the majority of my net worth on a brand new company, but several generations of the Cheek family are probably glad he did.      We then went to the airport to turn in the rental car, and we took a taxi back to Cedar Creek Yacht Club.  Weather was wonderful – starting out at 44 degrees F and warming up into the mid- to high-70s about 3pm.  By 5:30 we had a sunset, and it was dark and cool by 6:00pm. Nashville Area to Dover, TN, Monday, October 22, 2001      We would need water by Monday night, so we found out when the fuel dock would be open on Monday morning.  That was 8am, so we planned to be there around that time.  We left the fuel dock about 8:40am, and we rejoined the Cumberland River for our trip downstream.  We pulled into Drake’s Creek to see the famous Rock Castle mentioned in Fred Myers’ cruise guide, but we couldn’t find it.  It either wasn’t there or we were unable to locate it.      We arrived at Old Hickory Lock and Dam about 10:30am, and went through without any problems.  We passed through downtown Nashville; and the large paddle wheeler, DELTA QUEEN, was not there.  We passed through Cheatham Lock about 3:15pm and dropped into Lake Barkley, which was about 2 feet below normal pool.  It was slightly after dark at 7pm when we arrived at our anchorage at Mile 91 – the same place we stayed on the way up the river.       Cedar Creek Yacht Club was located at Mile 233, approximately; so we traveled 142 miles down the river that Monday.  We also made the detour up Drake’s Creek, which was about 4 miles round trip.  Fall colors were good in some places and drab in others.  Some trees seemed to have lost their leaves already; others seemed to not have started dropping their leaves. Occasionally the colors were very nice; some photographs will illustrate those occasions.        We really didn’t have a problem getting the anchor to hold, but I was nervous and kept feeling like it was dragging.  It wasn’t, and we were fine in one spot all night.  The current was strong, and I did not want us to go downriver in the middle of the night.  I finally satisfied myself we would be okay, and we were.  Angela fixed us some grilled salmon and salad – one of our favorite meals, and leftover meals, too.      We saw more barges on that day than on all the other days on the Cumberland combined.  We met one and passed him in a narrow stretch of the river just below Old Hickory Dam.  Several tows with barges passed the island behind which we were anchored; and one upbound tow pulled into the bank and stopped for a couple of hours, it seemed, just upstream of us a mile or so. Dover, TN to Gilbertsville, KY, Tuesday, October 23, 2001      I pulled up the anchor at 8:30am for a leisurely start to the day.  We had only to cover the distance from Mile 91 to Mile 33, or 58 miles, to get to the Barkley Canal, which was close to our destination for the day.  The weather had warmed; it was 68 or 70 degrees F at 8am with a wind from the W at 5-10 knots.  The river did its trick of changing slowly from a narrow stream to a wide one, but the deep channel was still narrow and winding.  Failure to follow the buoys and the chart exactly would have meant going aground, and that was expensive in our experience.      We passed a number of old lock walls and places where the older and smaller lock chambers once had been.  One was located near the Kentucky State Prison, which was an attractive fortress-like building we had noted going upstream. We again noted the surprising number of marinas containing large motor yachts at the lower end of Lake Barkley.      Kentucky Dam Marina had provided good diesel and low diesel prices before, so we pulled in there about 12:30pm.  It’s located at the western end of Kentucky Dam, on the Tennessee River, which we reached by going through the Barkley Canal, of course.  Surprisingly, since diesel had gone down everywhere else, the marina’s diesel had been raised a few cents a gallon.  The attendant asked us to turn off our bilge blowers before fueling; I don’t get that very often.  Most times, they don’t even ask that you turn off your generator while fueling.  A long time ago we were asked to turn off our engines in a lock, and I’ve started doing it even when we’re the only ones in the lock.  That probably increases our miles per running hour and also extends the time between oil changes a little bit.      Moors Resort was our next stop, to get a slip for the night and to see our friends, Dick and Carolyn Stewart.  Telephone communications had not been great between their cell phones and ours, so when we did speak to them we were surprised to hear Dick had dislocated his shoulder just a few days earlier.  He had gone to the emergency room and had it put back into its proper place and position, but he was very sore and somewhat incapacitated by the experience.  Carolyn drove, and she fixed dinner for us all at their home near Moors Resort.  We had a very pleasant visit with the Stewarts that evening. Gilbertsville, KY to Island No. 14, TN, Wednesday, October 24, 2001      Since we had a long way to go that day, I wanted to get an early start.  We were up at 5:15am, and we left the marina at 6am in the dark.  Those little buoys in the secondary channel were hard to see in the daytime and much harder to see at night.  We called the Kentucky Lock and got Mr. McAllister, with whom we had spoken on several recent occasions.  He said we could have the lock to ourselves if we hurried on down there, so we did.  He got the doors open and let us in at 6:55am, and then they had a shift change.      After we were in and tied up, it took 10 minutes to close the upper gates.  Then it was a slow trip down the 57 feet or so we dropped that day.  Then we had a conversation with a new lock operator, and he finally let us out at 7:30am.  It can be done much faster than that.  But we were glad to be in the Tennessee River, and it was fully light by then.      Approximately 22 miles later, the Tennessee River merged with the Ohio River, which was wide but not very deep compared to the two rivers we had just been on.  We went around the dam at Lock No. 52, which was a strange experience.  The water was high enough to go over the dam, which was folded into a down position.  We could tell from the depth meter where it was.  We experienced depths of 17 feet or so, and then the depth changed to 27 feet at the dam.        Lock No. 53 was also inundated and in the down position, so we went around it as well.  Just below was the construction site for Olmstead Lock and Dam, which will replace Locks 52 and 53 when completed.  We had seen the site when we passed through there in 1998, but construction was still underway.  We could get no estimate of the completion date.  The lock operator said the date had changed so many times he didn’t want to talk about it.      The NOAA weather channel had been forecasting severe weather warnings all morning, for strong SW winds and including the forecast for possible tornados and hail.  This was in anticipation of a strong Canadian cold front expected to drop the temperatures in the area after it passed.  We had seen no sign of bad weather until 9 or 10 am when the wind began to increase.  On the wide Ohio River, we were getting waves of at least 1 – 2 feet in height.  Winds increased to 20 knots or so and waves increased to 2 – 3 feet, seemingly right on the nose, or westerly.  I thought we would see a decrease in apparent wind when we turned south into the Mississippi, due to a change in direction and also due to a reduction in the fetch, or distance the wind could travel over water.      Well, I was wrong; the wind was just as bad on the Mississippi River.  It may have been SW, but to us it seemed to be on the nose or nearly so.  Of course, in our boat 2 – 3 foot waves amounted to no worse than choppy water, and it only made the ride rough, not dangerous.  What was frustrating, though, were the occasional leaks through the salon windows whenever a wave would splash up that high.  Angela did some cleaning and drying after we got to our anchorage.  We had no idea what the wind speeds were, and the NOAA weather forecasts kept referring to “counties”.  How did we know what county we were in?  The states on both sides of kept changing due to changes in the river over the years.      At one point we called an upbound tow on the radio after we passed each other.  The name of the tow was “JOE MCALLISTER”.  We asked him if they had wind speed indicators and what wind speeds they were experiencing.  The answer back was 30 – 35 mph constantly, with gusts over 40 mph.  We had no rain, but the sky had darkened; and the idea of hail or a tornado began to seem like real possibilities.      We reached Island No. 14 easily enough, and the water depth seemed to be greater than the previous times we had been there.  I thought the level of the Mississippi River was up somewhat, 10 feet of so, compared to our other trips into that area.  We went further away from the river than we had before, but the depth didn’t go below 20 feet.  So, we dropped anchor and let out chain; it was about 5pm.  Then the rain started, and it really came down for about 30 minutes.  The anchor held, and we were properly stuck for the night, with no need for any changes.  After the rain stopped, the temperature started dropping.  In an hour the temperature dropped about 20 degrees.      Angela fixed a real spinach salad for us, and she put the stems in the garbage disposal and stopped it up.  We tried several things to get it unstopped to no avail.  She had to continue the dinner preparations at the sink in the forward head whenever she needed a sink.  We had a great meal and slept well. Island No. 14, TN to Mile 627, MS, Thursday, October 25, 2001      I was up at 5am, and Angela got up when I cranked the engines.  We pulled up the anchor at 5:30 and turned towards the river.  The anchorage had been fine, and we had no trouble getting out of there once I got back to navigating with the radar only to guide us.  It was pitch black, and the spotlights didn’t help much.  First light was at 6:45am or so, and we had covered 12 or more miles by then.      When I first got up, it was cold outside, so I turned on my little heater that my Dad bought for me 40 years ago.  It had two settings: 750 watts and 1500 watts.  I turned the heater on high and brought up my charts and things I would need at the helm.  I wiped off the water on the outside of the isinglass, and then I had to wipe it off on the inside.  It was very humid.  That was part of the problem with the spotlights; the isinglass windows were fogged and wet on both sides.      The other thing I was doing was to keep all the other doors and enclosures closed up, so we could leave the cabin doors open to heat up the aft deck and flybridge areas.  What happened soon was we had condensation on the inside of the bimini top, which dripped down on us and on the charts and instruments, etc.  It was too hot inside relative to the cold air outside.  So, we had to reduce the heat, open some of the enclosure, and protect the papers and the instruments from the water.  We wiped off the inside of the bimini top, but that almost made it worse, like touching a tent that’s wet on the outside.      We still experienced wind speeds higher than normal; it was like we were just ahead of the front.  The winds were still from the SW, but not quite as strong as they had been on Wednesday.  We had no clouds and cooler temperatures and that bright sunlight that accompanies a fall day outdoors.  At 7am it was 45 degrees F at Paducah, KY and 47 at Memphis, TN with SW winds at 8 mph.      We reached Memphis at noon.  I called ahead and asked if they had a plunger, and they did.  It was sitting on the dock next to the diesel pump when we arrived.  Angela grabbed it and took it to the galley, and with two swift strokes she flushed the spinach stems out of the discharge hose and overboard.  We returned it with thanks and proceeded to fill up with diesel and water.  We took 399 gallons, and we had come about 300 miles since the last fill-up.  That was an average of 1.32 gallons per mile, an improvement on our usual mileage indicating the benefit of a downstream current of about 2 knots.  Our fuel gauges showed slightly above empty when the tanks in fact had almost 100 gallons in them.      We left Memphis at 12:45pm and proceeded downriver.  There were a few possible anchorages to consider, and I wanted to get as far downstream as we could.  The problem was we needed to get fuel in Vicksburg, MS.  No place north of there, say Greenville, MS, could put enough fuel in our boat to make it to Morgan City, LA.  We had to fuel up in Vicksburg.  The fuel in Vicksburg was brought out to the boat in a truck that only operated Monday through Friday.  I believe they used to work a half day Saturday, but that was not the circumstance on that weekend.  So we had to be in Vicksburg on Friday.  Furthermore, we had to be in Vicksburg well before 5pm, because they didn’t work after 5pm, either.      By 5:30pm we had come to the first of the possible anchorages, and I believe it was the same place we had anchored in 1998.  Angela was getting tired, and so was I; and it was getting dark and cool.  If we went further and the anchorages didn’t work out, we might have to go back upstream in the dark.  So we pulled in and anchored in about 23 feet of water.  In 1998 we bumped going in, but this time we had 12 feet or so over the bar.  There was a small current there, but only enough to keep us pointed in one direction, and there was plenty of room to swing.  We anchored once and had no further problem with the anchor.  We had dinner and retired. Mile 627 to Vicksburg, MS, Friday, October 26, 2001      Again I was up at 5am, and we pulled up the anchor at 5:30.  We pulled out into the Mississippi River and started talking with the tows we were meeting.  The first one told me to just follow the red light on the front of his tow; that was a two-whistle pass, where we both made a turn to port and passed each other starboard to starboard.  (A one-whistle pass means we both turn to starboard, in which upon meeting we would pass port to port.  If we were overtaking and passing a tow on the one-whistle, we would turn to starboard and pass him on his starboard side.)  Traffic was moderate, but that meant a fair number of towboats and barges.  Compared to other times, I would say we didn’t have more or less traffic and the number of barges being pushed was also moderate in number.  We did pass a group of barges with military vehicles onboard, which was pretty interesting, seeing how they were loaded and all.         Our routine was generally to help each other with the navigation in the dark while we had a cup of coffee.  Once it was light and we had had a couple of cups of coffee, Angela would stay down in the galley and fix breakfast.  She was great to fix my breakfast and hers, and we often would brew another pot to go into the thermos.  We might or might not take a shower at that point with Angela taking the wheel whenever I needed to go below.  Then we would shut down the generator, and it would stay off until we reached or approached our anchorage for the night.  We always showered at night, and we usually showered twice a day unless we had to conserve water.      We passed the sign for the Port of Greenville, MS, where we had stayed in 2000.  We actually arrived in Vicksburg just after 3pm, after coming 193 miles down the river.  The barge we usually tied to wasn’t there, and the business that was run from that barge had been impossible to reach by phone.  Vicksburg had put up a little dock for small fishing boats, and we tied up to that about 3:30pm.  We covered the dock from one end to the other.  When some fishermen came out later we offered to let them tie up to us, but they really didn’t need the dock as much as they needed a launch ramp to get their boats off their trailers.      The fuel truck came out at 4pm.  We took 374 gallons of fuel, and our mileage on that tank was even better than the previous load at 1.24 gallons per mile (302 miles).  We had to make our water last until Morgan City because we couldn’t get any water in Vicksburg.  We tried some of the towboat companies working there in the port; but they wouldn’t sell us diesel and their water hoses were 4 inches in diameter, they said.      Harrah’s Casino was just up the long concrete revetment that was used by the small boaters to launch their boats and park their cars.  We walked up there and had their buffet about 6pm.  It was Friday night, and the buffet was higher priced ($14 per person, plus tip) due to the seafood specialties they had on Friday night.  It was good, and it was crowded, too.  No sign of a recession there.  Of course, on Friday nights people do get out to celebrate the end of the workweek, etc.      We laughed to ourselves at this one lady.  She was older than we were, and she was going through the line for the buffet.  The line actually had several distinct sections to it, beginning with the deserts.  After that was the International section, then the vegetables, then the seafood, etc.  Salads were around the corner; we couldn’t see them from our table.  The lady started at the deserts and got two plates, which were small plates.  Then she went to the International cuisine area and filled up two large plates of food.  When she got to the vegetables, she had to move two plates and go back and get the other two and move them up as well.  Then she got two more plates.  To move on to the seafood section, she had to move two plates each three times!  And she started getting two more plates.  Then she took a couple of them to her table.  I wondered what she would do if someone moved two of her plates, just a few feet, for example.      A portion of the casino there was built over a railroad track, and whenever the train approached the area, we had noticed on earlier trips, the train blows its horn over and over again.  We’re not sure if the engineer on the train wants to be sure it is heard and noticed or if the horn blowing is some kind of protest or complaint directed at the casino.  We have never heard so much blowing of the horns of a train any other time or place.      With another long day ahead, we made our way back to the boat and had a good sleep. Vicksburg, MS to Morgan City, LA, Saturday, October 27, 2001      On Saturday we were up at 5am and away from the dock before 5:30.  By 12:30pm we were at the Old River Lock, where we had to wait for over 90 minutes while a tow with barges was brought up.  There was no place to tie up, so we just had to circle around until the tow came out, when we were told by the lady lockmaster to get out of their way.  There actually was a place to tie up, a floating guidewall that we had tied up to (as instructed by the lockmaster at the time) on an earlier trip.  The lady on this day informed us that those cleats on the outside of the guide wall were only for government vessels.  Also, it wasn’t a large area, according to her; she referred to the area as “the mud hole”.  She was unprofessional, calling "Ronnie" on the VHF radio several times with personal messages, including one that she had signed his time sheet for him.      After getting into the lock and tying up to a floating bit, we went down 13 feet in about 10 minutes.  It was 6 miles to the beginning of the Atchafalaya River and 120 more to Berwick, across the river from Morgan City.  We hit a piece or two of debris on that trip, usually unseen before or after hitting it; but the rivers were pretty clean.  We had to run in the dark for the last 1-2 hours, but we had done that before.  It’s a good idea to have charts on that river.  The buoys are sometimes far apart, and the lower portion of the river is wide with lots of islands to confuse you about where the channel really is.      We pulled in to Asco Fuel in Berwick, LA at 8pm, and we took on 321 gallons at $0.87 per gallon including tax.  We also filled up with water since we were just about completely out.  We went across the river to the Morgan City dock to see if the one “pleasure boat” slip was available, and it was.  We tied up, plugged into 50a, 220v power and enjoyed city water, all at no charge.  I changed two CAT Racor filters and had a shower.      I checked in with Berwick Traffic, the Coast Guard Vessel Traffic Service, as we had learned to do; and I found out they had relaxed the rules for check-in.  As long as we stayed above the RR bridge, which we did, they did not want to hear from us.  Weather for the day was 41 – 68 degrees F, light N winds, clear blue skies, and humidity back up to 70%.  We changed back to standard time that Saturday night, so we got an extra hour to sleep. Morgan City to Lake Charles, LA, Sunday, October 28, 2001      We got up and left at 6am, after checking in with Berwick Traffic only to cross under the RR bridge.    Heading west on the Intracoastal Waterway, traffic was heavy.  We were on plane and off again to pass tows and barges.  We spoke to many of them on the radio, and we learned of a new development.  It seems the Corps were planning to close the Calcasieu Lock from 6am to 6pm for maintenance beginning Monday, the following day.  That was a relief for us, as we would be past that lock by the end of the day on Sunday.      At the Louisa Bridge (ICW Mile 134 West) there were indications of a new bridge being built, hopefully one of the 73-foot standard bridges that have been built over the ICW in Louisiana and Texas.  The existing bridge was a pontoon that was pulled to one side by cables. Boaters are advised by a sign there to wait for a signal from the bridge operator, which indicates the cables have been lowered to the bottom so you can pass without hitting them.  That bridge carries traffic from the mainland to Cypremort Point, where there is a marina, yacht club, and park on Vermillion Bay.  I always thought it would be too shallow for us to get there from the ICW.      So we pushed on, hoping to see our friends in Lake Charles for dinner.  We had one close call where a tow was angling towards us so much we finally went aground trying to avoid hitting him.  Since that was one we had not spoken to on the radio, I called him afterwards.  Of course, he denied doing anything wrong and said he was in the middle of the channel.  When I was aground I could not back up because his barges were so close to the back of our boat.  Anyway, it seemed we had no vibration; so we went on.        Soon we began to hear the bad news; the lock was closed today, not tomorrow.  When we went through the Leland Bowman Lock, just west of Intracoastal City, there was no gate on the far end.  They had removed it for maintenance.  The lockmaster there said similar repairs were going on at the Calcasieu Lock, and barges were backed up for miles on both sides.  He told us to move up to the front of the line, however.  When the lock was reopened the lockmaster there would want to move pleasure boats and light boats, etc. through on the first opening.      Some miles east of the Calcasieu Lock we started passing tows and barges nosed into the bank, waiting for the lock to reopen.  There were about a dozen waiting to go west, and we heard there were 21 waiting to go eastbound.  We spoke to the lockmaster on the radio and tied up to a mooring ball and shut down the engines.  We waited about 3 and one-half hours, and then we went through on the first pass.      The lockmaster had his hands full communicating with the tow operators, who kept asking what their position was relative to the other boats.  We were surprised to hear him tell some of the tows to leave their loads and come to the lock to help another tow get through the lock, then go back and get their loads.  If those locks are that important, they should have two of them.  They should not be that expensive to build, since there is usually no real elevation change.  They’re just pilings and gates at the ends.        It was dark when we went through the lock, and then we had to go around the point and find the right channel to go up the Calcasieu River.  It can be confusing, due to the number of channels in the area and the lights.  Going up the river was confusing, too, because there were several refineries and lots of lights.  But we made it to the casino marina by 7pm.  We met John and Bob and Sue there and went inside for the casino buffet.  It was a nice evening, and it was great to be with friends again. Lake Charles, LA to Clear Lake, TX, Monday, October 29, 2001      On Monday we felt like we were getting home.  We were up and gone by 6am, and it was 41 degrees at the airport.  As the day progressed the temperatures increased to about 70 degrees F with 70% humidity – very nice.  We saw the usual activities on the waterway, but some of these are typical only to that area.  Due to  the petroleum and petrochemical industry there, there are some large and unusual craft being built and used in the daily industrial activities.              Traffic seemed light on the Intracoastal Waterway.  We made good time into Port Arthur, TX.  Just before the ICW junction with the Neches River, which goes up to Beaumont, TX, we saw two high bridges which appeared to be one, an optical illusion.  There we saw the Coast Guard lifting a sunken vessel, a shrimp boat, I heard on the radio, right in the ship channel.  There was a small Coast Guard vessel near the operation instructing boaters like ourselves to go by at no wake speed, so we wouldn’t disturb the working crew.  We got a few pictures before we moved on.        We did see several large ships, and we took some pictures to show what these large vessels look like up close.   Some have quite a wake, but the surprising thing to me has always been the water they were pushing at the front of the ship.  We always slowed and made our crossing of their wake at about a 90-degree angle, but most of the wakes weren’t really very high. The tows pushing barges have a terrible wake, and your boat can experience an up and down motion for a mile or more after passing too close to their wakes.                        We stopped at the midstream fuel barge for Tesoro at the Bolivar towboat moorings, just east of Galveston and the Houston Ship Channel.  We took on 335 gallons for 288 miles on that tank.  That was an average of 1.16 gallons per mile.  For the trip, we averaged 1.29 gallons per mile, which was better than our usual overall average.      The trip up the Houston Ship Channel wasn’t bad; sometimes it’s rough.  It was a pretty day, and both shrimp boats and oyster boats were out on the Bay.  Five months after we left, we came back into Kemah and Clear Lake again.  We made it to South Shore Harbour Marina by 4pm, which was my goal so as to be there in the daylight.  We had a slip reserved, and we pulled in, tied up, and plugged in.  Then we began unloading the boat.  I think we were home by 6:30pm or so.  I couldn’t believe we had covered so many miles in 2001 – only 11 less than in 2000, and that year we spent 24 more run days on the water.  It’s always fun to go, and then it’s nice to come home again.          A few weeks later we pulled M/V ILLUSIONS out of the water for a quick-haul and inspection of the running gear.  We were in good shape, basically: no bottom paint needed, and no serious problems.  We did change the sacrificial zincs, one of the rear cutlass bearings, and one of the Spurs (line-cutters).  We also changed out the props, although there was very little wrong with them.  Since we have a set of spares, we only have to take the boat out once to swap the props. Then we just put the refurbished props back in their storage boxes.  The 2001 Cruise was one of our least expensive cruises in terms of maintenance, for which we were grateful.  Statistics for Trip 5 Miles    1,380 Running Hours   82 Running Days    8 Travel to/from the boat days    1 Lay Days    1 Total Days in the Trip    10 Generator Hours    72 Fuel Consumed    1,743 gallons Average Speed = 16.8 mph Average Fuel Used = 1.29 gallons per mile, or 21 gallons per hour Locks    7      On Trip 5 we changed the CAT Racor filters once and repaired the shore power cables once. Statistics for Trips 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5: Miles    5,731 Running Hours    412 Running Days    49 Travel to/from the boat days    8 Lay Days   16 Total Days in the Trips    73 Generator Hours    369 Fuel Consumed    7,764 gallons Average Speed = 13.9 mph Average Fuel Used = 1.35 gallons per mile, or 18.8 gallons per hour Locks    105      For all five trips, we changed the Racor filters on the CATs five times and on the generator once.  We changed the secondary fuel filters on the CATs once.  We changed the oil and filters on all three engines three times.  We removed and cleaned and reinstalled the port heat exchanger to reduce temperatures in that engine.  We had repairs made to the autopilot, the aft deck lights, the shore power cables three times, the starboard tachometer shaft for the Glendinning engine synchronizer, the aft shower sump pump, the port bilge blower, the water line under the galley sink, and wiring and one switch at the upper helm.  We arranged the annual servicing of the outboard on the dinghy.  We added water to the batteries twice, opened and checked the sea strainers three times, and cleaned the air filters on the CATs twice.      We anchored once in TX on the ICW, once on the Tenn-Tom Waterway, three times on the Cumberland River, and twice on the Mississippi River.  At Morgan City, LA we tied up to the City Docks once with and once without water and electricity.  We tied up to an old lock wall once and to a tree once on the Cumberland River.  Bobby’s Fish Camp in AL, Brandenburg Marina in KY, and Six and Plum Marina in WV were the same (no electricity or water) except they cost about $10 - 22 per night.  (Brandenburg had electricity on the return trip.)  Schenley Yacht Club in PA had no electricity or water for us, and was free; Lighthouse Landing Marina in PA had everything and was still free.  Kentuckiana Yacht Sales provided us with a free slip with water and power in Jeffersonville, IN.  Holiday Point Marina in OH provided us with a free slip and Engle's in PA reduced the cost of the slip after we bought fuel from each of them.  Mike Fink's Restaurant in KY charged us $10 plus the price of dinner for a slip with electricity but no water.  We stayed in marinas the balance of the nights, with water and shore power.  Slip fees in those marinas ranged from $0.50 to 1.00 per foot per night, including electricity, except at Moors in KY, Aspinwall in PA, and Cedar Creek Yacht Club in TN where we had a flat rate based on a longer-term stay.      Later in the week we found we had a bent prop on the port side and a bent shaft on the starboard side and some missing zincs.  The bottom in that area could be hard or soft mud, shells, or manmade objects, like engine blocks.  Trees, logs, and pilings, exposed to the surface or somewhat submerged, also took their toll.  We took the jet boat to the mechanic to have it worked on so it would start.  The maintenance costs were high for that weekend.