M/V ILLUSIONS                                      TX TO MN TO TX CRUISE         

TX TO MN TO TX CRUISE TRIP 1 LOGS Houston, TX to Gilbertsville, KY May 25 – June 9, 2003 Houston to Galveston, TX, Sunday, May 25, 2003      Angela and I spent the day on Saturday putting the last of the gear and provisions on the boat in preparation for our cruise.  We had added hydraulic stabilizers in the two weeks prior to the Memorial Day weekend, and we only did the sea trial on the boat with stabilizers on Friday, May 23.  The extra weight of the hydraulic fluid container, etc. was on the port side, giving a list to port that became an issue to deal with later in the cruise.      We loaded the boat on Friday night and all day on Saturday, which was Angela’s birthday.  Some of the items we had on the Carver 440 had been sent to FL and loaded on the new boat for the trip back to TX in March.  Others had been waiting in the garage for their turn to be loaded onto the new boat.  We loaded some more on Sunday and left Clear Lake for Galveston.     TMCA had the marina at Moody Gardens all filled up, and we were unable to get a slip with that group.  Lakewood South was filled by means of a lottery, and we did not win a slip there either.  Marc and Cindy Snowhite were planning to anchor in Offatts Bayou, and we anchored right beside them.  Since their dinghy was in the water, they came over to our boat for a good long visit.  Angela grilled salmon for a great dinner, and we slept well at anchor. Galveston, TX to Freshwater Bayou, LA, Monday, May 26, 2003      On Memorial Day we were up and fed and had the anchor up at 9am.  I wanted to try our new stabilizers out in the Gulf of Mexico, so we headed offshore.  First we had to get through a lot of slow traffic, as many of the weekend boaters at Offatts Bayou were on their way home.  Once we cleared the jetties, we had a run of about 70 miles to the Calcasieu River, where I knew we could buy inexpensive diesel at ASCO in Cameron, LA.      We fueled the boat, 575 gallons at $0.85 per gallon, from 2 to 3pm. Then we went back offshore and ran 56 miles to the lock at Freshwater Bayou, twenty miles south of Intracoastal City, LA.  I called the lockmaster and found there was an old pier just outside the lock where we could tie up for the night. It proved to be ideal, with 12  feet of water depth against an old steel sheet pile wall. We were tied up at 7:30pm.  We ate salad and left-over salmon, and it was good. Freshwater Bayou to Venice, LA, Tuesday, May 27, 2003      One of the nice things about the overnight berth was its proximity to the Gulf.  We pulled out at 6am and were soon planning at 18 knots in the Gulf.  We had to go South for a while to miss a series of reefs just offshore.  We worked our way around to southeast and to east eventually and ran over to Tiger Pass.  The stabilizers appeared to be working well, and we were rolling much less than we had in the past.      We took some photos to show what it's like in those offshore Louisiana waters.  I am always amazed at the level of activity we see.  There are usually crew boats, shrimpers, cruisers, fisherman, construction vessels, survey vessels, ships, and on and on.  I find it fascinating.  I hope you will enjoy the pictures.  Some of the photos are not the best quality due to the movement of our boat, but I hope they will convey to you some of the atmosphere and activity that goes on.  For those who have not ever been out there, these shots will be a good introduction to the area.  We were offshore about 20 - 30 miles.              Winds were 5 – 10 mph from the northeast, and it was choppy for the first hour or so.  After we began to turn to the east the waves were not as bad, and it was nice until about 45 miles out of Tiger Pass, where it got rough again.  The high temperature was in the high 70s, and the maximum winds were about 15mph.      At 6pm we were buying fuel at ASCO in Venice, LA.  We bought 500 gallons of diesel, and I tried to stop the fueling on the port side before it was full in order to level the boat.  I asked about a place to tie up for the night.  A nearby spot was pointed out where an oilfield service company had recently closed down.  We motored over there and found a single possibility for an alongside berth.  When we got in it, we were amazed – there were about five feet in front of us and five feet behind us.  Actually, there was a towboat in front of us; and there was only five feet in front of it as well.  At high tide, the water extended up into the parking lot several feet, probably due to the unusually high water at the time.      We grilled steaks for dinner.  We had made it to Venice in just three days, a new record for us.  It had taken four days on our previous best run.  We did start in Galveston, but I know we could have left Clear Lake earlier in the day and still made it in the three days on that route. Venice, LA to Orange Beach, AL, Wednesday, May 28, 2003      When we first got up into the pilothouse to see in front of us, I was pleasantly surprised to see the towboat had left without disturbing us or hitting our boat.  We left about 8:30am.  There was quite a current in the Mississippi River and its passes to the Gulf, due to high rains in the preceding weeks.  We went out to the northeast through Bayou Batiste Collette, and then east in the Gulf to miss the shallow waters there.                                As we made our turn to go northeast towards Mobile Bay, the winds were on the nose – our intended course was 47 degrees.  Also it was choppy, and the wave heights were at least four feet.  We tried course changes to the left and to the right, and we preferred to go to the right to get to Orange Beach.  Angela had the wheel, and she settled on 83 degrees as the course with the best speed with the least discomfort.  As the hours passed, we came closer to the shore and experienced lower wave heights; and Angela was able to bring the heading back more towards the north.  We passed under the Perdido Pass bridge at 3pm, and we were tied up at Sportsman’s Marina at 3:30 or so.              When we turned off the generator, it had been running continuously since we left Clear Lake on Sunday, or 72 hours.      One of the reasons to stop in Orange Beach was the Foley, AL shop of Blue Water Ship’s Store, which shop in Kemah, TX was doing most of our mechanical work on the boat.  We had a list of repairs, some old and some new – for example, our water pumps were malfunctioning again.  We had been using Pump No. 1, but it quit so we switched to Pump No. 2.  Then it quit, so we changed back to Pump No. 1 hoping it would work again, and it did.  Pump No. 2 never worked again on the trip.      The temperature was again in the high 70s, very pleasant.  The winds were not bad, but the waters were choppy to rough.                            The restaurant at Sportsman’s Marina, the Bayside Grill, was good; and it was a local favorite.  We ate there both nights and were very pleased with the food and the service. Lay Day in Orange Beach, AL, Thursday, May 29, 2003      Chris, the manager of the Blue Water shop in Foley, AL, came by the boat about 10:30 or so. He repaired the leak in the new air conditioner (we replaced the 12,000 BTU unit with a new unit of 16,000 BTU right before we left to help keep the pilothouse cool) by raising one end of the unit so it would drain properly.  He also adjusted the center windshield wiper and tightened some hardware on the stairway banister, the door handle to the bunkroom, and the hardware on the starboard gate from the cockpit to the swim platform.  The Sea Tel dealer in Mobile was supposed to come over to check our equipment, but he decided to see us when we got to Dog River.  (The satellite phone and satellite TV had both quit when we left Houston and had not worked since then.)  I checked the water level in all 9 of our 8-D batteries and added distilled water where needed.      Other issues that were not resolved were a hum in the VHF radio, the intercom phones had a hum as well and the one on the flybridge did not work, the port pilothouse door was off the track, we had another leak in the pilothouse door, the showers still leaked onto the floors, etc.       It seemed a lot warmer in Orange Beach, but we still had the nice cool breeze in addition to the heat. Orange Beach to Mobile, AL, Friday, May 30, 2003      We left Orange Beach about 8:45am, and we ran offshore about 45 miles to the lighthouse at the entrance to Mobile Bay.  We turned north and ran another 20 miles to Dog River and the Grand Mariner Marina.  We arrived at 12:30 and filled up with 418 gallons of diesel.  I called Bill with Radio Holland, the Sea Tel dealer; and he came over to the boat at 1:30.  After working on the systems for several hours, he found the satellite phone had no power; he connected the loose power supply wire to the phone system.  The satellite TV was not programmed correctly, and the new power supply installed in Houston was not correct and was causing the antenna control to go dark.  He had some other criticisms of the work done in FL but did not put them on paper.  The system worked fine after that for all the balance of the trip, except that it restarted itself (searched for the satellite again) each time we started the engines, but that only took a minute or so to lock onto the satellite.      We had two FedEx packages waiting for us.  One was a computer program from my office, which I could not get to run on my old laptop computer.  The other was a shipment from a yacht blinds company in Hollywood, FL.  We had received them a week earlier, but the blinds did not fit.  We returned them for reworking, and this shipment was supposed to fit.  Angela and I installed them in the afternoon.  We had plenty of problems with them – there were no directions; but we got it done.  The new window coverings were for the three pilothouse windows.  The solid window shade could be pulled up from the bottom to cover some or all of the individual window.       It got hot in the pilothouse, and the outside window coverings did not help much.  They were dark blue, and they were hard to see through.  When we got the boat those window coverings for the pilothouse consisted of one continuous piece for five windows; we had it changed in Houston to five individual pieces.  We made this trip with four pieces in place and the center pilothouse window uncovered.      Before it got dark, we ate outside on the upper deck of The Mariner Restaurant.  It was busy, and the food was good.  Barbara, the harbormaster, had arranged to have a courtesy car available for us at 9am the following morning to go to the airport.       At that point in the trip we had used 1218 gallons of diesel running 525 miles, an average of 2.3 gallons per mile.  I believed that average would come down once we were in calmer waters.  Interestingly, when we made a similar trip in 1999 we ran more hours and covered more miles because we always ran up the rivers to a marina at night and back down the rivers to the Gulf in the morning.  On this trip we stayed close to the Gulf, reducing the river time and running hours.  In 36 running hours we averaged 14.6 mph.  (That was really nautical mph because we were using the offshore charts that show distances in nautical miles.  In the past we almost always used distances shown on inland charts, which are expressed in statute miles, so sometimes our ratios are a little inaccurate whenever we combined nautical miles and statute miles.)  The new boat could definitely run faster than the Carver 440. Mobile to David Lake, AL, Saturday, May 31, 2003      Robert and Cheryl, our friends from Charlotte, NC, arrived in Mobile at 10am; and we picked them up in the marina courtesy car.  Then we went to the grocery store to buy the kinds of foods we each would like for the coming week.  It looked like it was going to hurt the waistline as we picked up various snacks and several flavors of ice cream and toppings.  I had brought homemade fudge from home, and we also had some cookies for deserts.  We drove the car to the marina after buying fuel to replace what we had used, and made several trips from the car to the boat with our groceries.      Since it was noon, and our guests had gotten up early, we had lunch before doing anything else.  Then it seemed to be time to go.      Water levels on the Tenn-Tom Waterway had been high due to heavy rains in the watershed for the past few weeks.  The rains brought higher levels of debris and high currents, and many cruisers had delayed their trips north until the waters subsided.  That had happened the week prior to our departure from Mobile, and our timing was fortunate, it seemed.  We did see a lot of logs and branches in the water, and the water levels were high for us until we got to the Coffeeville Lock.  After that the water and debris levels were normal, according to the lockmaster at Coffeeville.       We left Grand Mariner at 2pm, and we had to go slow all the way through the Port of Mobile.  Then we had to wait for two trains at the 14-mile railroad swing bridge.  We were not going very fast.  We took over four hours to go 50 miles.        David Lake looked like it might be a good anchorage, and it proved to be excellent.  Our depth was 17 – 19 feet during the entire time we were in the lake.  If that water level was higher than normal by 10 feet, then David Lake would be a good anchorage at other, more normal times.  If that day the water was up 18 feet higher than normal, as one towboat operator said it was just below Coffeeville Dam, then David Lake might be too shallow under “normal” conditions.  (The lockmaster at Coffeeville said it was 10 feet higher than normal just below his dam, so we think that was the correct amount.)      We anchored and grilled steaks for dinner.  Salad and desert helped make it a great meal!  The high for the day was 86 degrees F.  Winds were light from the southwest, about 10 mph.      We were nervous about the water pump; we were using Pump No. 1.  It worked almost all of the time throughout the trip.  It seemed to put out more pressure than we experienced at most marinas when we plugged into their shore water systems.  (Our shore water pressure regulator was pre-set at a lower pressure than our on-board pumps put out.)  It did seem to Angela that our clothes washing machine would stall whenever we were on ship’s water, and worked fine when we were on shore water. David Lake to Demopolis, AL, Sunday, June 1, 2003      We ran over 11 hours on Monday, for several reasons.  We covered 175 miles, so one reason to go that far was we didn’t get very far the previous day.  There was not any really good anchorage just below Demopolis, and we wanted to get fuel there.  So it seemed natural to try and make it there, which we did slightly before dark.      The temperature was up into the high 80s, and winds were light and variable.  It was a nice, warm day.      We pulled up the anchor and left the lake about 7:45am.  Since it was our first day to cook breakfast on board, and since some people were not up when we left the anchorage, we motored slowly for about an hour and a half.  Our assent up the Coffeeville lock was slower than we had experienced at other times.      But, the real reason we were delayed, I made a mistake.  I had been trying to level the boat by putting less fuel in the port tank, but I had not been succeeding very well.  It was possible to connect the port tank to the center, or forward tank, and to connect the starboard tank to the forward tank; but I found I could not drain the port tank when it was full because it was also low, and diesel, like water, runs only downhill.  Also, I found I was not very successful filling all three tanks (using only one deck fitting) with these valves open because the flow from tank to tank was too slow.       Anyway, I was in and out of the engine room opening and closing valves to direct the fuel from the side tanks to the engines, etc.  First I ran fuel from only the port tank to the input manifold.  Then I decided the level was achieved and I should open the starboard valve as well, so as to draw from the two side tanks instead of just one.  About 4pm I was about to run out of fuel in those two tanks.  I needed to close both of them and open the forward tank valves.  I got confused when I did that because there are two sets of valves for the forward tanks - one where the fuel lines leave the forward tank, and one at the entrance to the input manifold.  What happened was I opened only one set of valves and not the other, and the engines could not get any fuel.      That would not have been so bad if I had realized my mistake, but I thought the Racor filters were finally letting us know they needed to be changed, so I changed them.  I added diesel to the empty canisters, and the engines started up but refused to run very well.  I concluded the CAT filters must need changing, so I changed them, too.  (One of them was on so tight I wondered if I would ever get it off, but I eventually did.)  I also filled them with diesel from my diesel storage container, and again the engines didn’t run too well.  Angela had the good sense to anchor us in the middle of the river, and she had me make a general announcement of the VHF radio.  Fortunately not a single boat of any kind passed us while this was going on.       I finally figured out what I had done, and I opened the other set of valves from the forward tank.  The diesels ran a lot better with fuel than they did without it.  I am embarrassed about my poor logic: I changed the fuel valves and immediately had fuel problems.  The best choice for a solution to the problem was with the fuel valves, not the filters.  (They did need changing, anyway; the Racor filters were black.)  I hope I am not the first person to ever do such a thing.  At the time I concluded I was too dumb to own a boat.              Anyway, that mistake cost us about an hour of daylight.  We got through the lock at Demopolis and over to the yacht basin about 8pm, three hours after they stopped dispensing fuel.  The night security guard helped us get tied up at the fuel dock, and he told us we could get diesel at 8am the following morning.  We shut down the generator for the first time since 2pm on Saturday.  We cooked and ate on board.      We were raised 33 feet at Coffeeville and 40 feet at Demopolis.  Both of the lockmasters were courteous, prompt, and efficient. Demopolis, AL to Columbus, MS, Monday, June 2, 2003      We were able to get fuel at 8am, and we took on 526 gallons.  We had then used 1744 gallons of diesel in 52 running hours over 750 miles.  We still had an average of 2.3 gallons per mile and 14+ mph.      While we were waiting for the fuel dock to open, I started spraying water on the exterior of the boat, to get off bugs, etc.  I was using the marina hose, and it tended to twist and turn if you stopped the flow of water.  Once when I was taking the hose up the ladder from the cockpit to the flybridge, I closed off the flow of water in the hose.  It did its twisting act, and I heard something hit the water.  At first I thought it was my coffee cup.  It was a boat hook, which had been stored in a couple of two-inch long flexible holders mounted on an angle on the side of the cockpit.  Apparently the hose had gotten under the boat hook and lifted it up, popping it out of the flexible holders.  Then the boat hook (a telescoping aluminum pole with a hook on the end) slid straight to the swim platform and into the water.      I briefly toyed with trying to retrieve it, as I knew the water was only 5 or 6 feet deep.  I got the other boat hook and stuck it into the water and swished it around a few times; then when I didn't hit it I gave up.  I finished rinsing the boat and put away the hose.      The fuel dock attendant was a sugary-sweet Mississippi gal who could not have been nicer.  As we were talking about the fuel, I mentioned my boat hook.  She said she had a larger boat hook, if I wanted to borrow it.  I could then see the very end of the black plastic handle on the end of my boat hook just at the surface of the water, and I pointed it out to Robert.  The point of the boat hook had stuck in the mud; I was glad it was the long boat hook we had lost instead of the short one.  As I went to get the lady’s boat hook, Robert was picking his way out to the end of a flat bottom fishing boat tied up there, so he could get closer to the black end of the pole.  I gave him the longer pole, and he used his vast experience with chopsticks to bring the wayward pole back to us and our ship.      We didn’t leave there until 9:45am.  The fuel pump was very slow.   The weather was overcast, with temperatures in the low to mid 80s and variable winds – not too bad.  Rain was forecast, and that was a worry, as the area’s recent rains had caused floods.            We went up 30 feet each in the following locks:  Howell Heflin, Tom Bevill, and John Stennis.  The lockmasters at Heflin and at Stennis, particularly at Stennis, were nice; but the lockmaster at Tom Bevill Lock and Dam had an “attitude”.  The operation of the lock was particularly slow, and his responses to questions were sarcastic.  He treated us like we had never been through a lock before, and he held us up unnecessarily.  At Stennis Lock, the lockmaster was great; he was fast, courteous, cheerful, and friendly.      Just above the lock at Tom Bevill, there was a Visitors Center built to resemble portions of four different antebellum homes.  Also, the snag catcher, MONTGOMERY, was on display there.  It was used to remove trees and logs from the river before the dams and impoundments were made to the waterway.  I did not see a dock where a cruiser such as our boat could tie up to go ashore to see those facilities.  Most of what we can see from the waterway appears to be built for locals who arrive by car, not for cruising boaters.                 Just after we cleared the Stennis lock we turned right into the short and deep channel to the Columbus Marina.  Open just three years, that marina was clean and nice; and the service was very good.  Their restaurant on the premises was called Johnny’s, and they specialized in baby back ribs.  We walked over there and had a great meal in a dining room overlooking the water.      As we were finishing our meal, a great thunderstorm came roaring through the area, complete with high winds and a wild lightning show.  Our umbrellas were warm and dry back in the boat, so we waited out the storm.  We heard a very loud roaring sound, like an air boat, or a helicopter; and we asked the manager what was causing the sound.  He said the strong winds were turning the ceiling fans that were mounted in the outside eating area.  It was a dramatic, loud fan sound; it was hard to believe it was coming from a few ceiling fans! Columbus to Iuka, MS, Tuesday, June 3, 2003      We had a beautiful day, with the high in the low 80s and a cool breeze from the north due to the cool front passing through the previous evening.  It actually started out to be a little overcast but changed to blue skies and occasional puffy clouds.      We left the marina at 8am and were in the Aberdeen Lock at 9:15am.  AT 10:15 we were in the Amory Lock, in 10:45 we were in the Wilkins Lock, and at noon we were getting out of the Fulton Lock, after having been raised about 30 feet in each of these locks.  We were delayed for a tow at Rankin Lock until 1pm, and we went through Montgomery Lock about 2pm.  The big one, Whitten Lock, the fourth highest lock in the world at 84 feet, we went through about 2:30pm.  Then we ran about 2 hours to Aqua Yacht Harbor in Iuka, MS.  Its location on Yellow Creek puts it just a couple of miles from the intersection of the Tenn-Tom and the Tennessee River.      We saw some pretty homes on the side of the waterway, and the state line between MS and AL ran between some of them.  It was interesting.  Those man-made lakes have some pretty coves and bays to explore, someday.  There were a lot of fishermen in small boats in the Divide Cut, that part of the Tenn-Tom where they cut a canal through a mountain in order to connect the waterway to the Tennessee River via Yellow Creek.                                  We filled up with fuel, which was getting more expensive as we moved north; and we pumped out our holding tank.  Then, to my surprise, the starboard engine would not start!  I only had to move a few hundred feet on the transient dock, so we did it with only one engine.  Jim, the owner of Jon's Pier House restaurant, came to get us in his shiny red Cadillac; and we had a good meal there, in Tennessee, as a point of interest.  At Aqua Yacht Harbor, if you turn right when you leave by car, you enter Tennessee before you go a mile.      That was our fastest trip up the Tenn-Tom; we took about 3.5 days compared to our usual four days.  We reserved a loaner van for the next day.  I had been on the phone with the service department, and we expected a mechanic first thing the following day. Lay Day, Iuka, MS, Wednesday, June 4, 2003      I had a list of things to be repaired, some of which I had tried to get repaired in Houston and in Orange Beach.  The water pumps were not on the list; I was tired of asking for Pump No. 2 to be repaired.  I was also tired of asking that the showers be caulked so they wouldn't leak.  Our mechanic worked on the hum in the VHF and the hum in the intercom phones, with no success on either issue.  He thought the VHF radio hum was an antenna problem after checking everything else, including swapping the flybridge radio with the pilothouse radio, etc.  I spoke to Richard in Houston and he said he had spoken with the head man at Grand Harbour Yachts in FL and a new intercom phone was on its way to us from China.      Other issues included the failure of the gauge on the steering fluid canister, a couple of leaks through the windshield, adding a flapper, or one-way, valve to the discharge hose on the forward bilge pump (river water was coming into the boat through that hose), tighten both fan belts, slow vessel switch on port engine ceased to function, and bleed the air from the steering system (Angela believed there was still some air in the system).  And, of course, find out why the starboard wouldn't start and correct the problem.      The engine problem and the slow vessel switch were two loose wires, if you can believe that.  Even worse, both of the fan belts were unbelievably loose.  They could not get a new valve for the steering fluid canister, but they bled the air out of the steering system (took less time than we had seen before) and added fluid to the system.  We got the one-way valve installed, but nothing else.  The washing machine problem had to wait as well.      It was a beautiful day, with the high temperature only about 75 degrees F, and with a nice, cool breeze.  I changed the oil and filters on the generator and the two Caterpillar engines.  Our friends Robert and Cheryl took the loaner van and drove to Wal-Mart for some supplies.  Later we used the van to go to dinner at Pickwick Landing State Park; they had an inexpensive buffet dinner there.  We were surprised to see they had built a new building, not far from the old one, and just abandoned the old building, at least so far.  The new one looked a lot like the old one, and the food was good - fried catfish, etc. on a buffet with salad and vegetables and two kinds of cobbler and vanilla ice cream.                             We drove around a little bit, coming up behind the Grand Harbor condos that were built just behind the Pickwick Tenn-Tom Marina.  The land was steep in that area, and so you had to drive up and down the hills everywhere you went. Iuka, MS to Waverly, TN, Thursday, June 5, 2003      I decided to wait for some lead bars which Aqua had but did not get around to putting on the boat on Wednesday.  They opened at 8am and loaded six of these bars by 8:30 so we could leave.  Each bar weighed 65 pounds, so we added 390 pounds to the starboard side of the boat.  That just about leveled it, and the lead bars fit perfectly just behind the starboard fuel tank.  They didn't move either.                           When we approached the Tennessee River we passed the new Grand Harbor condos, which have the same name as our boat brand.  The Pickwick Tenn-Tom Marina was there before the condos were built.       We got to Pickwick Lock about 9:30 and were told by the lockmaster that we would have a delay of 2.5 - 3 hours.  A double load was coming up in the chamber, and they were just starting.  I asked about the auxiliary chamber, and he said he was the only one working that day, so no to the smaller chamber.  I asked if we could go down when they lowered the water to get the towboat, and he said 2.5 - 3 hours, nothing else.      We went into a small cove and anchored, but I was not happy there.  I could not see the lock, and I did not believe the lockmaster would go to any trouble to find us if and when the lock was ready for us.  So, after an hour or so, we went back out into the channel and drifter and motored around waiting for the towboat to come up and move his load out.      While looking at his load, three barges long and three wide, I could see the "Mule", the device that pulls the load out of the chamber.  It was not out to the end of its track.  If they had pulled the load all the way out, we could have gotten in between the load and the wall and thus entered the chamber when the water was lowered to get the tow.  In other words, it was possible for us to get into the chamber; they chose to operate the lock in such a way that denied us that option.      After a while, I called the lockmaster for an update.  I said we had been waiting one and a half hours and wondered if it still looked like another hour or so.  The lockmaster said at least that, or two or more hours.  I could not believe it would take that long to get one towboat and his double load up the lock.  There should be some improvement possible in those procedures if they were really looked at, my engineer side told me.      Then the next towboat downstream called the lockmaster, a tow named City of Yazoo City.  In an indirect way I gathered he was willing to let us get out on his end before he went into the lock.  The lockmaster said it didn't matter to him, he was the only one there, it was a work day to him no matter what happened during the day, etc.  The operator of Yazoo City said he would park his towboat and load so as to let us out, and the lockmaster said it was up to him, whatever he wanted to do.      I was stunned.  Even after this double load came up, as far as the lockmaster was concerned, we could wait another three hours or more for another double load to come up.  (I didn't know it then but there were two double loads waiting after the one that was coming up in the lock, not just one.  We could have waited another six hours, apparently.  And if another towboat had shown up, we would have had to wait for him as well.)  Thank goodness the operator of "Yazoo City" decided to let us out, for the Corps of Engineers lockmaster had no such rule in his rulebook.  We could have waited there all day, and he wouldn't have cared - that's what he said.      When the first towboat came up, he eased out of the lock chamber and reconnected with his load.  That was very time consuming, and we waited about three hours overall to get into the lock.  When we were lowered to the lower level, we found the front of another double load, the Yazoo City load, looking us right in the face; but there was enough room for us to get out and around the end of that load.  It really didn't take any longer to let us through.  Why wouldn't the US Army Corps of Engineers write a rule that permitted us to get through instead of making us wait, possibly waiting all day?  Why would it be  the towboat operator's decision anyway instead of the lockmaster's?  Who's in charge of the lock - apparently the towboat operators?      The other thing that was apparent was we could have come down after the first towboat sent up his first load.  He had to push his load into the lock and then back up.  If he had backed up enough to be where Yazoo City was, we could have gotten out.  Then we would have waited 1.5 hours instead of three.      We called City of Yazoo City on the radio to tell him "Thank You" for letting us out.  If it had been up to the lockmaster, we would have not made it when we did.  There was another double load waiting against the side of the river for his turn to go up in the lock.  It's a very slow process.  We were lowered 55 feet in this lock, our last lock of that trip.      The change in the river after going through that lock was amazing, even though we had seen it before.  The lake above the dam was wide and deep, and the sides of the lake were hilly and lush with green trees, grass, and colorful homes.  Below the lock the river was narrow and shallow.  The sides were not hilly, and there were few trees and no permanent structures.  Eventually there were permanent structures, but they were built up, as if to protect the upper floors from a potential flood.  Some of the banks were steep, and the rock walls were colorful.  The river changed in many ways as we moved downstream.  One example is the depth changed from 20 feet at the dam to 75 feet near Kentucky Dam.      We saw divers and dredges apparently looking for mussels in the edge of the river.  We had read about the pearls found in some of the mussels.  Some small boats were anchored with a divers flag attached to the boat.  The diver also had an aluminum ladder, which was tied off to the boat.  The ladder could have been used to descend to the bottom or to ascend after prospecting underwater.  Outside the channel the water was not very deep.  The larger operations involved barges and devices to separate the dredged materials according to their sizes.                     We pulled into Cuba Landing Marina about 5:30pm.  I wasn't planning to get fuel, but they had a good price, so I filled up.  It had been a nice day, weather wise, a little warmer than the previous day.  Then I took a short nap, after which we grilled and ate tuna steaks for dinner on board.  Waverly, TN to Gilbertsville, KY, Friday, June 6, 2003      We left Cuba Landing at 8:45am and headed down the Tennessee River.  Kentucky Lake is the largest manmade lake in the eastern United States with 2,380 miles of shoreline and 160,000 acres of water.  We ran for two days to get from one end of it to the other.  Our weather was not bad, but it was overcast and rainy.  The rain was light, and the temperatures were moderate; but it was not as nice as we had been experiencing.      We slowed at the old abandoned trading post to show it to Robert and Cheryl.  At the lower end of the lake, we went to the Barkley Canal, Green Turtle Bay Marina, Barkley Lock and Dam, the Cumberland River, Kentucky Dam, and finally KY Dam Marina, where we filled up with fuel and pumped out.  Also, we pulled into the famous rock quarry at Mile 31, approximately, RDB on the Tennessee River, and rode slowly around it.  The depths in there ranged from 20 feet on the east side to 120 feet on the west side of the cove.  The young people congregate there on the weekends and write graffiti and paint colors on the rock walls.      Then we went to Moors Marina, about 4pm, where we had a slip reserved through our friend, Kim, who had helped us several times before.  We got into slip C-40, in between two houseboats; but our electricity was not ready.  A 42' Kady Krogen had come in the night before and plugged into our power outlet; and the Moors electricians had to make up another 220volt, 50amp outlet.  They did, about 5:30 or so, and then we went up to the restaurant for Prime Rib night.  It was good.  Since we were there last they had added two No Smoking tables, compared to none on the previous visit.  Also they had a new chef, which I was hopeful about.      We watched a movie on the DVD that evening - the second DVD Angela and I had ever seen.  It was her choice - the original Pink Panther movie.  I think all four of us enjoyed it. Lay Days in KY and Fly Home, Saturday - Monday, June 7 - 9, 2003      We arranged with Enterprise Car Rental to meet us at 11am on Saturday at Moors.  An older man named Ken was there promptly to take us into Paducah, KY.  There we rented the car from them, and then they closed up at noon.  Angela and I went down to the banks of the Ohio River and explored Paducah.  We found the Executive Inn, and the Big E Marina on the Ohio River.  We saw the convention center and the National Museum on Quilting.  They have a big trade show about quilting there every year, but the largest quilting show each year is in Houston, TX.      Downtown Paducah had several things to recommend it.  It had the murals on the inside of the flood walls, which we saw several times.  They were very interesting and very well done.  Many of the buildings in the central business district had been refurbished and painted, and not many were empty.  We ate at a sandwich shop recommended by our friends, the Stewarts, who had a home near Moors and a home in FL.  We talked to them on the cell phone about downtown Paducah.        We drove outside the flood walls and saw the mighty Ohio River, and there was a paddle wheeler moving upriver from Paducah.  There were a number of towboats, barges, and service companies in the area near the Port of Paducah and Owen Island.  We drove around the well preserved Market Square, and then we made our way back to the boat.        We collected Robert and Cheryl and drove to Grand Rivers to eat at Patti's Restaurant.  When we arrived, about 5pm or 5:30, we were told the first available table was at 8:30pm.  We had not thought to make a reservation, so Patti's and Bill's were out.  There was a 20-minute wait at the Iron Skillet, a buffet right down the street owned by the same folks.  We ate there, and almost ate too much; and then we drove back to Draffenville.  We took Robert and Cheryl to the Saturday night performance of the Kentucky Opry.  They were Jimmy Buffet fans; I'm not sure they liked it.  But we had a good evening and slept well that night.      The nest day, Sunday, we had to return the Enterprise car after we rented an Avis car at the Paducah Airport.  Avis would let us drop the car at the Nashville airport; Enterprise would not.  On the other hand, Enterprise would come to Moors to get us and was cheaper than Avis.  The office for Enterprise was downtown, but the offices for Avis and Hertz were only at the airport, which was on the west side of Paducah.  It took about an hour to drive from Moors to the Paducah Airport.  After getting the Avis car, we drove downtown, refueled the Enterprise car, and left it at their lot.      We showed Robert and Cheryl what we had learned about downtown Paducah.  We found a Bistro on Broadway open for lunch, a buffet; and we had a good lunch there.  Then we drove out to the freeway, I-24, where the state had a welcome center that once was an antebellum mansion.  The place was called Whitehaven, and it was pretty.  We got there a little before 3pm, and they had a tour at 3pm.  We attended the tour, looked around, and made a few pictures.  Then we drove around the south side of Paducah and saw some very nice homes and yards.  Next we went over to see Green Turtle Bay Marina.  They have an impressive facility there, with condos to rent, a good service yard, and a large marina.      We returned to the boat and ate some food that needed to be eaten, and gave away some food we could do nothing else with.  We packed and prepared to go home.      On Monday we loaded the car and prepared the boat for a couple of weeks without us.  We drove south on US 68, which crossed both Kentucky Lake and Barkley Lake and gave us good views of the lakes.  Then that highway joined I-24 that took us into Nashville, TN.       We passed the airport to get to a service station a couple of exits further east.  When I returned to the freeway, I found there was not an exit at the airport going west, and I misunderstood the next exit and didn't get off.  We drove an extra 15 minutes trying to get turned around and back to the airport.  We got our etickets from a machine but still had to stand in line as if to buy a ticket.  We had lunch after check-in, and we went our separate ways - Robert and Cheryl to NC and Angela and I back to Houston.  We had a good trip with exceptionally good weather.  In Houston there was a drought going on, and temperatures there were almost 100 degrees F.      Our statistics for the trip were: Running Hours:  81 Miles:  1,200 Generator Hours:  133 Fuel Used:  2,568 gallons Fuel Costs:  $3,110 Running Days:  11 Lay Days:  4 Travel Days:  1 Total Days  16 Average Speed:  14.8 mph Average Fuel:  2.14 gals per mile, 31.7 gallons per hour Average Fuel Cost:  $ 1.21 per gallon Average Miles Per Running Day:  109 Average Running Hours Per Running Day:  7.4 Locks  13