10/11/2014 - Saturday - Turner Marine to The Wharf Marina

At 7:00 AM the installation of Al and Kay's new muffler started and everything went smoothly.  Soon their boat was up and running and we were ready to finalize our marina tab around 9:30 AM.  The plan was to get fuel and start our new adventure up the Tenn Tom but the owner of Turner Marine put a damper on that plan.  He said that they were expecting some heavy rain up around the top of the Tenn Tom so we may want to wait a few days and watch for the downstream current.  When they get heavy rain, there can be as much as a 3 knot current coming downstream.  That's not good for us so we needed to rethink our plan.  Once back at the boat we took a look at the weather and he was right so we made the decision to join the other two boats at The Wharf for a few days.

Bye bye Turner Marine

Dredge in the Mobile Ship Channel

What a beautiful day on the water!  It was calm with a light breeze and within three or so hours we rejoined our fellow two boats.

Dolphins jumping and swimming on the side of our boat

U.S. Coast Guard fly by

RV Park and LuLu's

Another restaurant on the ICW just pass LuLu's

M/V Cambria rocking and rolling after this fishing boat passed them.  He did try to not give us a wake but these fishing boats are not made for inland waters!

Someone is building a party barge!

The Wharf, here we come!

During this trip Josh tested our overheating problem to see if it was fixed.  NOT!  He throttled up to 2000 rpm and the boat was fine.  He throttled up a little more (2100) and we noticed a little smoke coming out the exhaust.  Maybe we were just cleaning it out!  All of a sudden we started hearing a beep, then another beep, but we thought it was on the radio.  Josh said "that's not us - is it"?  I was not sure so he throttled up to 2200 rpm and the alarm went off full blast.  The exhaust was really putting out smoke.  Josh pulled the throttle back and let the engine settle down.  Our problem is not solved!  The boat likes running at 1800 rpm, so that's where we stayed until we had a chance to check things out.  Josh call my sister's boyfriend Frank and discussed the situation.  Thank you Frank!  Josh now has some more options to check out tomorrow.

At 5:30 PM we all headed to a restaurant for dinner together.  What a great reunion!!!