Still Waiting

the mechanics, and T, the manager  in the red shirt, he's been awesome

the mahogany kayak

our engine

Woke to a Thursday foggy morning. Several boats came in the night before, most will leave again the next day. A couple traveling by kayak spent two days here, making an interesting contrast to the trawlers and cabin cruisers that are ubiquitous on these inland waters. They were concerned that there wouldn’t be any where for them to camp, now that the Recreational Areas are closed. The one here won’t even let me walk through the park. Still, Barb and Gene are pressing on. They started at the head waters of the Mississippi and are traveling to Mobile. They’ve done 1700 miles already and dislike the thought of giving it up when their goal is so close. You can get more info at www.paddleforapurpose.net.

Of great concern to us is the word from the mechanic. He arrived an hour earlier than we expected and after a couple hours of delving into the engine found that the problem isn’t as dire as he first thought. Chris removed the head and found the cylinders to be fine, but he took the head to a “head shop” where further testing will be done to ascertain the problem, perhaps an unseated valve. Not as costly a job, but we must wait. My brother Andrew has been emailing us advice which has helped a great deal.

We also had propane problems. The solenoid switch died and we are waiting on a new one. Of course it died when we were getting ready to cook curry for Christelle and Gary. We cooked it at their boat and the evening turned out just fine.

The next day we went to Dowdle Propane with our tank to have it filled, but no joy there. The woman refused to fill our tank because of the rust and she offered very little help for getting a new tank. We hunted hi and lo but no one had a tank small enough to replace the one we had. Finally, we went out to an RV dealership, way past Columbus Airforce Base and while they couldn’t help us, the wonderful lady there did everything she could think of to find us a solution and that was M&W Butane, and I’ll tell you what, Mr Charles and his merry band were amazing. They inspected the tank, said it was fine, offered to clean, paint and fill our tank. Just like Mississippi version of  Hank Hill of propane and propane accessories. We picked it up yesterday and with Don’s help we are now once again cooking with gas. Don and Rosie are next to us on their 50’ boat, “Just Rosie”, see www.cruisingwithjustrosie.com. They are just swell. Don is a soft spoken Texas gentleman and Rosie is most welcoming. Not sure about her taste in movies though :), last night she loaned us "Kill Cruise", a film I'm sure Jimmee Ehrlich would just love :) But I like some quirkiness from time to time.

Well I’ve taken up enough of your time. Hope everyone likes to read the blog. Keep well