Heading North!

Sunday, May 21, 2017

After waiting over 4 months to get our rudder's hydraulic cylinder repaired, we are finally ready to take Genesis out on another adventure.

Our last planned trip, in November, ended short when the hydraulic cylinder began pouring fluid around the seals, and I made the decision to return to Demopolis for repairs. As with most boat repairs, the seemingly simple repair ended up taking 4 times as long and cost 4 times as much as originally estimated. The cylinder is back in and working well, however, so I'll try not to whine about it.

Since we missed the opportunity to leave the boat in Orange Beach for the winter, we decided that we'd rather be on the Tennessee River for the summer months, so that is where we are headed.

We will leave Demopolis in a few days and head upstream on the Tenn-Tom Waterway toward it's beginning where it meets the Tennessee River at the point where Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee meet.

This leg of the trip will be about 250 miles and we will pass through 10 Locks before turning East onto the Tennessee. We hope to do this section of the trip in 6 days, but delays at the locks can make a joke out of a boating schedule, so we will see what happens. Another thing that can slow a Northbound boat down is rising current and river levels from heavy rains. I'm not sure how much effect the rain from this week will have.

Phone/Internet service will probably be spotty, but I should be able to upload a blog post no more than a day behind real-time.

We hope you enjoy taking the trip with us via the blog, and sharing the blessing of seeing God's creation up close as we travel.

Tom (and Glenda)