Music and Mishaps

After our morning walk in the park around Ditto Landing Marina In Huntsville, we departed for Joe Wheeler State Park Marina with a new buddy boat, Mississippi Girl. For most of this journey we’ve been the only cruising vessel on the river. We’ve seen a couple of tows, a few pontoon boats and MANY fishing boats. On this day we started seeing more cruising boats. It was good to have company. The wind was blowing around 10-12 mph towards us which made for a rough ride; presumably the first of many. It was so windy there were whitecaps on the water. We passed familiar sites from our trip this summer such as Decatur, AL and the Browns Ferry Nuclear plant. Just outside of Decatur, we had to wait on a train to cross a bridge on the river. Once the train passed, the bridge was lifted to let us pass.

The evening at Joe Wheeler S. P. was amazing as the night was clear and warm and Jupiter was positioned very close to earth. After dinner we sat on the bow and gazed at the stars, Jupiter and some of its moons.

The next morning we planned to cruise to Florence Harbor Marina with our buddy boat. To get there we needed to pass through two locks. We’d been alerted that the second one, Wilson Lock, was ‘broken’ and had delays. A quick call to the lock revealed that it was, in the words of the lockmaster, ‘our lucky day’ and that we should come on and we wouldn’t have to wait on any tows. Note that commercial traffic such as tows have priority on the river and pleasure craft often have to wait on them to get through the locks. After locking down Wheeler Lock, the first one, we approached Wilson Lock. As luck would have it, there was a tow ready to lock through. The lockmaster said for us to ride down with the tow. Locking with a tow was a first for us. The tow took up most of the room and we were advised to tie off in front of it on the last bollard or pin next to the door. Because of limited space and because it wasn't safe, they didn’t want us to tie up next to the tow,. So Mississippi Girl tied off on the lock wall and we tied up or rafted to them. Rafting to another boat was another first for us. When the doors opened to let us out, we held our breath as there were only about 10 ft between our bow and the massive doors. Wilson Dam is 187 ft tall and is the oldest on the Tennessee River. When it was built in 1925 it was the world’s largest.

We arrived at Florence Harbor Marina without issues. While waiting on Wilson lock we noticed a tower on the river that looked like the Space Needle. A quick google search determined that this was a revolving restaurant, 360 Grille, at the Marriott. Since this day was the captain’s birthday, we celebrated there with a nice dinner and spectacular view.

We planned to stay in Florence for three days. The marina said we had to leave on Friday because the Muscle Shoals Music Festival was taking place on the weekend and all the slips were booked during that time. The festival was located across from the marina so we watched them set it up during the week. The folks at the Florence visitor center, walking distance from the marina, told us about the many tourist attractions in the area. They recommended that if we were visiting the music studios to go to Muscle Shoals Music Studios first and we were glad we did. We arrived at an opportune time and were rewarded with a private tour of the studio. We learned about the history of the Swampers and how they and the studio had such a big impact on the music industry. We highly recommend watching the documentary on Muscle Shoals even if you plan to visit there.

When we came back to the marina we saw that our friends, Beeb and Frank, aboard Phoenix were there. We spent the evening with them and their King Charles Spaniels, Jack and Lir, which are perhaps the two cutest dogs ever (besides our puggles, Belle and Skyler, of course).

The next day we shared the marina courtesy car with other boaters and toured Ivy Green, the Helen Keller birthplace, and then provisioned at Publix (yay!) and CVS. At the end of our trip we walked into the University of North Alabama campus to see their mascot Leo the Lion.

Many times we’ve heard other Loopers say 'this experience is not all docktails and sunsets'…this week we learned why. Our first unpleasant incident was when we left Huntsville and noticed a foul smell in the boat. Note that we’ve become more alert to sounds, smells, and motions since we moved onto the boat. All boats have smells but this was a suspicious smell that never dissipated. When we arrived at Joe Wheeler the captain took a closer look in the engine room and quickly figured out that the blackwater tank was too full and had started to leak. YUCK! We concluded that the tank had not been completely emptied during our last pump out which led to the foul smell situation. The captain cleaned and deodorized the bilge and we pumped out ‘first thing’ when we arrived in Florence. The second incident occurred in Florence when the captain went to clean the sea strainers that protect the engines from debris. After getting them nice and clean, a gust of wind blew one of them off the dock and into the water 😱. The captain had to borrow some hooks and use his fishing skills to retrieve it from underneath the dock. This saved us money and time. Replacements were expensive and the marina couldn’t let us stay another night to wait on a shipment because of the festival. Whew! Dealing with issues and mishaps is all part of the adventure and there are plenty of docktails and sunsets to make up for them.

Hurricane Ian hit and devastated the west coast of Florida, especially the Fort Myers area, during this time. We’ve heard some Loopers lost their boats and that the area where we did our ‘Taste of the Loop’ cruise was hit especially hard. Fortunately no one we know or know about was hurt. There are many unknowns on how the damage to that area will impact our trip. We hope to learn more at the AGLCA Fall Rendezvous where other Loopers will be facing the same challenges.