June 10, 2006
We left Dog River Marina at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday, June 10th, after pumping out our holding tanks and topping off our water tank. It took us about an hour-and-a-half to get to the north side of Mobile and then we were pretty much back in river territory. We traveled approximately nine hours and covered 75 miles. We only encountered a couple of barges and a few pleasure boaters along the way, but we saw lots of bass fishermen apparently participating in a tournament. As you can imagine, Todd was itching to join them!

Our first anchorage was at Three Rivers Lake which was not very scenic and had "sink-up-to-your-knees" mud along the shore line. Nonetheless, after a long, hot day we were ready to relax and have dinner. Shortly after dinner, we were approached by a couple of "gentlemen" in a small fishing boat. They were running on their trolling motor and said they were out of gas; they wanted to know if we had any we could spare. Todd, being the "never met a stranger" kind of guy he is, immediately went down to help them. I, on the other hand, was keeping a low profile on the sundeck, rehearsing in my mind where the gun was and what I would need to do to prepare it to fire.

I watched anxiously as they chatted with Todd and put gas in their tank, waiting for one of them to pull out a gun or weapon of some kind to "off" Todd so they could board, rob and pillage the boat. My concerns were obviously unwarranted, but I didn’t sleep very well after that for fear of being "revisited" in the night.

There are many beautiful sandbars along the Tombigbee River and we can’t help but think how wonderful it would have been to have boated along here in our twin 250 Sea Rays with Duane and Sue.  Duane loved finding a sandy beach and letting his beloved Brandy (Golden Retriever) run and play. We’re hoping we can find a nice beach to anchor near so that we can enjoy some time on the beach along this stretch of the river.

June 11, 2006
We had a relatively short day today, leaving around 9:30 a.m. and anchoring at 2:30 p.m. Our anchorage once again had "sink-up-to-your-knees" mud but it was nice having a shorter day of cruising as it was very hot and there was little or no breeze. Buddy (our Pomeranian) hasn’t been eating well, partially due to the heat, I’m sure, so we mixed his regular food with some gourmet dog food (similar to Fancy Feast for cats) and he promptly devoured it, picking out the "good" stuff and leaving his regular food. Much to our dismay, he woke up in the middle of the night with a bad case of diarrhea to deal with. Not a pretty site on a boat In addition to that, Todd and I spent most of the night fending off multitudes of mosquitos. Needless to say, it was a restless night!

June 12, 2006
After being awakened again at 6:30 a.m. by Buddy, who was continuing to have diarrhea issues, Todd swam him to shore while I cleaned up the mess from his earlier episode. Thankfully, most of it was on the outside of the boat on the side rails and a little water and scrubbing took care of it. Since we had a long day of cruising and our first lock ahead of us, we pulled up anchor and headed out about 7:30. We encountered three barges in our first five miles and another one a few more miles upriver. After that, there was virtually no boat traffic, pleasure or otherwise.  Buddy, however, was not quite over his bout with diarrhea so I had another mess to clean up in the salon shortly after we departed.

We made it to the Coffeyville lock about 10:00 a.m. and were the only boat locking through. It went relatively well, but we got yelled at by the lockmaster for trying to hold the boat off the sides of the lock rather than letting the fenders protect the boat. However, the way we had boat tied off wasn’t doing a very good job of keeping it off the lock wall, and we didn’t want to lose any fiberglass (or a swim deck) in the process so we continued to do what we could to keep the boat from hitting the wall. We are going to try something different for our next lock, which should be tomorrow, just south of Demopolis, AL.

About noon, we heard a noise and thought maybe we had hit something in the water, even though neither of us saw anything either in front of the boat (before the "thump") or in the wake behind the boat afterward. At any rate, we stopped the engines and Todd went down to have a look. He didn’t see anything amiss, but when we tried to put the starboard engine into gear, the transmission wouldn’t engage - it just made a whining noise in both forward and reverse. So, we continued limping down the river on just the port engine, going about seven miles per hour and making for a very long, hot day, even though we at least had a breeze.

We finally got to our anchorage about 5:00 p.m. and just got situated when a strong but (thankfully) brief thunderstorm passed through. We had an anchor off the bow and were tied to a tree on the shoreline off the stern. When the wind hit us on the starboard side, it pushed our stern into the shore where the boat lodged in the soft mud/sand bottom. Had we been on Table Rock, we would have done some serious damage to the boat; however, after the storm passed, Todd (much to his relief) was able to push the stern around and dislodge it with a little help from the windlass. By this time, we were worn out, so we decided to make an early evening of it and go to bed, hoping for a better day tomorrow.

June 13, 2006
We were up this morning shortly after 6:00 and back on the water by 7:00. We continued limping along on one engine at seven miles per hour toward Demopolis where it appears our savings will be further depleted if our repair bill from Mobile is any indication. Our only remaining engine has a periodic shudder in it - cause unknown - so we are keeping our fingers crossed that it will at least get us to Demopolis. Todd thinks maybe the secondary fuel filters just need to be changed, so that is on his "to do" list while we’re in Demopolis.

We arrived at the Demopolis lock around 12:30 p.m. and tied up where the lockmaster recommended for the least amount of turbulence. We tried a different rope setup than the one we used at our first lock and it worked much better. We got through without incident and arrived at the Demopolis Yacht Basin about 2:00 p.m. where we tied up to the fuel dock and waited for the service people to come talk to us about our transmission problem.

Fred, the owner, came by a short time later and determined that the transmission would have to be pulled and sent to Maryville, TN (near Knoxville) for servicing as they don’t work on transmissions here. Since there wasn’t anything more we could do, and since we hadn’t eaten anything other than a light breakfast while on the move, Todd and I walked up to the restaurant and had an early dinner. We then came back to the boat and went to bed early - again. It had been a long, stressful and hot few days and we were both worn out. Are we having fun yet?

June 14, 2006
Buddy woke us up around 5:30 this morning, still having "poop" issues, so Todd took him out while I unsuccessfully tried to go back to sleep. The mechanics arrived shortly after 8:00, moved our boat off the fuel dock and into a slip and then began the process of removing the transmission. It is possible that the problem may be a relatively minor fix, but we won’t know that until they get it pulled and are able to take a closer look. If anyone would like to make a donation in support of this little endeavor we’ve embarked upon, now might be a good time to do so. Based on our experience thus far, our journey aboard "Life’s2Short" may be short indeed!

June 15, 2006
They got the transmission pulled yesterday and it does not appear that a minor fix is in order, so it is on its way to Maryville. We learned yesterday that the transmissions in this boat are obsolete (go figure!), so if they aren’t able to fix whatever is wrong with it in Maryville, our options are (1) to buy a rebuilt transmission like the one we currently have from a place in Florida for somewhere between $4,000 and $7,000 or (2) to buy a newer type of transmission for around $3,500 plus the parts and labor necessary to adapt it to our engine, which is apparently quite a process.

We were also disappointed to learn that we may have an oil leak in the main seal of the newly rebuilt engine that was done in Florida prior to us taking ownership. After tightening a number of loose bolts on the oil pan that the mechanics (?) seem to have forgotten, we are hoping that the oil leak issue will be fixed; however, we will have to take the boat out for a test run to find out... after we get the transmission back in the other engine!

At any rate, we are likely stuck in Demopolis for at least two weeks with no Internet access at the marina, so our postings will be limited. We are downloading this from the public library and will try to visit again before we leave. Are we having fun yet? According to the Captain: NADA, NOT, NO WAY!