We had a very restful night on the hook. After sunset the temperatures were perfect and the breeze was enough to make the bedroom very comfy. We had retired to bed at 9pm (central time; so 10pm in the zone we’ve been used to) and slept soundly until almost 6am.
Aside from the boat having a fair number of bugs all over it that will need washed off once we get to somewhere with water at the dock in a few days the morning was quiet. After sitting for a while drinking coffee Erik took Riva to shore for a few minutes. We decided to hold off on breakfast until we were underway so that we could get an early start and arrive in Guntersville with enough energy and time left in the day to explore and run some errands.
We pulled anchor and headed down river at about 6:45 am. It was a cool, crisp, but very comfortable ride for the first hour or so until the sun rose higher in the sky. The water was as smooth as glass. After a couple hours of travel while Renee took the helm Erik cooked omelets with more of those many eggs we still have and leftovers from last nights kabobs. We find that we tend to eat two larger meals a day on days that we cruise; a later breakfast and dinner.
It was an uneventful day of cruising. The area we are now in has a lot of marshy areas along the riverbanks. There is a lot of hydrilla, an aquatic grass floating randomly and often times in large clumps. We will definitely have to check the strainers for the engine coolers and AC units tomorrow.
While Erik was cooking Renee picked up the pace a little in hopes of possibly making it to Guntersville before 1pm when the farmers market closed. Unfortunately, we did not make it early enough to get there. We arrived at about 12:30 pm. It was quite breezy and choppy in the area of the free wall and there were many other boats docked along the wall. There was one spot open that was about 50’. Parallel parking a 40+ foot boat in a 50’ spot in the wind is always a bit nerve racking. We were fortunate enough to have a guy on the dock to catch our line and we slid right into the spot ALMOST flawlessly. There were steel posts with rubber bumpers on them sticking up every 12’ or so. We happened to be sliding into the spot on the wall that had an outwardly bent post missing its rubber bumper. The post put a nice scratch on the front port side of the hull….ugh. Oh well, it could have been much worse; just a small blemish. We’ll consider it a battle scar and move on :-) Had we been on a fiberglass boat it likely would have done significantly worse damage.
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| The damage...we call it "character" |
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| The culprit of the damage :-( |
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| City Harbor |
After securing lines we got the bikes off and headed out to explore a little and run some errands. We biked through town and stopped in at a couple of shops where we left with a night shirt for Renee and a bottle of garlic infused olive oil. We then headed to Ace hardware where we purchased a small electric air pump for bike tires and adding air to the boat bumpers. We also stocked up on the all important fuel cells that operate the Thermacell insect repellant machine that is valuable when anchored out. Last stop was at Piggly Wiggly for a few grocery items. On the way back we had a nice ride along the riverfront park that was bustling with people picnicking and fishing.
Back at the boat, we worked on a few small boat projects; Installed new LED reading lights in the bow cabin and added rubber caps to the window locking mechanisms. We strolled around the newly developed area around the docks. When we were here 4 years ago there was basically nothing immediately around the docks. They have recently developed the break wall area into ‘City Harbor’ which now hosts multiple restaurants and shops.
Dinner tonight, as with most nights, involved grilling. The chicken kabobs were so good last night that we again did kabobs, this time with more of our 1/4 side of beef steak that we purchased recently.
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| Beef....it's what's for dinner |
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| City Harbor now developed with shops and restaurants |
To help digest our dinner we took Riva for a walk along the waterfront park to enjoy the glory of sunset. The walk allowed room for ice cream and coffee for desert when we returned to the boat. And now here we sit actually writing a blog entry for the day we are about to retire from. The boat behind us has a noisy generator running so it won’t be quite as peaceful and tranquil as our night on the hook last night. However, plans for tomorrow are for a fairly long cruise to Joe Wheeler State Park where we again plan to anchor in a very beautiful area. We are hoping for no severe storms or tornado warnings like there were last time we anchored in that area! Weather man says there won’t be :-)
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| Our track was MUCH straighter today |
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| trip stats for the day |
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