River to nowhere?

The good news is, that we now have TWO functioning, brand-new alternators. The bad news is, that they didn’t get delivered to the docks until roughly 3:00 pm, and installation wasn’t complete until 4:00 pm. Thus, we missed out window of opportunity for the traversing the ditch today.  But, the good news out-weighs the bad news. It doesn’t cost us any more to stay another night here, and we can run a comfortable pace ALL DAY tomorrow, as opposed to trying to push a pace in a half-day.

Total cruising distance today: ZERO miles.

With a full day of cruising, we hope to make it to the next “big” town (which is a Sprint-serviced town.) This should resume out high-speed Internet service and such (yippee.) We should remain in high-speed-land for the rest of the weekdays (which is good for trying to work from the boat.)

If all goes well, we will spend the weekend traversing the next Sprint black-out area, and be back into cell coverage by Monday (Mobile, AL and/or Gulf Shores, AL.)

We have traveled 467 miles thus far (from Alton to the Alabama/Mississippi border.) The next leg is about another 445 miles. (Hopefully, it will take about half as much time as the last leg of the trip required!!!) MURPHY BE GONE!!!!

This is supposedly a down-hill run from here as well (running towards the Gulf.) I don’t expect too much of a current, but any little bit DOES help when you are only traveling at 6-10 mph.

We can’t WAIT to get to the clear saltwater!!! Can’t WAIT to see dolphins swimming in our bow wake!

Rainy today (and expected rain until the weekend.) Which I guess is better than sitting here BAKING in the heat/sun while going nowhere. Since we have to be held-up and locked-in here anyway, the sky might as well get rid of all the extra water, so it will be SUNNY by the time we approach the coastline Sunday/Monday (at least that’s MY perspective on how the weather is supposed to function.)

WAIT!!!! You didn’t think that I was going to let you go without another “surprise breakdown” story – did ya’?

So, I think I mentioned a day or so ago that we had some slight smoke/fog in our cockpit? It turned out to be an exhaust leak from our port motor. I applied a “field repair” (aka my VERY FIRST use of duct tape on this ol’ boat.) But, during the whole episode, the carbon monoxide detectors never made a peep. (We have two of them, one in the main cabin which functions on 100v shore power, with a battery backup; and the other on the master bedroom, 100% battery-operated.) Neither made a stickin’ PEEP during the whole smoky incident.

So, last night, with no generators running, no motors running, no NOTHING running, the forward (main) carbon monoxide alarm BEEPED and SCREECHED at us – at 2:30 in the morning no less!!!!

“What now?!” I essentially screamed as I tossed the covers aside.

“It’s the carbon monoxide detector,” Kelly said – very calmly – as if she has been listening to it go off every night of her life…

I was stupefied. How could she (half-asleep) know what the heck was beeping and blaring at us? This boat has no less than about two-dozen sensors and related alarms. How could she know which one it was? And, if it is the carbon monoxide alarm, why isn’t SHE jumping out of bed, too?

I began to wonder if she was already asphyxiated or something?

I unplugged the alarm (which is positioned RIGHT OVER the forward A/C vent.)

So, this alarm is essentially ONLY getting the chance to sniff/sample the air that’s coming out of that A/C vent. And, that A/C vent draws it’s cold air supply from the forward head – WHICH WE ARE NOT USING – AT ALL!!!! There are no motors of moving parts up there, either. No motors, no NOTHING to generate carbon monoxide.

I went ahead and shut-down the forward A/C unit (in case there was a blower motor burning up or a wire overheating/melting or something?) I plugged the detector back in, and nothing – not a peep. I also double-checked the unit that we keep in our bedroom, and it tested perfectly fine/operational.

I went ahead and left the forward A/C unit off for the remainder of the night, and the alarm never beeped again. And, today, we have had the forward AC unit running ALL DAY, and no beeps/alarms.

So, Murphy not only has his laws of what will go wrong, he is also a wicked-evil practical joker!

His Laws should be rewritten to say, “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong – at the WRONG TIME!” And, “Even things that don’t go wrong, will SEEM to go wrong – and also at the WRONG TIME!”

Murphy is a JERK!


Nick & Kelly (& Murphy)
m/v Venture Out II

P.S. We are going to leave Murphy at the dock tomorrow morning and sneak away without him!