Things are getting better!

Today was a trouble-free day. We had to deal with four more locks today, but each of them was ready/waiting for us. In one instance, they made two other boats wait for US to arrive. They even proactively hailed me to ask for my ETA: “Venture Out, this is the Aberdeen Lock, do you have an ETA on your arrival? We have the dock filled and ready for you with a green light to enter upon your arrival. We have a pleasure craft waiting down below, but we’ll keep them waiting for you to lock-down.”

I told them my ETA was about 30 minutes (which would be sufficient time for them to drain the lock, take-in the awaiting sailboat below, and then re-fill the lock before our arrival.) But, they insisted on waiting for us.

What’s additionally impressive, is that they knew my boat/call-sign – MILES before my arrival (which means that the prior lockmaster noted our call-sign/boat, and called-ahead to the next lock to notify them that we were heading their way.) Somewhat unbeknownst to us, the lockmasters have been passing us from hand-to-hand all the way down the canal system.

I wish there were more photo ops, or that we had a better camera, or that we had our camera at-the-ready as things quickly passed by. We have seen a few King Fishers (birds.) We have seen a totem pole, and a few personally-made lighthouses. Speaking of houses, we have seen some pretty elaborate waterfront homes, as well as some shacks that were nearly falling into the river.

At one point, Kelly saw a sign that pointed downstream and read “Key West & Key Largo.” Today, I finally grabbed the camera quick enough to capture a photo of a standalone phone booth, on the riverbank, in the middle of nowhere.

That pretty much sums up this trip thus far: In the middle of nowhere, with no phone service when you want/need it, and perfect phone service when you don’t need it.

If anyone was ever tempted to take a LONG, slow boat trip like this, I would suggest that you do the following instead:

Buy yourself a little riding lawnmower, or a small diesel farm tractor. Then, just poke your way from coast-to-coast (or to wherever you wanna go.) You will see more, and meet more people than you would EVER see cruising a boat down “the ditch.”

Today, we cruised 10 solid hours. One boat passed us going downstream, one trawler passed us going upstream, and one sailboat passed us going upstream (oh, and about three tugs.) We didn’t say/hear a peep from the fellow pleasure boaters/cruisers. The only thing we heard from the tugs was a VERBAL “one whistle” – which is their lingo/shorthand for “pass port-to-port.” Before the days of radios, passing boats would sound ONE blast (and reply with ONE blast) to signal/confirm a port-on-port passing. Similarly, a double-honk (with a double-honk acknowledgement) meant a starboard-on-starboard passing. The only time that there was an “issue” – was if your blasts didn’t match (e.g. one honk from vessel one, and two honks from vessel two.) Then, someone would need to re-honk to change their preferred passing lane – until this honks matched.

But, the “default” seems to be port-on-port. There are some exceptions to the port-on-port rule. But, for the most part, EVERYONE seems to pass port-on-port (just like we drive our cars – on the left side of the road.)

What’s somewhat ironic, however, is that most boats have their steering wheels on the right (starboard) side – opposite of our cars. (Most tugs have a center-console, however…)

Things have been getting (mechanically) better with the boat, day after day. I tend to the “must-have” issues first. If there are no must-have issues, or if they don’t completely wear me out of energy, then I turn my attention to the “nice-to-have” items. Today, there were no “must-have” issues to address. So, I semi-permanently mounted our navigation monitor up at the flybridge, and hard-wired it down to the laptop in the cabin/cockpit. It’s essentially a remote (dual-screen) monitor situation. So, the navigation charts/screen that we enjoy below, is now echoed up to the flybridge station. So, we now have digital GPS-based charts at either location – without the need to carry laptops up & down stairs each time we change locations.

I also “fixed” the connections for the depth gauge. I had “rigged” it about a week ago with electrical tape and make-shift wire connections. Today, I properly attached crimped-on connectors, so the depth gauge has a good/solid connection, but can still be removed and transferred to the lower-helm when necessary. But, I have an extra fish-finder/depth-gauge/water-temp sensor that I plan to install at the lower helm when we get to crystal-clear water and I can dive the boat.

We covered four more locks, and about 70 more miles today. We are going to attempt to get an earlier start tomorrow, and try to cover about 90 miles per day for the next four days, in an effort to arrive in the Gulf Shores, AL area (coastline) by Monday evening (or thereabouts.)

We are hoping to sync-up with our friends Mark & Laura & family at Gulf Shores for a few days. From there, it’s a 400-mile run along the Florida coastline back to St. Petersburg/Clearwater/Tampa.

Cheers all,


Nick & Kelly.