Mer Sea

Well, we finally have a new generator!!! After sending a mechanic twice to our marina near Chattanooga, Onan finally decided that it was not, in fact, our boat that was causing the problem (oh yes, this also required a minor intervention from Kurt, the Chief Engineer at Tomco)!! Getting the new generator to Chattanooga only took a couple of days, and then they began the removal of the old and the installation of the new. Well, they tried, at least. Roy had suggested that they might need to haul the boat in order to accomplish these tasks, but his opinion didn’t have much weight, apparently. So the poor mechanic spent about 31/2 hours trying to take the old one apart to extract it from the hatch and through the door, but of course couldn’t possibly get the 350 pound sucker out without a “boom truck”, which of course he couldn’t get to the boat while she was still in the water…

 

We found a marina that could haul the boat the next day, and the mechanics and the boom truck met us there then. The head mechanic had done some real thinking in the interim, and had figured out exactly what he needed to take apart and how to finagle the rest so as to just fit the generator through the hatch and through the door. The new generator has the same “footprint” as the old one, so once he could get the old one out, it was a relatively easy task to get the new one in!

 

The guys did a fantastic job, and the operation went like clockwork! A few more hours in the engine room hooking things up and cleaning up, and the new generator was ready for a test run. She was perfect!!! We’ve named her LUG, for “Love U Genny”, and we do!!

 

We had the pleasure, during the almost three weeks we were back and forth to the marina and Dawsonville, to have friends on the boat several times while waiting for all this generator stuff to shake out. Fortunately, the weather was beautiful each time, if a bit cool, and we had so much fun sharing Mer Sea with friends!! We put her through her paces and took short cruises on the river, just coming into her fall colors, and it was great!

 

We were finally able to get underway again on Oct. 30, but only went as far as downtown Chattanooga, where we had lots of fun eating out, walking around, seeing the fabulous Aquarium, etc. It is a really fun town, and all it has to offer is easily accessible from the harbor area. A perfect cruising destination!

 

We left Chattanooga on Nov. 1, and headed west on the Tennessee River. We set our clocks back as we entered Central time, and marveled at how early it now gets dark. The double whammy of going off Daylight Savings time and then switching to Central time a couple of days later produced a truly noticeable difference!

 

That first night we anchored out in a perfect, secluded anchorage, surrounded by mountains in all their fall colors. We used the generator liberally, as we needed the heat (it’s really cold!!!), and it was such a pleasure to not have to worry about LUG! We cooked, we heated, we microwaved, we made coffee and tea, we charged our batteries, we really lived it up!!

 

The next morning, as we were raising the anchor, I got to about 50 feet, and then couldn’t get in any more chain. Instead of coming in, she was vibrating strangely and absolutely would not budge. Something was really hung on that chain! The water depth was only about 15 feet, so who knows what was down there holding on to us. Roy tried to power us off whatever it was (we’ve always figured that our 370 horses would be able to get us off just about anywhere), but, no matter in which direction he tried, the chain remained intransigent. Uh-oh…I was having visions of having to cut the chain in order to get out of there…Then Roy had me let out lots of chain, 120 feet, and he tried pulling from various directions at that angle. I thought I detected that the chain was acting more “normal” at that angle, so, after Roy had done some tugging, I tried again to pull in the chain. Well, this time I got to 30 feet, an improvement, but still not enough.

 

We tugged and moved around and tugged and moved around some more, and, finally, I told Roy that it looked to me like the chain wasn’t vibrating any more, and she was lying at a more normal angle. I hurried to try to pull her in, and in she came – with large pieces of roots sticking out of both the chain and hung around the anchor itself! I guess we’d been hung on a submerged tree!! Well, it had provided secure holding through the night, that’s for sure, and I was glad not to have to leave the anchor behind when we left! Good job, Captain Roy!!

 

We had a lovely ride to Guntersville, with the mountains in splendid fall foliage, virtually no boat or barge traffic, and a sunny, if chilly, day. We’d been to this marina on our trip east, and knew they had a courtesy car we could borrow to do some major reprovisioning, so spent a couple of days there getting all that done. We were expecting sub-freezing temperatures in the mornings, and I’d wanted to be on shore power so that we could run the heat all night if we so chose (we don’t run LUG overnight – just seems to tempt fate!). As it turned out, the temperatures were milder than we’d experienced in our last anchorage, but, never mind, we were prepared!

 

We headed to another anchorage the next day, and decided to make our first attempt at using a second anchor off the stern to keep us from swinging. We didn’t really need it, but wanted to have some practice for when we will need it in several anchorages on the Tim Bigbee Waterway. Seemed like a good idea to get the logistics worked out without any pressure.

 

After I put together the spare anchor, which has been living under the salon floor all this time, Roy retrieved the extra line and chain that we’d bought for this anchor back when we were originally outfitting the boat back in January of 2005. Seems like such a long time ago! The procedure for putting out two anchors would be as follows (pending any revisions based on actual experience!):

 

Select a location for the bow anchor based on current, wind, where and how you want the boat to lie, and where you will have plenty of room to back up to put out the stern anchor. Drop the bow anchor just as usual, and get it set. Let out the amount of chain you want for scope. Put Roy in the cockpit with the second anchor, and let out anchor chain in the amount you will want for scope for the second anchor. Let Roy know you are there, and he’ll sling the second anchor overboard. You pull in some chain to move the boat forward so that Roy can let out rode on his end and try to set the anchor. When he has accomplished that, you pull in more chain while Roy lets out rode until you both have the scope you want. Cleat off the rear anchor line, and there you are!!

 

We were able to accomplish this with a minimum of fuss, and Mer Sea lay in one place, just as we’d planned, for the whole night. The next morning we reversed the process, and, again, with a minimum of fuss, we were able to retrieve both anchors. We haven’t figured out how to stow the second anchor yet, and it’s a tough job for Roy to get that baby in over the side of the boat, but we’ll refine the process as we go – for now, we know we can successfully use the two anchors to limit our swing when we need to anchor in a tight spot.

 

We had two locks to go through the next day, the second of which is operating the small auxiliary chamber only and so has long delays while they lock through commercial traffic. We were lucky to only have a two hour wait to lock through! It was a beautiful day, and I even took my sweater off as it warmed up in the afternoon!

 

We’re now at one of our favorite marinas, probably going to stay for a couple of days to wait out some rain and thunderstorms. We have plenty to do, with planning and website maintenance and shopping and cleaning and boat maintenance, so we’ll have no trouble making use of the time. We’ve come to the end of our time on the Tennessee River, as we’ll be on the Tom Bigbee Waterway when we leave here. Heading south at last!!