October 07, 2019
It was a restless night, I couldn’t sleep thinking about our departure in the morning. Part of me was excited that the time has finally come, part of me was a healthy fear of departing into the unknown, away from our secure way of life; are we really ready to do this, I wondered.
At 5:30am I could hear the rain pounding on the tin roof covering our slip at Green Turtle Bay Marina. The wind was howling and tugging on our dock lines. This was not a good start to our trip. Time to put it to prayer, go or delay a day. (#27 Prayer is life’s greatest time saver.)
The rain started to tapper off around 8am, Maggie and I walked our two Yorkies, River and Cooper up the dock to their favorite potty spot. I kept an eye on the weather app to see if there was any hope of clearing. There is always hope. We had breakfast and continued to wait; go or delay a day.
Friends and gold Loopers, Byron & Cynthia on ‘Bright Angel’ and Al & Ruth on ‘Tortuga’ began to gather on the dock to see us off. The sky was beginning to show signs of blue around 10am. We decided it would be good to go. But first we must stop at the fuel dock to top off the tanks and pump out the holding tanks. At 11am the sun was casting it’s warmth on us as we cast off our final docklines and began our voyage.
The first day we planned to travel to Paris Landing State Park Marina toward the southern end of Kentucky Lake. An easy 40 mile trip. The lake was calm with 1′ waves, a bit windy but otherwise a good weather day, considering what we awoke to earlier.
About an hour out we started the generator which we need to run occasionally to keep the refrigerator and freezer happy. It started and ran for 5 minutes then shut itself down. Maggie took the helm and I went below to determine the cause. Nothing apparent, so I re-started the gen and it fired up, ran 5 minutes and shut down again. No time to fiddle with it now, so I left it off for the day.
We arrived at Paris Landing 3:45pm, docked with a 15kt crosswind. After we were secure in our slip I decided to take another look at the gen. Again it started and ran 5 minutes. It was just serviced so I called the mechanic who talked me through a few tests, all to no avail. Until we can get to another marina with a mechanic, we’ll just have to do without a generator.
Our first day of the voyage ends with dinner cooked aboard, watch a downloaded episode of NCIS and early to bed.
Cooper (L) & River
Arch Bridge
Paris Landing