On Sunday we met up with our friends from Big Bone – Gary and Vicki – They rented a house in Gulf Shores neat Fort Morgan. We took a walk on the beach, drank a few beers and Gary cooked hamburgers. We decided to spend the night instead of driving back to the boat. We got up early on Monday to return to the boat and make sure all the parts and such were in and define the repair schedule. The shaft was put in to plug that big hole and the through hull Ray Marine transducer installed after the drilling of a second hole! We have some weather coming in so they decided to put the boat back into the water and finish the other repairs in the covered slip. We returned our rental car and will now use the courtesy car if we need to run out to get something.
Above Paraiso had to be towed to it’s slip by a Boston whaler. It felt great to be back in the water. The maintenance man, Dewells was in early on Tuesday to finish the water pump engine work and was also able to finish the work on the generator. We now just need to have the stern thruster replaced and we should be set to go.
Wednesday AM we awoke to a tornado warning on our phones at 6:20 AM! We got dressed and went up to the block building that is on the property in case we were in the tornado’s path. You could see across Mobile Bay the storm coming in. Lots of lightening, wind and rain. The strong part of the storm went just north of us. We had a strong 55 mph straight line wind that blew over a few ladders but no other damage was done to anything. At our marina, however at the yacht club next to us there was a sail boat that sunk. Appears that the bilge pumps did not work. The maintenance man was working on the stern thruster by 8:00 AM. At 11:00, we were ready for a trial of the engines. He felt that the bay was not too bad due to the weather so we took the boat out. Go with the waves we had no issues but coming back against the wave we had water coming up over the bow of the boat and over the canvas of the fly bridge! Everything sounded and looked good with the engines, generator and thruster. No more vibration in the back either. We parked the boat and then had to settle up with Eastern Shores Marine. (B.O.A.T.T.)
Sunken sailboat next to us. Sea Trial in poor weather.
Wednesday night at the shrimp dock is band night! They have a fire pit on the wooden dock and 5-6 musicians doing a round robin of playing. They even had a single string washtub bass. I took notes from the owner and he let me play it. All in all pretty cool. They played many xmas carols, Mobil originals by John Reno, and songs i never heard of! No Hank.
On Thursday we wanted to head for the Intercostal Waterway, however there was a dense fog advisory until Christmas day at 12 Noon. You could not see across the bay. We thought we could make it but we decided to wait and leave on Saturday. We located a buddy boat “Terri Fied ” to travel with on Sat.
goparaiso.com 