Florida bound

Tim,

The ladies drink free on LBD nite at the Boatyard............hope you guys didn't buy a lot of drinks. The bartenders gladly sell you the drinks, but the $ goes in their pocket.

Next time remember to check local customs with a local!

ALso, boat looks good and the lines are ok. The mechanics are thin on work this time of year and the marina keeps them on the payroll because they are so good. If you need anything done, you can probably get a bargain between now and 1/1/13.

fwebster said:

Biggest difference is this is boating in paradise. The water is always clear and clean, except the few days after a major storm, is but it is like a Carribbean island with gin clear water and white sandy beaches nearly every day. The weather is such that 12 month a year boating is the norm, not the exception.........I am on the boat in a t-shirt and shorts in January.

Click to expand...

I think the same thing and thank the boating gods I'm is South Florida every time a read a post about winterizing or the end of the boating season...

+1 for Frank. You really wrapped it up nicely!

fwebster said:

Tim,

The ladies drink free on LBD nite at the Boatyard............hope you guys didn't buy a lot of drinks. The bartenders gladly sell you the drinks, but the $ goes in their pocket.

Next time remember to check local customs with a local!

Click to expand...

WHAT??? ...ladies drink free?? I hope you're kidding. My crew was buying drinks right and left (not me of course) all night. no wonder the bartenders where so friendly. it's shameful people would take advantage of harmless old guys like this.

It was the "local" who suggested (nearly twisted our arms) to visit this place to begin with. You'd think a place named "The Boatyard" would be a legit establishment for a relaxing drink or two. You cant trust anyone these days.

Thanks for checking the lines. I'll give Roland a call.

Here's a few pics from the trip to Panama City.

Typical morning. Up before dawn to check fluids then running first light.


I had mentioned we hooked up with a '01 460DA with homeport out of Chicago.


Had some thick fog a couple mornings but it burnt off quickly.




Below are a couple of shots of the Tenn-Tom Waterway. It's a 234-mile waterway w/ 10 locks connecting the Tennessee and Tombigbee Rivers. A quick history lesson: "After 12 years of construction at a total cost of nearly $2 billion, the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway was completed on December 12, 1984. The last plug of earth was removed from the waterway channel at Amory, Mississippi, allowing the long awaited mixing of the waters of the Tombigbee with that of the Tennessee River. The Tenn-Tom officially opened to commerce on January 10, 1985 when the Towboat, Eddie Waxler, transporting nearly 2.7 million gallons of petroleum products, made its maiden voyage on the waterway. A lottery was held to select the first commercial tow to transit the waterway. The dedication of the completion of the waterway was held on June 1, 1985. Record hot temperatures did not deter some 100,000 people, including many Members of Congress, Governors, and other elected officials, from attending ceremonies in Columbus, Mississippi and Mobile, Alabama that day. During the previous week, numerous other celebrations were held throughout the four-state waterway corridor from as far away as Paducah, Ky and Gunterville, AL. One newspaper reporter observed that such public exuberance that had been displayed at the Tenn-Tom events had not occurred in this region since those celebrations held at the end of World War II."










Here's a shot of the helm and the new Raymarine e97 display w/ Navionics charts. I used my Ipad w/ Navionics map app for addl situational awareness. BTW, both have internal GPS and they tracked spot on. I was pleased with the set-up & performance of the e97. Installed it weekend before we left. Kudos to Jim and BOE for turning around the electronics & maps in a couple days at a great price. Don't pay attention to the fuel gage...still had 25 gallons left in the tank when we re-fueled.


...a few more to come later.

Fantastic pictures. Thanks for taking the time to post them.

Looks like a blast! Thanks for the pics!

I vote Pic #8 for 2013 calendar. Thanks glad you had a nice trip


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Great pics! Thanks for sharing...

mark

Re: Florida bound--Final Pics added

Here's the final batch of pics from the trip.

Whatever this thing was, it was enormous and there where bunches of them. It wasn't just a section of a very big pipe.


Bobbys Fish Camp is the only fuel stop between Demopolis Yacht Basin and Mobile Bay, about a 220 mile stretch. It definitely is as primitive as it looks but might be the most well known stop down the tenn-tom. Most travelers grab fuel there but we decided not to since I felt I had the range to get to the ICW plus we came in after dark and didn't want to wait until they opened up the next day. This was the reason I took on 451 gallons of diesel at Zekes in Orange Beach. 235 gallons to port; 216 gallons to starboard. We have 250 gallon tanks.


The pumps are a couple hundred feet up the hill and the fuel is gravity fed to the dock. It would have taken about 4 days to fill my tanks if I had taken on fuel.


BFC's mascot. They no longer allow fish to be cleaned on the dock for obvious reasons!


A few pics from Mobile Bay, AL. Quite alot of heavy activity in the area. Neat pic of the USN Littoral Combat Ship as well as commercial container ships.


Just arrived. Here's the crew in t-shirts my daughter had made for us. She planted them in our provisions so it was a nice surprise. She is the "Kay" (short for Kayla) in "Kayachtic". Her shirts had "Kayachtic" on the front, "Florida Bound" on the back. I dont know why we felt the need to act like we were being searched in the 'back' pic. But, we were kind of slap happy by this point.


And guess who has the choicest slip in the entire marina? CSR's resident good will ambassador and all-around boating expert (aka Wilson)


My very own palm tree.


...and a couple of final shots I thought were kind of neat...

Great pix, Tim. The shirts for the crew was a cute touch.:grin: :thumbsup:

Yeah, the family has been great. T-shirts, electronics, gas money and my wife even got a kick out of the Little Black Dress night story. Other than the visa bill, its been a fun ride so far.

You're living the dream my man, even have my favorite Sea Ray! Looks like an amazing trip.

Very small world. I sold that 460... It's a 2000 and belonged to a friend of mine before it was sold to Victor. Was it his Captain running the boat? I noticed the Sat dome and the white enclosure, definitely "Guaranteed Fun"

Here she was when she was named Shellaylee And actually that's the boat I'm rafted up to in my signature picture!

Yep, that's it. "Guaranteed Fun". The guy knew his stuff but I think we pushed his 450 cummins motors pretty hard. I'm not sure that boat can cruise all day long at 25 knots or better as comfortably as we could. He didn't want to ante up on the last leg with us. Nevertheless, he took a lot of crap ahead of us and had first watch on John boats, dive boats, bass boats, pontoon boats and all those other annoyances that required us to back down. He didn't miss much and was a very considerate and competent captain. His nephew handled the locks--lines and fenders. I offered to swap my crew for the nephew but he wouldn't bite

Stunning.

You certainly boat in some amazing country.

Thanks for sharing.

Just curious, what kind of labor rates are you FL guys seeing at your boatyards?

99.00 hr. here, but I do my own work.:grin:

Retail at TIM is $125.........established customers with a boat in the marina pay $99. To get "established", complain about the retail rate and give them a credit card # to put on file. The marina only carries open accounts secured by a credit card. Most of us don't worry with the bill when it comes and just let the marina put the charge thru on the credit card.

Winter is slow, really slow this year, so if you can get a decent and finite description of the work you want done, (for example, 'clean and reseal all cabin windows' instead of 'fix leak in cabin') Roland will sometimes just quote a fee for the entire job if you let then do it while work is slow.

Hope to catch you guys this trip down, but we probably won't get in town before 12/31.

Thanks Frank (and Lance for the reply). Roland (and Vic) have quoted a few things for me and I've turned them on for 4-5 items (underwater zincs & mains; window frame repair; NEMA data cabling; bottom scrape; etc) at their convenience. They did quote $99/hour rate which just kinda surprised me. My home port's yard is very well known in the midwest, full service and does a huge Great lake snowbird & looper business and their rate is $80/hour and most in our area consider them expensive. So I'm just feeling out the waters. TIM hasn't shown any hesitation in adding things my credit card

We'll probably just miss you. We plan to head down day after christmas (just in time to catch the coldfront and mid-50 weather) and head back new years eve day. Beats Indiana and the mid-20 bluster I guess. I think we'll fly down for 4 days over MLK holiday in January.

curious, do you take 231 from montgomery or 87/167/331/etc? we've done both but did 331 route at 3am w/ no traffic.

No......we travel with our dogs so where we stop for food, fuel and pit stops, and what we can combine has an influence on the total elapsed time. We have found that the following is the best route to the beach from Montgomery:

As you approach Montgomery on the north side of town, take I-85 east toward Atlanta, go 9 miles to the Taylor Road exit (#9), exit to the right. Follow Old Taylor Road until it dead ends into hiway 231; turn left and stay on 231 to Troy,AL. At Troy, turn right (at Country's Barbecue) onto AL hiway 167, Stay on 167, at Enterprise, take the by pass by following 167, but you will turn left as soon as you get to the stoplight in Enterprise. Follow 167 all the way to Esto, FL where AL 167 changes to FL-79. Stay on 79 all the way to PCB. It dead ends at Back Beach Road (at the "Y"), turn left on Back Beach and go to the marina.

This route is all 4 lane or very good 2 lane, minimum turns, and it is safe at any time of the day or nite. You are never far from a town in case you have a problem.


And between us, Vic is a service writer; try to work thru Roland and build a relationship with him.