Getting it all done.

It has been a few months, about five actually, since First Light settled into her new home in Alton, IL. For the first couple of those months we were just getting settled back into land living again. We would check on the boat now and again and even got a couple of projects done before winter hit hard.

The first of those was replacing the starboard side cleat that was torn off of the boat while tied to a free wall waiting out a storm on the Great Lakes. That turned into a bit of a task as much of the shower stall had to be disassembled (you can read that as destroyed) in order to install a new one. When it was all said and done we managed to both replace the cleat and improve the shower at the same time. By then winter was at hand. A long day was spent winterizing the boat. Which is a bit of a job when there are two engines, a generator, head, and water systems involved. With that done and First Light tied into her slip with about ten different lines, she was ready for winter. We checked on her pretty regularly but working on the boat was not high on the list of things to do.

New shower wall behind which is the starboard midship cleat

Come the first hint of warmer weather, that changed. Deb took on the job of repairing some of the interior wood in the V-berth. Wood that had, truth to tell, been begging to be fixed since we first bought the boat. I took a deep breath and then started the repair on the aft deck cover. The one that also supports our solar panel array. I had already repaired it once, replacing the rotted plywood with new bits that I had coated with fiberglass, glued in place, and painted. But it turned out that wasn't sufficient and the new panels started to rot and peel away before we got out of Canada. Which chafed at the mechanic in me. I had clearly missed something.

It took a few days to pull down and sand off all off the rotted stuff. As I did, I noticed that virtually all of the worst of it was where the solar panels were mounted. The roof was an add-on. Which was pretty well done. Solid structure carrying the load to the hull.  The Solar panels were another add on, and not so well done. They had been simply been mounted on top of the 1/4 in ply with no thought of transferring that load to the more robust structure. Ply that was not up to the task of supporting that kind of weight while pounding through the Great Lakes. It is a bit difficult to describe, but we added 2x4 and 2x6 supports to carry the weight of the solar panels directly to the main structure that supports the roof itself, bypassing the thin plywood. Several cans of short haired fiberglass filler were then applied, sanded, spot puttied as required, sanded again, filled, and painted. All of it work done over head, a bit of a challenge for this well-used bod of mine. But it got done, is much more robust than it was, and looks pretty good. Part of the work was aided by two grandsons and a granddaughter who helped with the easier sanding and painting. Which made the whole exercise a lot more fun.

Reinforcing beams added for solar panel mounts

While that project was underway, Deb did some more interior repairs and handled some plumbing issues that popped up over the winter. She also changed oil and filters for both engines and the generator. We were delighted when all three fired up with zero hesitation, and no leaks. 

A couple of weeks later, the rest of the family was on vacation down south. Deb and I took advantage of them being gone to fire up First Light and take her out for a shakedown cruise. There is too much of the pilot/mechanic in me to have a boat full of grandkids along for the first foray out on the Mississippi River after a long hiatus and several projects. Everything worked just as it should and we declared First Light as a going proposition once again.

A few days later, First Light left the dock with five of the six grandkids we live with along for the ride. Three of them got a chance to drive the boat. One is too young and the oldest wasn't interested. We ambled up the river a while, pulled a U-turn and headed back to the dock, tying up after just shy of two hours on the river.

Once tied-to, the two grandsons helped us splash the Dink and lower its outboard into the water for the first time in many months. Given that it had proved to be a major hassle during our previous months on First Light, neither Deb nor I had any faith that it was going to start. Much to our surprise, that Yamaha 9.9 took just a little coaxing to get it putting along. The grandsons and I took it out for a short spin, each of them getting a chance at the tiller.

While the boys helped with the dinghy, the girls made use of the cooler pool temperature (the air temp was hovering around 100°).

And later we fired up the air conditioner and enjoyed having one on the boat.

So our first summer of being local river boaters is officially underway. There are still projects to do. But being back on the water felt really good. We are going to enjoy it for as long as we can.

Some of our slip neighbors

And That's a Wrap!

We've been home for awhile and I honestly haven't had time to think about the stats for the Loop trip. Getting home meant several trips to the boat to carry things back to the apartment that we need there, many hugs and kisses and volleyball games and and poker hands (yes, even the five-year-old plays poker with Grampy), ukulele playing, gardening, winterizing the boat, holidays...it's been a whirlwind and tonight I'm finally sighing a little with relief. I'm really glad we did the trip, but I'm equally glad that we're home now, especially in light of the damage that hurricane Helene has done to all parts south of us. I'm unbelievably glad that we don't have to be the ones making the decision of how far and how fast we're going to be moving south. I think if it was us, we'd be finding a place to park First Light for the winter and going home. Thankfully, we're already there.

So the stats for the trip:

We did 2,424 miles. 458 of them were last year from Oriental, NC to Pasadena, MD, in our abbreviated attempt to get the boat back to St. Louis, derailed by our medical mishaps. The balance of the miles—1,966—we did this year between Pasadena, MD and St. Louis.
We moved 143 days with 372 hours underway at an average of 6.2 knots. (Ignore the max speed above of 54.2 knots - that was because I had the app tracking us while we were in a car with a friend :)

I tried to keep track of anchoring nights vs paid dock nights vs free dock nights but we just had too much else on our minds to keep up with it. The reality of it is that we spent way more time on the dock and lock walls than we did anchoring. We anchored primarily when we were traveling with our grandson in 2023 from NC to MD, but once we started on the river system, there weren't near as many opportunities to anchor as on the ICW and coastal cities. I kind of like the wall tie-offs though. It's nice to just pull up to some cleats on the wall and be done for the day with town and services being just a few steps away. It's also much better for socializing since everyone is right there and it gives you the opportunity to pull up a folding chair and chat with your travel friends for the evening. When you're anchored, it requires launching the dinghy to have the same opportunities so there's a lot to be said for the walls. The New York and Canadian portions of the Loop had many better lock walls than later in the trip. Once you head into the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, you're much more limited in stopping places.

I've had so many people ask us if we're going to finish the Loop or not. We have done a little more than 3/4 of it between the time we spent on Kintala and the time we spent on First Light, but the answer is a firm "no". I'm incredibly glad we made the trip. It was a fantastic experience, but it was much harder than we expected it to be. The sheer volume of lock transits, and the schedule that you have to keep in order to be where you need to be before the weather changes, can make it pretty exhausting. To be fair, a lot of the stress we experienced (other than having our boat dropped in the railroad lift...) was because of doing it so soon after Tim's cardiac arrest. That experience had a huge impact on our whole view of travel. Anchoring in the more remote places in Canada without medical services more readily available was making it tough to relax. Going through something like that tends to change your outlook just a bit.

So First Light is settled in her home base at Alton Marina and we'll enjoy her over the season with the local grandkids. After that? We're not sure. We may sell her in the fall and do some land travel for awhile or we may keep her another season. In the mean time, we're making more memories and adding photos to our screensaver. And that's a pretty good way to spend the year.

At last...

Our last night at anchor, at least for a while, was quiet and incident free. I didn't get much sleep though, having tangled with some kind of critter while walking around in Beardstown in Keens—critters that chewed my feet up pretty good. Not as bad as the fire ant encounter a while back, but bad enough. Still, I got some sleep.

SV Galactica

We woke up this morning to nearly perfect weather except for a little fog. We debated waiting but it would take a lot worse weather than a little fog to delay starting the last leg of a 5 month journey to get home. We were on the move before the sun broached the horizon.

We have lived in the St. Louis area for a long time. When we cruised full time on Kintala, St. Louis was still where much of the family lived waiting for us to visit. I have flown over it, into it, and around it literally hundreds of times. We have driven cars and ridden motorcycles along all of its rivers. Still, until we joined the Mississippi river at Grafton and rode it under the Clark Super Bridge for the “U” turn into the Alton Marina and First Light's new home, I had no appreciation for just how big the Mississippi is. This is a serious piece of water. Making it our “home” water will take some time and, I expect, some serious respect. Getting caught out in a midwestern thunderstorm anywhere along this stretch of the river will likely have you crying for your Mama.

After filling the fuel tanks and emptying the holding tank, we settled into our assigned slip with little fanfare. It has all the amenities including a roof. A comforting addition when midwestern thunderstorms start dropping hail on everything under them. In fact, walking up to the office and back to get all signed in, I got the feeling that this was some pretty high class digs for a couple of boat bums.

So we are about to start a new kind of boat life. Rather than full time cruisers on a sailboat or Loopers on a trawler, we are just your average “pleasure boaters” now. Having grandkids and friends along for a day on the water or heading off to an Illinois River anchorage for a night or two will all be for pure fun. No need to get anywhere for any reason. When the boat isn't moving it will be another of my hobbies. First Light is travel weary, showing the miles and carrying a scar or two. She deserves some TLC. I happen to like working on the boat as long as there is no pressure to get it done or need to jury-rig something just to get out of a bind. We did the trip we planned to do. We handled the things we had to handle. We saw cool stuff, met good people, usually made the right decisions and did what we needed to when this or that decision went sour. It is time to turn the heat down a little. We are, after all, entering the winter season of our lives. There is nothing left to prove.

(Ed Note: OK I might have gone just a little crazy on the pictures today...)

Did you know that school buses ride the ferry in Grafton, IL?

The last barge to pass on this trip.

We used to ride our motorcycles to The Loading Dock. Weird seeing it from the water.

The casino in Alton, IL

Coming into Alton Marina

Packing up to go back to the apartment. I think we have a bad case of UAS (Ukulele acquisition syndrome)