Dani’s Daily Update - April 18, 2008

Tags -- Blog Update

Between the weather and everyone’s resulting bad moods I have been busy.

First our insurance would not take affect until we had the right paper. Our agent had never insured such a large boat so she was taking pointers from a friend in Texas. As it happens, Texas numbers and names their forms differently then Illinois and Missouri but it took the agent and me about an hour to figure that out.

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The Captain finally came down and bitched at our poor representative until he figured out she had never done this before. He took pity and taught her the ropes in about 10 minutes and we were ready to go.

Except we needed one more approval from the coast guard. But Captain could not find the right form from the manufacturer and he took delivery and should have the form – he is sure he had it.

Without it, he won’t move the boat. It is not official he says. All I know was, he was driving me crazy. Pops started looking for the document and wondering why he had to have it. Then Lisa walked up to Captain and asked him a few things then pulled something out of a folder and handed it to him. He cheered and took his prize and went to the captain’s chair and worked on something for a while. Lisa would not tell us what she gave him. She hoped to frame it and put it in her bedroom.

We were all confused. Then about noon Captain announced he was going up river for 25 miles and returning immediately. He would be stopping on the way back at a repair shop to have an additional radar installed. He had been assured it would take less then an hour. Anybody wishing to ride along should be waiting on the dock at 12:25 with departure at 12:30.

At 12:15 the rains came – and they came hard. Every construction worker was waiting as well as all the family at 12:25. Captain took one look and told pops he was ready if he really wanted. Pops said they should go for it and pops invited them on. The family sat with the Captain in the wheel house and away we went. Very smooth but at a very good speed.

We made the 25 mile mark early and Captain let me turn her around. It took me about 10 minutes longer then it should have but I did it almost perfectly. We got back to the repair shop and 10 guys took about 15 minutes to mount a new radar antenna and run a cable into the wheel house and mount the monitor. They told the Captain to drop back by any day after Tuesday next week and they would install the other duplicate monitor downstairs. Captain said thanks, pops signed the bill and down the river we went.

We were back home in the allotted time but Captain asked us to stay on board. After everyone else had left Captain fired up the engines and showed us how to test them and check their output. He showed us several lights and gauges and showed us where the todo lists were for each scenario.

Then he put a hat on my head and told me to take us to mile 17 down river – hopefully without hitting anything. So I did. With no problems except my first mate who could not tell 10 feet from 3 feet with a tape measure in hand. I finally replaced her with pops who was almost as bad.

When we had docked Captain gave me a couple of minor pointers and told me to take us up river to a waterside restaurant. On the way he explained how he always gave the barges the right of way and he explained why and even talked to one of the pilots asking him to stop as quick as he could while I did the same right beside him. I promise I will never impede a tug with her barges. They are like a train – takes so long to stop and so long to respond.

All in all I did very well with so little training. Captain told me I was a natural.

So it was a good day after all. When we got home Captain docked us since we still have no good dock lights and because I have never seen it done.

And after I post this everyone will be in bed. We are going as far south as we can tomorrow – it might be cool but Sunday should be a beautiful day. We hope so.