Day 36: Thursday, October 11, 2012
Underway: 8:00 am Motor Off: 3:25 pm Miles Traveled: 25 Stayed At: Anchor
First Things First: First time taking evasive action to avoid another boat.
Mile 143 to Mile 168: Brrr! They predicted frost for this area last night but we don’t think it quite made it to freezing at Kelly’s Island. We had lots of dew on the outside and condensation on the inside of Aurora, but no frost yet. We need to keep heading south I guess.
We stopped at Clifton Marina to gas up and ended up having a great lunch of grilled burgers (on a real outdoor grill), fries and onion rings (we’ll eat some of our tons of food on the boat tomorrow). Cindy, the marina jack of all trades (dock hand, clerk, chief cook, and probably bottle washer) gave Cindy a full cotton ball after breaking it off of a full branch used as a decoration in front of the marina. Bruce on Tango came in for the day just as we were getting ready to leave – he had heard they have a highly recommended hamburger steak meal for dinner – I think he might have been drooling already.
We learned something today. Even though we are travelling less than 6 mph most of the time and can usually see 2 or more miles down river, surprises can still happen. Today, while Cindy was driving, she suddenly had to swerve to avoid a small fishing boat that was right in our path in the middle of the main channel. These small boats tend to blend into the background vegetation (especially since they many time are wearing dark or camo colored clothing) and are hard to see. We almost could have served them lunch we got so close but everything turned out okay and it was a good reminder that you can’t let your guard down for a minute.
After a slow, relatively uneventful day – except for the handful of cows we saw drinking down by the river – we motored up Indian Creek at Mile 168 and anchored in a nice cove for the night. Today was a short day but the choices for safe anchorages are few and far between and we only need to get within a days’ range of Pickwick State Park that is our next planned stop and the beginning of a new leg of our journey.
