Weather today is great! Spent night at Paula’s. So glad she lives 5 min from where we had to dock. Went to eat at City Hardware and saw a movie. Enjoyed our last night in a regular bed And ate paffles for breakfast. We let out the sails to let her get some good pics, pulled em back in and motored away. We didn’t get far when we received phone call letting us know we left our computer and boots in Paula’s truck! Turned around retrieved our items and again motored away. We are headed to Tom Bigbee Waterway. After leaving Florence (again lol) we headed to the Tom Bigbee Waterway.The wind picked up so we put the sails up and sailed for a while. I now know what to tie down and put away since most of my things in cabin went sliding or falling. The waves got pretty big and we had to drop sails and motor until we got to Grand Harbor Marina I have secured all loose items and am ready for more. We may have to stay at grand harbor tomorrow due to a storm that is supposed to move in. This marina is first rate has a resort and very nice transient docks.

Woke up to a chilly morning but we were in shorts and t shirts by noon. Made it to Wilson Dam by noon and had to wait 3 hours to lock through, due to a huge barge locking through. Steve decided to do some fishing while we waited anchored out at dam alternate dock. He caught a huge drum weighing around 15-20 pounds. Got him to boat and lost the fish and the lure :-(. Finally got to lock thru and made it to Florence Marina right before dark. Very nice marina with restaurant closed for restoration. Charged us 15 dollars to stay there. Left boat and headed into Florence with my sister Paula.

We woke up this morning at Dittos Landing, BTW they charge 15.00 upt to 25 foot then 75 cents per foot after that. You can use a credit or debit card to buy gas or diesel if the store is closed. We ate a breakfast of oatmeal OJ and a banana. It is extremely cold and we are wrapped up like eskimos, the next place we stop im buying thermals, gloves, hand/feet warmers and a rainsuit. Steve has been a great Captain, we love the auto pilot and the generator (so glad we added that)! Steve is frozen outside but he is trying to get me to my sisters in Florence for my Birthday. He is a wonderful man. Did i mention that the fog was so thick this morning you could not see, we relied mostly on auto pilot for navigation and breaks in fog every once in a while. Weather finally broke and it has become a beautiful day! Doesnt look like we are going to make it to Florence or even thru Decatur, the railroad bridge is down and we have to anchor at the Riverwalk Marina until we can get thru. Luckily i was storing some water and discovered water inside bed compartments underneath due to me hitting a valve while getting electric chord out at Ditttos Landing. We soaked up water closed valve and that was one lucky break if we hadn’t caught it we would have taken on too much water, that would have been a mess. Luckily my sister came and took us back to Florence where we had chilli, hot vegetable soup and cornbread. She made a Coca Cola Cake for my birthday whew hoo!! Steve, myself, Paula and my nephew David hit Gander Mtn for some Gloves, Under Armour, rainsuits and whatever else that would keep us WARM. Walmart to stock up on essentials and back to Paulas and Juds for some rest. We are getting use to getting up before daylight and going to bed shortly after dark on this boat. Well hopefully bridge will be operational tomorrow, if not we have more visiting with our wonderful family. T1 T2

The weather was cold and partly sunny this AM, It started to hail (pea sized hail) at around 1:49 on Guntersville Lake at Guntersville Alabama where we originally bought the Unwinder. We unofficially have named our boat the Jigamawhiz Captained by Thing One and first mate Thing two, Back to this morning, we awoke at around 7ate breakfast and were on our way by 7:30. We had to anchor out in on guntersville lake past Bellafonte plant because there were no slews to anchor out in. The water depth in the slews was very shallow too shallow for us. We sailed under some neat bridges, one was railroad bridge at South Pittsburgh that raises a whole middle section up to let us pass thru. The water level was down when we left Chattanooga and the water level on Guntersville is higher. Watching our mast go under these bridges is fun it looks like our mast is gonna smack the bridge every time. We have  had one very close call with an old bridge. We locked thru Guntersville Dam at around 2:30, WOW what a lock thru it was raining cats and dogs my poncho was uselessly blowing in the wind, rain soaked thru my shoes standing on deck with a wet line in my hands to catch the lock bit. Luckily i roped it on second throw with wind blowing Steve, extremely cold and wet ( caught his too. Soaked to the bone we sat and waited in the rain after tying off with the Dam operator on a golf cart came to check on us shaking his head at our situation and making sure we were secured properly. After that event i decorated our boat with wet hanging clothes every where, You know i am a decorating diva. Clothes hanging in your living room from the ceiling you know thats gonna catch on. LOL.  Will arrive at Dittos Landing in around 2.5 hours, ive learned sailing that there are few exact times for arriving anywhere and we really dont care. We love it out here! We made Dittos right after dark. The channel to get into Dittos is shallow we have a 4.5 foot draft and had 1 foot left under keel. The docks are very nice, they had a shower, washer/dryer, and clean restrooms. Easy access to gas pumps and transient docks (which are right up front to the right as we came in). We had electricity (20-30 amp) and Steak out delivered us a great meal right to the dock.Dittos Landing is at mile marker 334 for you Sea Gypsies/Riverfolk like us.Beautiful scenery all the way down, still fishing! Check out tomorrow’s blog. Steve and Denise

Well here we go, chasing the beautiful sunshine to the ocean. woke up to a very cold morning, breakfast of pancakes and syrup with OJ. Sleeping great on boat with two quilts two blankets and a comforter. The scenery has been beautiful and cold. We passed another sailboat about our size heading North and loaded down.  We are traveling at 7.5 mph average (11.25 knots) taking all day to get to Bellefonte plant in Alabama and anchoring out in river after dark. Due to no slews to anchor out in. Piloting a boat with just GPS is a whole new experience, but exciting. We have found out that it gets dark faster than we expected.

Captains Log: Day One 11/05/2012

Spent all day getting ready to go, got to boat at around 6 and started to make preparations to get underway first thing Tuesday morning.