The computer says we have no belts for you!

The little dock at Henry Island was definitely at the right place at the right time. We needed a little time out of the rain and a nice place to eat after a little stress of towing Surona down the river. The Bar/Restaurant had a unique collection of Bras hanging in the rafters. It must have been a hot day when all the women decided to take them off and throw them up there! As we left Linda became enthralled by the sight of a barge coming down the River in the dark with his bright searchlight on. She was so taken with the sight she stepped into the air on part of the sidewalk, did a slow spin, bouncing off the handrail and fell on the rocks below us. She says she wasn't hurt. I gave her a 6.5 for artistic creativity but only a 6 for execution. I feel she could have done the whole thing faster and cleaner!

I took Surona's water pump off. It didn't take long since the belt that drives it was lying in shreds on the bottom of the engine department. There were no parts available in Henry on a Sunday. Cheryl had caught a cold so she just wanted to nap after breakfast. After church Linda (hereafter referred to as Crazylegs Murray) tripped over a piece of sidewalk and went down again. I couldn't see any improvement in her routine. She is OK!

We left Surona tied on to the side of Selah because she rode well there. Jim says she was about as hard to pull as his dingy. We were on our way down this muddy, fish infested river (they are still jumping like idiots all around us). Our next stop was Cillicouthy. Here we wern't sure how deep the water was at the town dock. We will probably never know since we went to ground fifty feet away. Surona stopped and Selah took a sudden turn to the right. We continued the turn, powered up a bit and drove back out into the channel. The next time Selah grounded out first. We all stopped. Selah went up a bit but she backed off and we drove back out into the channel. We spied an old twisted wharf a little downstream. It looked like something big used to tie up here so we inched our way in and disturbed a couple of fishermen by parking right in front of them. People love to hear our story of heading down stream to Alabama! One of the fishermen offered to take us up to a local Automotive store that was open on Sunday to see if they had a belt for Surona. One man at the counter checked through his computer and several large catalogues only to announce that they didn't have a nineteen inch belt. The other man walked to the back and came back with a nineteen and a twenty inch belt. I bought them both. What a relief! An hour and a half later Surona was gushing water out the back again. I had topped up the oil in the motor and the transmission, cleaned out the water strainer, tightened up the fanbelt, we had pushed off from the old pilings and separated from the command module. We were once more blasting our way southward at 6.5 knots with fish leaping around us.

Almost like stepping back in time we came upon an entrance to what seemed like a graveyard for Paddle Wheelers. It was at the entrance to our next overnight dockage. It seems that for some reason these old veterans were parked here and forgotten, only to slowly fade away along with the millions of stories I'm sure they harbor. The one at the entrance had been an old gambling boat and was still stately. I'm sure she was something to see in her youth.

We pulled out in the morning and rambled on down I think for ten or twelve miles to the town of Preoria, world headquarters for Caterpillar. They tell us that it is well over a hundred miles till we can buy more diesel fuel. I bought a new can and filled up Surona and the cans. Jim bought new batteries for Selah. I could tell Linda was so proud to have new batteries. On the way down the river today I saw the first true signs of intelligent life... a sailboat. The fish keep jumping! The fishermen here have devised a way of setting nets and circling the fish, getting them all excited and I guess they swim into the nets and are captured. Someone told us that they get about 25 cents each for them and they are ground up for cat food and dog food. At least someone has found some use for them! There are millions of them. They are ugly.