July 16th

We spent Saturday, Sunday and Monday night at Green Turtle Bay. Sunday was spent organizing for the arrival of Tom's daughter Natalie and her boyfriend Devin who were to arrive at GTB on Monday afternoon. Sunday was a good day to organize as it was overcast and rainy. Monday was cloudy but warm. We took Nat and Devin to Patties restaurant in Grand Rivers Monday evening for the famous two inch pork chop. Sorry, about the sideways picture of the pork chop, I can't figure out how to turn it. Tuesday was a beautiful sunny day! We headed for the quarry so the kids could swim and kayak. As we approached the quarry we had to cross the path of a large tow. You can imagine our excitement when we realized the towboat pushing the barges we just passed was the Enterprise Star, the towboat we rode on last summer. We hailed them on the radio, turned around and ran along with them, at a safe distance of course, for a few minutes to visit via radio. After a day of play we headed for Kentucky Dam Marina where we spent Tuesday night. The marina is at the edge of Kentucky Dam State Park so we took advantage of their buffet dinner and did some more fishing. Yesterday morning Devin and Tom got up early to try and catch fish. You see, Nat was outfishing them 4-1! It seems that those fancy lures still can't out do a good ol night crawler on a hook! After a great catfish lunch at The Moors resteruant we took Nat and Devin back to their car at Green Turtle Bay marina then headed back to our boat. A really powerful storm blew in late in the evening. The winds were strong blowing lawn chairs from the house boats around us into the water. The lightning and accompanying thunder lasted about 45 minutes, making me very nervous. At one point a lightning strike looked more like an explosion and the thunder was immediate. I screamed and grabbed Tom's neck. Not sure how choking him was going to help! This morning we woke up to fog, so we worked around the boat until mid morning. The forecast called for more thunderstorms and the cloud cover was thick and low. Being the nervous Nelly that I am about boating in a storm we agreed to cut our day short and come to Buzzard Rock marina, only a 12 mile trip. We took it slow as visibility still was not the best. At one point we approached a tow, followed him until the channel widened a little and then began passing with his permission. Just about the time we passed him we lost an engine! Thank goodness we have two! As the tow passed us again,heaven knows what he was thinking, I drove on one engine, while Tom crawled down in the engine room. All seemed fine so he tried the engine again and it started. We didn't have much farther to go to arrive here at Buzzard Rock. It never did storm again. Be sure to check out a few pictures I posted below.