Day 15 - Climbing the Walls

Miles cruised 0, fuel purchased $0, slip fee $58On Sunday night, Mark Sholtes, a long time friend from Louisville trailered his fishing boat to Grand Rivers, Ky. He drove us to the bait shop to get our Kentucky one-day fishing licenses ($10) and joined us on Changing Latitudes for sundowners. Bright and early Monday morning Mark pulled up to our marina with his boat trailer. We launched his 21' Triton with a 225 hp outboard. We fished inside our harbor and then at the base of the Barkley and Tennessee River dams. It was a good day of catching and releasing small mouth bass, sunfish, skipjack, white bass and striped bass. Mark's boat cruises at 60 mph so it didn't take long to change fishing spots. One of the more interesting sights was seeing schools of baitfish (chad) being chased by striped bass toward the dam wall. When they hit the wall they burst from the water and tried to climb the wall to escape from the stripers. None were successful in climbing the wall. In keeping with the name of our marina we saw dozens and dozens of green turtles.While we fished we hired someone to change the oil in our diesel engines. It was 135 hours since our last oil change. Each engine takes five gallons of oil. We have an automatic oil changing system. The pump sucks out the old oil and puts it in an empty five gallon pail and then reversing the flow pumps five gallons of clean oil into the engines.Priscilla and Andy borrowed the loaner car from the marina and drove to the Walgreens in Paducah, Ky. As all cruisers know you can get everything you need at the three "W's" Walgreens, Walmart and West Marine. Walgreens did not have a lot of groceries so Dale and Andy took a loaner golf cart to town to do grocery shopping.Life on a boat is a sedentary existence especially when you are living on the hook. When we are at a marina we go for a walk once or twice a day to try to get some exercise. Otherwise the entire day is spent sitting or sleeping. I do a few basic exercises each day, sit ups, leg lifts and push ups to try to keep in shape but I am not burning calories or getting my heart rate up for 30 minutes. We try to minimize our food intake with a small breakfast of only yogurt or only cereal. Lunch is half a sandwich and an half an apple. Dinner on the hook is modest but tasty and when we are at marinas we often eat out at a restaurant. The Green Turtle Bay Marina has a small gym and a swimming pool so we will try to take advantage of those facilities on Sunday and Monday. We arrived too late on Saturday to use them. The Marina we will stay at in Key West has a gym and a pool. We will be there for a month. Having been on the boat for three months by then. I wonder what physical condition we be in?Carl (Chef) Wooden - Quote of the day."Twenty years from now you will be more disppointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover".- Mark TwainLaunching Mark's boat at Green Turtle Bay MarinaDale with the first catch of the day - small mouth bassJohn catches a skipjack at the Barkley DamMark puts a nice striped bass in the boat and then releases it.