Day 17 - Bubba

Miles cruised 41 miles, fuel purchased $0, slip fee $45Tuesday night in Paris - OOOO La La. That means it's Crazy Chicken night at the the Paris Landing State Park Restaurant. $8.75 for the all you can eat buffet and a senior discount if you are over 62. They have every kind of chicken - smoked chicken, fried chicken, chicken livers, chicken tenders, chicken N dumplings, chicken noodle soup and shaved chicken in the salad bar. I sound like Bubba from the movie Forest Gump reciting all the ways you can cook shrimp. It was a pleasant 15 minute walk from the marina to the restaurant. They have a different buffet every other night except Monday and Wednesday. Thursday is Catfish and hush puppies, Friday is seafood, Saturday is BBQ and Sunday is brunch with carving stations for roast beef and ham. You could not eat at home as inexpensively as these buffets. All meals include salad bar and dessert bar. They have a very large crowd in more than one dimension.After more than two weeks on the boat there are few things we forgot to bring. I have nothing that that I need to buy. Andy wishes she brought her book on birds so she could identify the many species she has seen. She will retrieve it at Christmas when she goes home for the holidays. Holly Hanselmann's live aboard parents Bev and Dave Feiges onboard their Kadey Krogen trawler Cloverleaf have the best advice for what you need to provision a boat - a dumpster. It is surprising how much less you need to live on a boat compared to dirt dwelling. I have so much more "stuff" than I need. I have it because it fits on the boat. So far the three t-shirts, two pairs of shorts and a bathing suit rule has met my needs except for the one day I needed a sweatshirt and socks.I've started thinking about getting a haircut. I went to the same hair stylist (not a barber) for 7 years. Now I am at the mercy of some unknown hair butcher somewhere. That will be a story for another day.We are at the Pebble Isle Marina in New Johnsonville, Tn. We have a few days to spare before we arrive at the Looper Rendezvous at Joe Wheeler State Park in Alabama so will spend two days here and then go to the Mermaid Marina in Decatourville, Tn and finally Pipwick Landing State Park. The Shiloh Battlefield is near Pipwick so we will take a day or two to go sight-seeing.There is a happy hour at the marina tonight so we will get to meet and greet our fellow Loopers. The first one we met on the dock was Kevin. He is a Brit that cruised his 36' catamaran from the Caribbean to the Great Lakes for the summer and is heading back to the Caribbean.Carl (Chef) Wooden - quote of the day.I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it's because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it's because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea - whether it is to sail or to watch it - we are going back from whence we came.JF Kennedy at dinner for 1962 Americas Cup crewsIn case it was driving you insane trying to remember all the ways you can can cook shrimp, here it is.“Anyway, like I was sayin’, shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. There’s shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There’s pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That, that’s about it.” – BubbaWhile we were at Green Turtle Bay a 42' sailboat from Michigan decided to remove the mast he was carrying horizontally on his deck and ship it to Mobile, Al. He said he had too many close calls and made all the other boats in the locks nervous. His mast overhung his bow and stern by over 10' on each side.If you are in the USCG I bet this is a good duty station.This is the old Louisville & Nashville RR bridge with the span removed.Who wants to buy some waterfront property on the Tennessee River?I had to include this photo of our friend Gordon Howell from South Africa witha lovely yellow fin tuna. Nice catch Gordo!