AJ - is this the week?

[In Memory of Vicroy]

The Seabrook Marine yard in New Orleans was closed last week for vacation, but I tracked one of the owners down in TX. They promise AJ will be ready to come home this week. Said the Imron paint job came out great (again). I have made a punch list of things to check and plan a visit Tuesday to see for myself if she is indeed ready to make the 50 mile trip back to her home at the camp after spending a miserable 11 months at the hands of Katrina The Bitch. Things run through my mind, like will the batteries charge up after being dead for 10 months? Check the bilge pumps, do the radios work? Check the engine fluids, will the old Cummins crank up? Is the new genset ready to go? Oh yeah, did they paint the state #s on the bows? Shucks, I have the new registration sticker in my bag somewhere, should I stick it on or wait? Anyway, planning is everything, but if she can even limp along at 10 kts on one engine, she's coming home this week. I have a real bad feeling about leaving her there any longer with the storm season in full swing...........

UV

[JK]

UV-

SeaNile has been out of the water since Sept 13, 2004 and we had the same concerns about the Cummins. Turns out they started right up, charge the batteries (although new) and we are looking forward to bringing her to her new home in Ocean City, NJ. She's been in the water for a week now and the to-do list is still pretty long. Planning on setting sail for OC next Saturday. Then it's off to the rendezvous the following Friday.

--JK

[AndreF]

Well UV, The shipyard can always give you a jump-start and the trip home should charge them up, if not, new batteries after you arrive. Call me, I'm ready to help in any way.
Still alittle homesick for Tropic Star, what a place.
Andre

[In Memory of Vicroy]

Andre, thanks. I'll scope it all out Tuesday and then figure from there. Looking forward to your son's wedding next weekend, God help the bride's family since they are having the reception at the City Club. I been there, done that. Could buy a nice house for what that cost...... I will do my part to run up the bill. The TSL bar tab will be child's play compared to a good coonass wedding..... le bon ton roule'.

I have also been reflecting on the TSL. I'm like you, miss Port Eads a lot, thinking of ways to revisit the place, but we have to face the fact it is totally destroyed, and anything we do down there will involve huge logistics problems. On the other hand, the trip to TSL sort of altered my thinking of how to maximize fishing on a dollar value basis. When I had a houseboat down there, kept the boat in Venice, my rule of thumb was it cost about 25K a year to do that. Probably about 10K of that was keeping the boat up, the rest going back & forth, slip rents, etc. So say I keep AJ on the Tickfaw as a picnic boat, take her down to Port Eads now and then with some other boats so we can fleet up and party, then that frees up a lot of cheese to go to TSL at least once a year. When the dust settles, TSL is about 6K a pop for the full first class deal, and it's way better than first class.

Guess the drift is that TSL sort of healed my Port Eads blues......

UV