Saturday 092715– in Hammond Indiana

Weather/Sea   Cloudy, wind 5to6, temp 60to 70

   Captain - John C. Kwak crew Chuck Stewart and Greg Murphy

Dutchess and I have been in Hammond Indiana in the Hammond Marina for 17 days waiting for crew. Yesterday Chuck Stewart arrived and today Greg Murphy will join us.  I advertised in the AGLCA website for crew wanted and both of these gentlemen responded and decided to join me. This is a member only service so they are members of AGLCA. This gives me some comfort because it means they are dues paying members and dedicated and active boaters. They both are sailors with considerable experience and I expect them to add to the fun of the trip. I had 2 others contact me but turned them down since three is enough to run the boat and still be comfortable. On Monday Sept. 28^th we will be leaving Hammond and proceeding down the rivers to Alabama.

During my stay here next to the Casino I still have not gambled!  Gambling is a fool’s errand; it is amazing to see how many seemingly poor people are gambling away their meager incomes. There is good food to be had in the Casino so I went to the Buffet restaurant 3 times and ate too much.

Hammond Marina has a weekly rate which over the 17 days cost me $705.00 which is only $41.47 per day not bad. Walmart is about 3 miles away but you have to cross over a railroad yard and highway on an elevated road which takes some work to pedal the bike over. But it is good exercise and I made 7 trips to Walmart. It is the only store nearby and besides the Casino the only diversion. I took many long bike rides around Wolf Lake and to Whiting a small City. Chuck and I rode to Whiting last night for Pizza. We came back in the dark without lights on the bikes using mostly unlit bike paths quite an experience.

I finally replaced the fuel filter on the engine. This is the secondary filter after the Racor Primary filters. The plastic part on the bottom of the filter that senses water in the fuel and has a valve to drain water out was on very tight so I decided that I needed a new one in case I broke the old. I found an auto parts store on the bike and after a few explanations they brought out the part and it fitted perfectly on the filter that I had brought along. Six days later I went back to get a buzzer to be activated by the sensor but they had nothing so I bought a backup alarm beeper to install in the engine room. That should get my attention that there is Water in the fuel. The old sensor was never connected to anything.

I spent my time here reading and one book is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain which takes place on the Mississippi River a portion of which we will also travel on. I also bought DVDs for evening and one is the many lives of Sherlock Holmes which contains 9 films, 39 TV shows and 20 radio shows about Mr. Holmes. I also worked on the boat; installing new LED lights in the Vee Berth, mounted an LED Spotlight on deck in case we have to run after dark, installed a new LED chart light over the chart table the old one had been damaged by the lightening.

I had dropped my binoculars so now you have to close one eye to use them. I had decided to buy a new pair and went to Defenders web site and checked them out. I always wanted a stabilized pair but hey are very expensive. Defender had a pair of remanufactured Nikon StabillEyes VR binoculars for $450.00 which I bought and had delivered here. These are 12x32 and new they cost $1299.95. A good saving for the remanufactured, the only negative is the shortened warranty period of only 90days.