It's fixed! I had a corroded riser pipe, which is a heavy cast iron manifold that carries hot exhaust to the turbine. The manufacturer was out of stock for possibly months............and winter's coming!

The welding specialist shop I took it to was doubtful it could be fixed because it was so far gone, and they'd have taken a week or more just to find out.........and winter's coming!

But the Hatteras Owner's Forum members came through. Dave DiSesa "CaptDis" sold me a spare one he had cheap and got it shipped overnight to me from Florida. I installed it today and both diesels are now running fine again.

I know it's not the last major problem we'll have on a trip of this magnitude, but as Kathy says, maybe we just used up a piece of our bad luck and we're "good-to-go" again. Somewhere, we may even have a problem that makes this one look "not major" at all, but we'll deal with whatever comes up.

Tomorrow morning we'll start down the Mississippi again. There are no marinas and few places to get fuel until we go up the Ohio river and through the lock to the Tennessee river. Another Great Circle Route boat couple we met down the dock from us is afraid he can't make it between available fuel docks to the Tennessee river. I told him to just go slow and carry extra fuel. It's amazing how much your fuel use per mile drops when try life in the slow lane. We also met Janie Hermann here at the Alton Marina. She's the USCG certified captain we hired to help us get our boat home after buying it in New York. She's running a SeaRay express cruiser to Florida for it's owner. We'll both be tied up to the lock wall at the entrance to the Kaskaskia river tomorrow night and then anchor out for 2 days. Should be fun.