Miss Hattie's Loop: Repair Delay

Last Thursday we anchored in McKinley Crk Cutoff, just in the nick of time - 10 minutes before sunset. We had been looking for an anchorage after doing a four-lock day but many of the published sites were no longer viable. Although the captain was WORRIED, the first mate had no doubt we would find a spot - again the first mate's cool mindedness prevailed. Friday was an on-again-off-again rainy day and we pulled into a very nice anchorage just above the next lock. Saturday was forecast to be rain all day so we decided to stay put. We did a little dinghy exploration and found a small island with feral goats inhabiting it - Billy, his Mate and two Kids - there was a muskrat the size of a beaver too. On Saturday we checked the engines and found that DD2, the evil twin, had lost most of it's coolant (the closed system) - the water pump had gone bad. I couldn't order a new one until Monday AM, so we hung on anchor until then and went into Pirates Marina Cove, just 1 mile down. That's where we are now; the part should arrive today (Wed); finish the repair tomorrow; leave Fri. The marina lives up to its name - check out the pics - (just barely) floating docks, a sunken vessel at our bow, a decrepit wooden yacht with nearly continuous bilge pumping, and various other skeeevy looking vessels and people (a toothless dock hand and his wife who live in an equally decrepit tiny trailer on site). Meanwhile three other looper couples came in - yay!! and we had a lovely evening of docktails on one of their boats. We hope to catch up to them again once we get underway.