May 31 through June 2, 2014

Saturday the 31st of May, Dog River Marina to Old Lock No. 1 at Mile 100.0 on the Tenn-Tom Waterway:

We left Mobile, AL along with a sailboat and another power boat at 06:20. It was a beautiful morning and Mobile Bay was pretty smooth with just a light chop. The sail boater was a marine and hollered Semper Fi to Keith as we passed him. It took us 35 minutes to get out to the Shipping Channel and then another hour and 20 minutes to take the Shipping Channel into Mobile, Mile 0 on the Tenn-Tombigbee/Mobile River. All the way through the City of Mobile is a No Wake Zone so it was slow going. We saw 14 Tows today with half of them in the Mobile area. I always wave at the Tow Captains and the Captain from "Stephanie" blew his horn for me. It rained on and off for part of the morning and almost steady from about 14:00 to 18:00. At Mile Marker 80 about 14:25 we were shot at by 2 fishermen. Apparently they were mad because we waked them. It was raining quite heavily, they were in camouflage and also in a camouflage boat, and tucked in by the shoreline and we did not see them; if we had seen them we would have slowed down. As it was, we were not even going 9 mph but I guess they were upset. Can’t believe they shot at us!  We averaged about 9 mph all day due to the strong current. Surprisingly there was not much debris in the water at all; we were expecting much more. We got to our anchorage by 18:50 and put 50 feet of anchor rode out in 9 feet of water. Last time we were in this anchorage we had 12 feet of water under us. The tide here is about 1.6 feet. We had a quick supper and an early to bed as we have another long day ahead of us tomorrow.

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W88.03516

5-31-2014:  Old Lock #1, Mile 100.0 on the Tenn-Tom. 

5-31-2014:k  Leaving anchorage at Old Lock #1, Mile 100.0 on the Tenn-Tom. 





Sunday the 1st of June, Old Lock #1 to King Fisher Bay Marina, Demopolis, AL, Mile 216.7 on the Tenn-Tom Waterway:

We were on our way at day break; 05:20. It was clear all night and sun shine with just a few clouds this morning and the temp was 72 degrees. We got to the Coffeeville Dam by 07:10 and had to wait ½ hour for a tow and another boat locking down. We locked up 34 feet. From now on we no longer have to worry about tides. It turned into a beautiful day with just 2 short rain showers in the afternoon. We encountered 6 tows throughout the day and averaged between 9 and 10 mph. We traveled 116 miles in 13.25 hours with 2 locks and got to Kingfisher Bay Marina in Demopolis, AL, by 18:45. We were both very tired but glad to finally get here. We had a quick dinner, watched a little TV, and early to bed. I did not get up until 09:00 on Monday.

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W87.84155


CO's comments  The forecast for Sunday all the way to Demopolis was dume and glume.  This was another day that the forecasters got it all wrong.  We only had 45 drops of rain on the boat all day.  Thank goodness for our hard top on the bridge and no isinglass because Saturday it rained.   We talked with another boater that was ahead of us on Saturday and he had canvas and isenglass and he spend the whole day mopping up water and looking through a crack in his isinglass just to see where he was going.  We came up behind a tow that was close to a bend in the river and asked to pass at  his convenience.  He came back and said he would stop so we could pass him before the bend because it would take him a long time to maneuver the bend and he would completely utilize the whole river.  In all our years in traveling the river system, this is only about the 3rd time a tow captain has been so courteous.  The XO called him back and thanked him very much.

 

6-1-2014:  Heron on the side of the river.

 

 

6-1-2014:  Demopolis Lock and Dam.