On the Side of the River

This morning seemed as though it was going to be a repeat of yesterday morning.  Ray swore that at 4:45 a.m. it was clear as a bell, but when the alarm went off at five o'clock it was foggy.  It ended up being only an hour delay compared to when we wanted to leave though.  The sun did not break through for long this time though as a very dark cloud passed over us shortly after departure and drizzled just a few rain drops on us.  From then on it remained cloudy, but felt like such a relief compared to yesterday's heat and humidity.  About three hours into the trip we reached Coffeeville Lock where the lower gauge read 20 feet above normal.  Therefore we only lifted about 13 feet instead of the usual 33.  That is still ten feet lower than two years ago.  Shortly after exiting the lock we pulled over to Bobby's Fish Camp where we swore we would never stop again since we would never need fuel at that point with our new fuel consumption.  We didn't figure in all this current against us though.  We probably would not have needed to under normal conditions.  We made the conscious decision to try to get to Demopolis before fueling since they have the best price.  Making sure we would make it there now though, we took on 80 gallons.
The sun did peak out once in a while today amongst the few showers on and off.  Our speed increased ever so slightly once we were above Coffeeville Lock.  The upper gauge there showed this pool to be one foot lower than normal, but there was probably still about a one and a half mile per hour current.  Even so, there is not much choice other than to anchor on the side of the river before our next stop.  That's what we did after 62 miles of travel today, where we usually do behind some red buoys.  The only problem is, those buoys must have been wiped out during some kind of flooding as there are not any here.  Just as we were setting anchor though, the tow "Ashleigh" came downstream, so we announced to him over the VHF radio that we would be anchoring here for the night and asked that he pass along that information to any other tows he came across.  He said he would, and as of shortly before bed time, there have not been any more to pass by.  We will see what the rest of the night brings.  Hopefully a peaceful night's sleep as there is absolutely no wind to worry about.