Goodbye Sea Life

We leave behind the dolphins and the pelicans.  We'll see you again in the fall.  Our landscape continually changed today.  Mobile Bay was smooth, hardly a ripple, probably the smoothest we have ever been across it.  We departed Eastern Shore Marina at about seven o'clock this morning, leaving "The Bar-B" behind at Saunders Yachtworks.  We waited for the river to go down, we waited for Barbara to return from her trip to Milwaukee, but we could no longer wait for more of their boat repairs to get done.  We actually rented a car and made a trip home to Murphy so that Ray could oversee the progress of a new and different style spec house Newcomb Construction is building.  Less than a week was not enough, he wants to get back up there and make management decisions with a first-hand visual perspective.  The photographs and phone calls are just not enough for this new endeavor.
Once we got into the ship channel of Mobile Bay it was constant chatter and movement of ships and tows.  It is quite a sight to be so close to seeing how freight is moved from country to country.  It is also amazing how quickly it turns from such a metropolis to a desolate swamp.  The high rises immediately give way to cypress trees, Spanish moss and cat tails with some palm trees and hardwood mixed in.  Not much to see for almost 25 miles of travel on a pretty straight river except two bald eagles, three alligators, a hawk, other water birds and several turtles.  That was until we finally caught up to "Greenwave", the first of two up bound tows, right where the river starts to get curvy, and by curvy I mean S curves and switch backs.  "Greenwave" with six barges first overtook "Joe Cain" with three barges.  So we followed suit and overtook "Joe Cain" with permission from the captain.  At this point we are between "Greenwave" and "Joe Cain" when the first down bound tow came by, "Mr. David" with three barges.  Next we overtook "Greenwave" with that captain's approval before the next down bound tow, "Safety Runner" came by.  It actually worked out perfect despite the twists and turns.
Another 15 miles or so and we were dropping anchor in David Lake for the night.  That put 57 miles under our keel today in a little over nine hours.  The river seems to be pretty much at normal stage right now.  We hope it stays that way as predicted.