I thought I said no more pelicans

Again a peaceful anchorage despite the tows that passed at 12:30 and 5:30 a.m.  They were so quiet though we did not hear them until their wake splashed under the boat.  I guess our new departure time is 6:45 a.m. since that is what we seem to be doing lately.
Today was fairly uneventful.  Of course "Moondancer" overtook us again, along with another pleasure boat.  The only tow seen today was "The Black Belt" going down river.
About a mile before Demopolis Lock we hailed them on the VHF radio to request lockage up.  The lockmaster proceeded to tell us that we have been through that lock several times and should have known to call them about three miles before the lock and he would have had it ready for us and we would not have had to wait.  Well, this was quite a change, especially compared to the locks on the Tennessee River where the lockmasters always seem to tell you to call them when you get to the arrival point which is only a couple thousand feet before the lock.

They are kind of hard to see, but if you look closely, a lot of the white in this picture is white pelicans hanging out in the overflow area of Demopolis Lock.  There were hundreds of them.  Must be a good stop on their migration.

Well, I just took advantage of the time waiting for the lock to watch the white pelicans.  At 3:30 p.m. we were inside.  The lockmaster came over and proceeded to tell us that he has been a professional mariner for over 20 years so could he give us his opinion on what we should do differently in the lock.  We wanted to listen.  He gave a few pointers that we might try one of, but told him we were used to fighting to keep our boat against the wall in the lock because of the bad placement of our mid-ship cleat.
We were out of there in 15 minutes and pulled up to the fuel dock at Demopolis Yacht Basin a half hour later.  We had gone 679 miles since our last fuel stop in Madiera Beach, Florida.
Once we were docked in our slip we did a couple quick chores, then hopped on our bicycles to have some chicken wings at the sports bar in town.  This is way smaller than you are picturing, but to us it has been the best place to eat in town, which is not really saying much.  The long awaited chicken wings were quite disappointing this time.  Guess we will make something to eat on the boat for dinner tomorrow night.  We are going to stay here an extra day as usual to get some laundry and provisioning done although both of these are minimal since we have stopped at marinas a lot more than we normally do.