Overcast Day

It was discussed last night whether we wanted to do a long day today or a short day of travel.  Ray was sick of the long days.  With that decided, we also opted to turn off the alarm and just wake up whenever.  I will blame it on the overcast skies.  I figured it was about 5:30 a.m. when I chose to look at the clock.  It was 7:30 a.m.!  Oh my!  Why were we such sleepy heads?  I guess it was just so peaceful and quiet.  About that time an up bound tow came by.  Well, that would probably hinder us, but might as well get up and get going anyway.  So by eight o'clock we were pulling up the anchor.
A couple hours in we were approached from behind by a large pleasure craft "Kaybird" in which the captain was very hard to understand but asked for permission to overtake me "On my two" were his exact words.  I looked back to make sure of his intentions.  I almost got back on the radio to explain to him that there was not "my two", but figured it was a waste of breath.  Maybe I should have though because soon after that he called the tow "Cecil" and requested to overtake him on "his two".  Well, he went on the wrong side, but I guess it all worked out.
A few hours into our trip we overtook the tow "Cecil".  Then we determined that we better travel a little bit faster to get farther ahead of this tow and not get us all messed up at the lock.  We heard "Kaybird" call Tom Bevill Lock and we heard the lockmaster ask him about "The Second Noelle".  These lockmasters are so nice and efficient in keeping track of where vessels are on the Tombigbee.

Today it was a pair of golden eagles.

About 1:00 p.m. I called Tom Bevill Lock on the VHF radio and told the lockmaster we had about a 30 minute ETA.  He told me to keep coming, then he called "Cecil" to find out how far back he was.  "Cecil" stated about an hour ETA.  Perfect!  That gave us time to get in and out in ten minutes and "Cecil" was next.
A half hour later we dropped anchor near Pickensville Recreation Area.  We have been here several times but have never explored the park.  Today we took our trash to shore as we have done but also took a nice walk through what come to find out is just a day use park with picnic tables, grills, pavilions, a boat ramp, a swimming area, restrooms, fishing docks and a nice screened in fish cleaning station.  I can see why that is with all of the flies that we have collected in the past couple of days.  Now I remember why I have fly strips on board.  I think I bought them last time for this area.