Dead or Alive

Our habitual 6:45 a.m. was the time we lifted anchor again being light enough to navigate.  We didn't go quite as fast today knowing that it was going to be a little bit shorter day.  Gotta save what fuel we can.  It ended up we should have bumped it up of course.  Just before we got around the corner in sight of Bobby's Fish Camp a pleasure boat called Coffeeville Lock to lock down.  We assumed it was the same vessel that was at Demopolis with us yesterday but locked through later and overtook us uncomfortably close with too big of a wake in our opinion.  Then we knew there was a north bound tow coming up to Coffeeville Lock because "The Bar-B" has AIS, so we sped it up anyway.  Once we were close enough to call the lock, they informed us that the north bound tow would be locked up first.  Here we were again, waiting on a lock for over an hour.
By the time we got in it was 12:05 p.m.  There was a tour going on at the lock so we had an audience, but after just 15 minutes we were down through our last lock with the water level four feet above normal.  That gave us a little bit of a push, but we let "The Bar-B" go ahead of us so they could do their normal faster speed and get anchored sooner to make the day not quite so long for them.


Yesterday we spotted a large alligator on the bank, but by the time "The Bar-B" got there it had gone into the water because of our wake.  It was not long after we were out of Coffeeville Lock today when they announced that there was an alligator on the bank and it would be still be there by the time we got up to it.  We wondered how they knew that.  Once we got up there we laughed at the obvious reason this alligator was not going to move.  It sure was a funny sight, but the buzzards seemed to be enjoying it.

This alligator seemed to be having a better day.

It was almost an 11 hour travel day by the time we dropped anchor on the side of the river again with "The Bar-B"s experience near Sunflower Cut Off.  We traveled 68 miles today, but some of that was back and forth waiting for the lock.