Cinco de Mayo

Everyone commented on what a peaceful night’s sleep it was on David Lake last night.  I did hear a tow or two go by, but no wake to go with it.  Plus it was nice, cool sleeping weather.  I have been getting up early to take care of all of the Captains chores.  I was still ready to go earlier than planned so I let Bill know, and we lifted anchor before 6:00 a.m.  There was a lot more debris in the water than yesterday, although most of it small.  Thankfully that diminished significantly once we were above the Alabama River.  It was slow going although it did get slightly better as the day progressed.  The current is strong, but the water level did drop about three feet during the day according to the Jackson Railroad Bridge when I hailed him to find out the vertical clearance.

Today we passed a total of four tows heading down river, most of them the usual suspects.  The last one informed us that the river is about 10-12 feet above normal.  There was one tow behind us, but never did catch up by the time we pulled into Old Lock 1 to anchor after 12 and a half hours of travel to go 62 miles.  We are anchored in the shallow lake that is normally two to three feet deep.  Tonight we are in 14 feet of water.  “Conched Out Too” and “The Bar-B” followed in right away after finally catching me around Jackson.  Then “Priorities” pulled in after going about 30 more miles today than we did to catch up.

Bill and Patty came over via dinghy to pick me up.  I couldn’t get the plug for the dinghy to work properly to get ours down.  I showed them around on shore a little bit.  Hopefully they will get to explore more in the fall on the way down.  There were a few mosquitos this evening, but nothing like last fall.  Maybe they’ll have better luck.  We each had a few May Flies on our boats this morning.  We’re hoping that’s not a sign of things to come.

After that we all (except “Priorities”) dinghied over to “The Bar-B” for a delicious Cinco de Mayo dinner.  A smorgasbord of make-your-own nachos with contributions from us all.