No Waiting to Get In

Of course this morning was not foggy, but we had to wait for the campground office to open so we could get ice.  Come to find out their winter hours are even better than bankers hours.  Some people in the park told us yesterday evening that they were open four hours a day now during winter hours and that they would be open from 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. last night and then again at 8:00 a.m.  With that said I guessed the hours must be 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m., 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.  Come to find out I was right on the money.  Anyway the 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. hours were too late for us last night.  We're in bed about that time after getting up at 5:45 a.m. every morning.
So on this Columbus Day, we didn't leave Columbus until about 8:30 a.m. after getting ice for the cooler via dinghy and putting it back on the davits.  An hour later we were at Stennis Lock with no wait for the first time on the Tenn-Tom this trip.  Ten minutes later they were opening the doors at the lower end.
I think it is always about the same time, around 1:00 p.m. that we are on the river where it snakes back and forth between Mississippi and Alabama a few times until we are in Alabama for good.  Today was no exception.
An hour later we were anchored near the Pickensville Recreation Area after 34 miles of travel in five hours.  Since it was so early we decided to take the dinghy and explore around what we just discovered was an island near where we usually anchor.  That exploration took us a while as we had a hard time figuring out where to navigate until we turned on the Navionics charts on Ray's phone.  Before doing that though we hit something hard with the prop and we ran aground.  Always an adventure.
After that we dinghied to shore to collect wood to make a fire in a grill at the recreation area.  We do not have charcoal on board and this particular park did not have fire pits.  Once we felt we had enough wood gathered to make dinner we went back to the boat to gather supplies.  We ended up making pizza hobo pies.  Having a couple each we were too full to make s'mores although we brought along everything for them also.

Pea Soup on the Menu Again

This is at anchor looking toward the channel that is less than 300 feet away.

This morning we had to wait a while for the fog to lift. We didn't get underway until just after 8:30 a.m.
At 11:00 a.m. we were in Wilkins Lock.  We took our time the five miles to the next lock because there was a tow "Blake Boyd" coming up in it.

This was as the sun was trying to clear away the fog.
This is also the steep embankment Linda climbed to walk to Walmart yesterday.
Part of the walk included railroad tracks.

By 12:30 p.m. we were in Amory Lock but had to wait a short time for three pleasure boats to join us.  Two of them were boats we locked with yesterday, "Time Out" and "Ariel", but the additional boat was "Touch of Class".

The Lock Master there was incredibly nice to a boater above Wilkins Lock who called to ask all about anchoring possibilities over the VHF radio because he heard the Lock Master tell us that there was a dredge working where he intended to anchor.  I would never had that much patience.
Anyway, we got out of there and were all in Aberdeen Lock at about 2:45 p.m.  The three other vessels were nice enough to have the Lock Master hold the lock for us slow pokes.

 By 3:00 p.m. we were on the home stretch to make it to our intended anchorage with no more obstacles in our way.  It took another two and a half hours but we made it to Dewayne Hayes Recreation Area in Columbus, Mississippi after 50 miles in nine hours.

The two pictures above just looked like the perfect lake homestead to me this morning.



Typical bass fishermen we see all the time. 
When I saw the photo opportunity the sun was behind them and it looked like a neat silhouette.
By the time the camera was ready this is what I got.

We watched this young bald eagle trying to catch breakfast this morning.
Most of the bald eagles we have spotted this trip seem to be juvenile.

Oh What a Day

At Cotton Springs we are very near to Whitten Lock which makes it convenient to listen to tow traffic on the VHF radio and call the Lock Master to find out locking status before we ever bother to pull up anchor.  In listening to the VHF last night, we were able to decipher that the Army Corps of Engineers work boat "Tenn-Tom" was anchoring below the lock for the evening and would be locking through first thing in the morning.
We figured we would listen to the VHF this morning for when "Tenn-Tom" would come up and then we would lock down.  Before that ever happened we saw a tow and barges heading down river.  Listening to the VHF we heard that "Tenn-Tom" would lock up after that tow "Jeff Brumfield" locked down.  We went ahead and called the Lock Master and got on the list to lock down after "Tenn-Tom" came up.
All of this and we haven't even lifted anchor yet, but we did at 7:45 a.m.  We milled around waiting for all of the above to get done.  While we were milling two other pleasure boats called Whitten Lock but opted to wait until all of this tow traffic got cleared.  However, just as we were about to enter the chamber, they called the Lock Master again asking if they should join us.  They said they would be 30 minutes before they could get there so the Lock Master told them he couldn't wait that long.  We didn't get out of Whitten Lock until about 9:10 a.m. after about an 85 foot drop.
Once we exited the lock "Alice Parker" was the next tow headed up stream, so we met and passed.  Then "Gary Moss" was the following tow headed up stream, so we met and passed them.  At 10:00 a.m. we anchored above Montgomery Lock to wait our turn still following "Jeff Brumfield".  By the time we were able to get into the lock for our turn at 11:30 a.m. the other two pleasure boats, "Ariel" and "Time Out" caught up to us along with a third pleasure boat "Ramblin Girl".  We were all out of there by 12:00 p.m.  "Cherokee" was the next tow we met and passed after that.
Still following "Jeff Brumfield", we kept a slow pace to Rankin Lock knowing it would be the same kind of wait.  We had some discussion with the other pleasure boats trying to explain that there was no sense in going faster.  All agreed.  We arrived at Rankin Lock at about 1:30 p.m.  By this time a Sea Ray named "It's Wanda-ful" joined in the wait to lock down.  An hour later we were all out.  Leave it to the Wanda-ful Sea Ray to decide to go 20 miles an hour and pass us all with a tremendous wake.  Ray gave him an ear full, using a few more expletives as he asked where he thought he was going to get to.  We're still all in line to follow "Jeff Brumfield".
Midway Marina and a few of its residents gave the same guy an ear full too as he went blowing by.  "Ariel" and "Time Out" pulled into Midway Marina as things were still being said about Mr. Wanda-ful.  When we arrived to Fulton Lock at about 3:15 p.m. "Ramblin Girl" was more diplomatically telling "It's Wanda-ful" about his inconsideration.  All along Mr. Wanda-ful sounded like he was about 80 and smoked at least a pack a day.  I think we were pretty accurate as he proceeded to explain how he has run boats for 50 years and this was his 39th time on the Tenn-Tom.  How he hasn't been shot, I don't know.
A half hour later we were out of Fulton Lock, glad to see "It's Wanda-ful" go.  Fifteen minutes later we pulled into an abandoned port, Itawamba, in Fulton, Mississippi.  If you are keeping track, all of our overnight anchorages except last night have been new to us.  This was no exception, but in keeping with adventure, we decided this would be the closest anchorage to Walmart to get a few provisions.  Almost immediately Ray lowered the dinghy into the water and took me to shore.  Ray wanted to stay with the boat since we have never been here before, we only read that it was abandoned and it was okay to anchor here, and the winds were blowing out of the north at about ten miles an hour.  Not exactly comfortable for this narrow port that was used to load and unload barges.  It is probably about the size of a football field with a steep embankment up to road level.  Speaking of football, I headed off to Walmart with the score Georgia 24, Tennessee 3 as we were listening to the game on Sirius radio.  It ended up being about a mile trek each way with fences preventing a lot of short cuts.  When I returned just before 6:00 p.m. the score was tied at 24.  What happened?  Then it went downhill from there.  Also if you're keeping track, we traveled about 25 miles (some of that milling in figure eights) but it took us over 8 hours.

Two Hours

This was the view of the Tennessee River from our anchorage last night.
We were also visited by a couple of beaver, but those pictures didn't turn out.

It was an early start to the day when we lifted anchor at 6:45 a.m.  It was clear motoring ahead.  Well, it was for the first hour.  Then we were pretty socked into fog for the next two hours.  Come to find out we weren't the only idiot cruisers though.  We met three other cruising vessels going the opposite direction in the same pea soup.
At 11:30 a.m. we turned onto the Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway.  Finally heading south after traveling west for days.  That also put us into the state of Mississippi, leaving Alabama behind for a while.
Around 2:00 p.m. it started raining.  I think the storm was moving in the same direction at the same speed as we were.  For a long time the skies ahead looked bright and promising.  Then the skies behind looked to be clear.  The dark cloud followed us for two hours.
At 5:30 p.m. we dropped anchor near Cotton Springs after 72 miles of travel in just under 11 hours.  The rain came back to visit us for most of the evening and into the night.

The evening rain clouds that came to visit us.

Detailed Locking

We awoke to plenty of bass boats leaving Ingalls Harbor in Decatur this morning.  We untied from the free dock at 7:00 a.m.  We arrived at Wheeler Lock before 10:45 a.m. to find two other pleasure boats already there waiting to lock down.  A pleasure boat finally came up and out of the lock so we were able to proceed with entering the lock.  We wanted to be courteous and allow everyone to enter in the order they were there, but we had to actually yell out the window for the 22 foot sailboat "Fiddlers Green" ahead of us to get moving.  Well his moving was even slower than the trawler "Friar Tuck" ahead of him.  We traveled into the lock behind him doing about two miles an hour.  Just about the time the sailboat finally entered the lock the motor quit so we saw him pulling on it several times to get it started again.  This made for an hour to lock through for a 48 foot drop.
"Friar Tuck" traveled faster than us so they moved across Wilson Lake ahead of us as we left "Fiddlers Green" behind us.  We discussed trying to keep up with "Friar Tuck", but they were pulling away so fast we decided it was not worth the waste of fuel.  We were happy that we didn't as we got closer to Wilson Lock the tow "Joe Cain" was going down ahead of us so there would be a wait anyway.  The Lock Master was not answering either of us pleasure craft on the radio, so we really didn't know how long it would be.  We slowed down for a short while, then decided to pull into the tiny cove we have ducked into before to wait out a storm.  It seems it always rains on us in Wilson Lake on our way down.  Once we were anchored and protected from the winds we called the Lock Master on the telephone.  He stated it would be about 45 minutes until he was ready for us.  We actually pulled out of the cove about ten minutes early to find that "Friar Tuck" was already in there.  The Lock Master was nice enough to lower the gate and let us in also.


Here we are inside the lock, tied to a bollard that floats up and down with the water.
On this particular lock, the upper gate (usually a set of doors) lowers and raises.
Here the gate is up to stop the water from the lake beyond from entering.

It came to my attention over the summer that some people do not know/understand how a lock works.  A lock is attached to a dam.  Instead of spilling over the dam we pull into the lock to get lowered.  It is the opposite when coming back up to get above the dam.  These pictures are of Wilson Lock, the highest lock east of the Mississippi River.

These are the lower doors while the we are still at the "top" of the lock.

They drain the water out of this chamber we are in.
Here again are the lower doors as we are dropping in water level.
Towards the bottom right of this picture you can see one of those bollards we tie to.
There are different amounts of bollards in each lock.

At the top of this picture is that gate that raises and lowers.
Again, this is usually another set of doors, although the bottom section is always a concrete barrier.
Yes, it does leak a little bit.  They all do.  Some worse than others.

We exited Wilson Lock just after 3:00 p.m.  Once we got out of the lock channel with no current and into the dam water being released we were traveling two to three miles an hour faster.  That put us at our anchorage in Little Bear Creek at 4:30 p.m.  The delays at the locks did not help our average speed today as it took us nine and a half hours to travel 51 miles.

Here are the lower doors opening to let us out at the much lower water level.
You can see the dark water stain starting at the top to see how far we dropped.
On this particular lock it is 93 feet.

Nothing to See Here

This morning we planned to leave at sun up.  According to the forecast we figured it would be foggy and it was.  It would get better and worse as we sat there in the anchorage.  We could tell it was worse out on the main channel, but at 7:00 a.m. we decided to go for it.  We would turn around and come back into the anchorage if it was too bad.  We were planning on another long day so we wanted to get going if we could.  We announced ourselves getting underway and heard no reply on the VHF radio.  Visibility was about an eighth of a mile, so we navigated by GPS and radar knowing we would be able to see if something was directly in front of us.  It took about two hours to completely dissipate today although there were places that were clear at times in between.

This was one spot where it was clear for a while but then we entered more fog.

Approaching the town of Guntersville the fog lifted for the remainder of the day.  While it was foggy though we were unable to observe the continued progress of rebuilding from the tornadoes from several years back.  What we were able to see though, there are some really nice, large houses that have been built along a path that one of them took.  I guess the developer took advantage of the land already being cleared.



We thought we were going to time our arrival to Guntersville Lock just right as we heard an up bound pleasure craft approaching it ahead of us.  That would mean the water in the chamber would be up and ready for us to lock down.  Unfortunately just about the time we would arrive another up bound pleasure was going to reach the lock also.  When that pleasure craft called, the Lock Master instructed him to go to the auxiliary chamber.  We thought that meant maybe he would go up in that chamber while we went down in the main chamber.  No such luck.  We were instructed to wait for that vessel to exit the auxiliary chamber and then it would be our turn.  So we had to wait about a half an hour.  Just about the time it was our turn though, the Lock Master switched us to the main chamber because there was an up bound tow coming next.  Therefore we ended up locking down today at almost the exact time we did yesterday.
We were out of Guntersville Lock at about 11:45 a.m. and almost immediately passed the tow "Joe Cain".  We tried calling it on the VHF radio to find out which side to pass but got no response.
The rest of the travel day was pretty uneventful, passing more pleasure boats presumably going up to Chattanooga or beyond, and one more tow, "Winchester".
We arrived at Decatur, Alabama's free dock shortly after 5:00 p.m. after 74 miles of travel in just over ten hours. We were both hungry so we almost immediately got our bicycles ready and peddled to Mellow Mushroom for dinner.  Have to say the quality there was much better than the downtown Chattanooga location was all summer.  I think we finally got the shortest/best bicycle route figured out now.  We always seemed to take the long way there and the short way back.

Restart What I Never Finished

I never finished the blog in the spring when we returned to Chattanooga.  It is so exciting to see our old friends and it was a whirlwind as soon as we arrived.
The summer seemed to fly by with house building and doing things on the boat we never had time for over the winter.  The boat list is still not complete, but I think it is actually a little shorter which is quite an accomplishment in the boating world.
After spending a fun weekend in downtown Chattanooga with lots of our boating friends here, we made one last drive to Murphy, North Carolina and back for a dental appointment on Monday.  That gave us the ability to depart this morning around 7:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time.  We wanted it to be bright enough to see debris in the water from all of the rain.  That worked out well until we got to Williams Island where the fog set in.  It wasn't terribly thick and dissipated soon after we entered it.  The patchy fog lingered for several hours but never seemed to be less than about a quarter mile sight distance.  That made for a delay in the 60 degree temperature to climb to 80, but it did.
An hour and a half into our trip we entered Central Time Zone.  That put us at our usual anchorage around 11:00 a.m. Central Daylight Time.  That seemed way too early to stop for the day, so we continued on with a few options in mind for anchoring ahead.  At 11:25 a.m. we were in Nickajack Lock for about a 35 foot drop in water level.  About an hour later we entered the state of Alabama.  I told Ray that if he heard shots being fired it would probably be at his Georgia burgee flag flying on the bow.
The day was filled with bald eagle sightings and several up bound pleasure craft presumably taking a side trip on their Great Loop excursion before the rendezvous at Joe Wheeler State Park coming up shortly.  It is always our intention to stay well ahead of that influx of boaters.  Between that and trying to meet up with "The Bar-B", our longtime cruising buddies, we put a lot of miles under the keel today, especially for us.  We ended up anchoring just east of Goose Pond after 11 hours and 84 miles of travel.