Turtles sunning on Bay Springs Lake.
We left the marina at 10:45 and made the 4 mile run to Rankin lock. I called them when we were about 15 minutes away, and the lockmaster said he would empty the chamber and have it ready for us. Fantastic timing, which repeated itself two more times today at the Montgomery and the Whitten lock.
In the foreground is the Natchez Trace bridge over the Tenn-Tom. Just ahead is the 84' lift Whitten lock.
In all of the eight locks we went through in the last two days, we had a strong southerly wind coming into the chamber, which made positioning the boat and catching the bollard with a line very stressful. Just as I got her stopped along the wall, the wind would catch the rear of the boat and push it out and away from the wall. There were a couple of times when the rubrail on the bow "kissed" the wall, and a couple of times I had to really stretch to loop the line over the bollard just in time as we were being blown away from it.
The HUGE gates of the Whitten Lock. Thankfully, this was the last Tenn-Tom lock for us.
Of the 10 locks we've gone through since Tuesday, 9 of them lifted us 30 feet or less. The last one, the Jamie Whitten Lock, is different. This is the lock that takes you up 84 feet to the "canal section" of the Tenn-Tom Waterway. It was extreemly intimidating to be bobbing around in what seemed like a very tiny boat, at the bottom of a concrete chamber 600 feet long and 110 feet wide, looking at 2 steel doors that are holding back an 84' tall wall of water! The mechanics of how the locks operate has always fascinated me, but after the last 3 days I'm really a little tired of going through them. I'm really glad that we are finished with locks for at least the next 80 miles. The next one will be th Wilson lock near Florence, AL.
Genesis enters the Whitten Lock.
The view if the chamber wall from Genesis' deck.
After rising 84', the gates finally opened onto Bay Springs Lake!
The "Ronald Sensenback" arrived to lock downstream just as we were coming out of the Whitten Lock.
Just before we arrived at the Whitten Lock, we passed under the Natchez Trace Bridge, which brought back some fantasic memories from 20 years ago. At least 4 times in the past, Glenda and I had bicycled over that bridge as we rode down the Natchez Trace. Once was a trip we took with all three of our children when we spent a week bicycling and camping our way down the Trace. Another trip was with about 20 adults and teenagers from our church, who bicycled from somewhere in Tennessee down to French Camp, Mississippi over 5 days. It seems impossible that those teenagers are now in thier 30's. I hope they have good memories about the time they rode a bicycle for over 200 miles!
Our total mileage for today was only 25 miles, and we are now anchored in a quiet cove on Bay Springs Lake. Tomorrow we will finish the Tenn-Tom Waterway as we pass through the corner where Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi meet, and we'll turn East onto the Tennessee River.
Glenda says:
I have come down with a summer cold. With puffy eyes and sneezing constantly, I appreciated our night at midway marina. Everyone was very nice. I took cold medicine and went to bed early last night. This morning we were able to wash clothes and make a walmart run. We wanted to give "Satisfaction" a chance to get through the lock so we wouldn't slow them down all day like we did yesterday. I'm still not feeling great but I took some daytime cold medicine and we headed up the river. We hit each lock with perfect timing. So even though we got a late start, by 4 pm we are settled into our achorage. It is sunny but very windy. Even though it is close to 90 degrees it is not hot. We are in a cove not far off the main river and I am watching for critters and blowing my nose. (If anybody is wondering about Daisy: she is usually with us but she had to babysit this week. Hopefully she will be with us next time )
We sat on the deck enjoying our "private" anchorage this afternoon, and watching osprey hunt for supper.
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