We left our anchorage on Bay Springs lake just after 6:00 this morning and went North. After an hour or so, we entered the "divide cut" section of the Tenn-Tom waterway. This is the completely man made canal that connected the Tennessee river basin with the Tombigbee system.
Passing a tow on the divide cut section.
35 miles from our starting point this morning, we turned East onto the Tennessee River (after a brief loop in the middle of the river where the AL, TN, and MS State lines touch)
The blue dot is us at the three-state intersection.
We saw more osprey today - many of them on nest atop channel markers.
This osprey glared
at us then flew off the nest when we got too close.
We made good time most of the day, and by lunch time I realized that we could be at Wilson lock by about 5:00 pm, and possibly lock through and find an anchorage before dark. The Wilson lock is getting some maintenance done during the day, and is only open from about 4:00 pm until 7:00 am. If we couldn't get through today, we would have to anchor out and try it after sunrise tomorrow, as my eyes are too old to drive on the river at night. I was afraid that I would have to compete with commercial traffic, and might not get through during the small window of daylight that I had.
This part of the Tennessee is gourgous, and so are the houses!
By 4:30 we were in Florence and entering the 3 mile channel leading to th lock, so I radioed them. I was told that I could probably lock through today, but there was one tow/barge combo ahead on me. We arrived at the gate at 5:00 and found the towboat Ms. Audrey Dean, with barges, as well as a houseboat waiting at the gate. My AIS receiver showed that another towboat was in the lock, about to exit upstream. I tried to calculate how long it would take to empty the chamber, lock up Audrey Dean, empty it again, then lock me and the houseboat up together. It was going to be hard to make it by dark. As I was about to turn around and seek an anchorage for the night, I heard the lock operator call Audrey Dean. He told the captain that he wanted to lock us all up TOGETHER, to which the tow captain replied "TOGETHER??!!". This was another very tall lock, and I was more than mildly apprehensive about sharing it with a towboat, 4 barges and a houseboat loaded with what seemed be teenagers. Another small boat had now joined the wait, too.
Waiting to if we could lock through at Wilson Lock in Florence, AL.
When the gates finally opened, the towboat captain positioned two barges side by side at the front of the lock, then the remaining two against the left wall of the lock. Finally he uncoupled from the barges and pulled alongside them. This left just enough room for the 3 pleasure boats to squeeze in and tie to the bollards. It seemed to take forever, but we finally made it to the top and to Wilson Lake level. With the gates open, we crept by the front barge and made our way out of the lock with about 30 minutes of daylight left.
I found out later that Wilson is the tallest single lift lock East of the Rocky Mountains, at 94 feet!
Inside Wilson lock with Ms. Audrey Dean.
Looking backwards as the gates shut us in.
Towboat and barges on the left, the houseboat directly ahead.
We found an anchorage about a mile away and dropped the anchor in about 50' of water.
It was a long day for both of us - 81 miles and almost 14 hours! The good news is that we have only two more locks to go to Guntersville!
Glenda says:
I felt much better today. Still sneezing but at least it does not feel like my head is about to exlode. We had a long day. It was fun to see where we dipped the bicycle tires into the water before our family bike trip down the natchez trace years ago. Life with Tom has always been a great adventure. There was a good bit of boat traffic on this holiday weekend. It was fun to see the fishermen at just the moment they caught a fish. We got into Florence around 5:00. It looked like we were not going to get to lock through the wilson lock until in the morning. But the lock master put us and two other pleasure craft in the lock with the tow and barges. Needless to say Tom was very stressed. But it was quite an adventure. We were just behind a party boat full of teenagers making bad decisions. I think that is all I'll say about that because as a retired teacher it just makes me sad. Just out of the lock we entered a beautiful little cove. I bailed out the dinghy and we are finally settling down for the night.
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