Saturday, May 27, 2017

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.

Friday, May 26, 2017

This morning we took the opportunuty to do some housekeeping chores while we were docked at Midway Marina.  The trawler "Bar-B" and the sailboat "Norne Gaest", who left Demopolis with us on Tuesday, both were gone from the dock when we got up. "Satisfaction", the sailboat that we shared 3 locks with yesterday, left the marina a little before 10:00, so he could lock through at the Montgomery lock ahead of us and not be constrained by our slower pace again. 

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.

Thursday, May 25, 2017

 We pulled up the anchor and started down the oxbow at about 6:30 this morning. We had to backtrack about 3 miles to the south entrance of the oxbow, because the upper entrance is prone to shoaling, and we didn't want to take a chance of grounding. 

Today was a long day for us - almost 12 hours of running, going through 5 locks, and a total of 68.9 miles.

We locked through at Stennis, Aberdeen, Amory, Wilkins, and Fulton locks. In the first 4 locks, 1 or 2 other boats arrived ahead of us and had to wait on our slower boat to get there so we could go up together. The other captains were nice about it, but I felt bad for making them wait. The faster of the two, a small C-Dory named "Grumpy" was able to stretch his lead and lock through ahead of me at the Amory lock. "Satisfaction", a planing style trawler, got far enough ahead of me that he locked through at Fulton while I was still an hour away. We went solo through the Fulton lock, and caught up with "Satisfaction" at Midway Marina when we got here about 6:15 tonight. 

Here is the screenshot of our track today:

This was a shot as we left the River Front Park anchorage, travelling back down the oxbow toward the Tenn-Tom:

Barges loaded with scrap metal just south of the Stennis Lock in Columbus:

When we passed the "Captain Anthony" pushing all these barges loaded with rock, I radioed him and ask what his load weighed. He took a minute to check his paperwork and reported a NET tonnage of 11,200 TONS!!! (That is 22,400,000 pounds, not counting the tow boat or barge weight! )

We're pretty sure this was a juvenile bald eagle that we saw north of Columbus:

And an osprey taking care of her baby or babies. We could only see one little one. They were just above the Fulton lock.

And finally this cormorant (??) was drying his wings when we passed.

Midway Marina in Fulton, MS. Our little Genesis is at the dock in the center of the picture.

And this is for our grandaughter Abby, who loves willow flies (aka Mayflies). Everything here is covered in them!

Glenda was tired from handling the dinghy at all the locks, so she went to bed early.

We have 56 miles and 3 more locks to go until we turn East on the Tennessee River! 

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

We pulled anchor this morning and were headed upstream again by about 6:30, after a peaceful night in our at anchor.

We played leapfrog all day with a couple of towboats and 2 sailboats, all of which were traveling about the same speed as we were. The 2 faster boats that we travelled with yesterday were able to break from the pack and get to the Beville lock ahead of the two towboats. We arrived about the same time as the tows, so we had to wait for them to lock upstream. So we sat, idled up and down and turned a few circles while we waited 2 1/2 hours for our turn. (Commercial vessels have priority).

The high point of the day was seeing the two adult bald eagles, who patiently posed for me to get good pictures before flying away.

As we got close to Columbus, there was a lot of river traffic and congestion. At one point, We were travelling between 2 sailboats, with a tow bringing up the rear. As we approached 3 stationary tows and several smaller boats on our right, another southbound tow radioed that he was about to meet us. The stationary vessels were laying a huge pipline, and were taking up half the channel. The southbound tow radioed that his barges were 110' wide. We ducked in between two of the pipeline tows, and let him pass. You can't win a right-of-way arguement with a boat that's pushing twelve thousand tons of cargo!

Here's a screenshot of our 58 mile route today:

   

We had originally planned on making it through the Columbus lock today, but after our delay at Beville lock, we decided to anchor South of the Columbus lock. My chart showed an anchorage at the North end of an oxbow that was close enough to town to walk from shore. After weaving through a tight passage at a barge loading dock, and passing under 3 bridges, we were rewarded with a great, calm anchorage at the edge of Columbus's Riverfront Park. There was even a modern, floating dinghy dock for us to use! 

Glenda says:

There are always interesting things to see along the river.  

Maybe i should get one of these for my grandkids.

After we finally got through the lock we past the last working snag boat on the tenn-tom.  I think it retired sometime in the 80s.

We pulled into our anchorage about 5:30.  We had both already cleaned up so we got into the dinghy and rowed to a very nice river walk area in Columbus.  After a short walk we found Harveys and had a delicious dinner.  

We walked along the park after dinner.

This little critter was enjoying his dinner on the bank near our dinghy.  He did not appear to be disturbed by us.

The real fun came as we attempted to get gracefully from the dinghy back into the boat.  We were successful getting in, the graceful part we missed.  If anyone was videoing it will become a YouTube favorite.  

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Today was a great day to be on the water!

We pulled out of Kingfishers Marina in a light drizzle and cool (66 degree) weather about 6:30 this morning. The rain, which was never hard enough to cause us a problem, continued through the morning and the took turns with short periods of sunshine after lunch.

There wasn't a lot of wildlife to be seen, but at about 9:45, Glenda yelled "EAGLE!" and I grabbed  for the camera as the bald eagle flew across the river in front of us. I was able to get one picture just before he went behind the tree tops.

We saw only one other boat, a bass boat, on the water all morning, but the radio traffic let us know there were at least 3 other cruising boats coming upriver behind us. A couple of them had AIS transmitters, and I saw that they were travelling just slightly faster than we were. By around noon, when we passed 2 Southbound towboats with barges, the 4 of us were within about a mile of each other.

We stayed together to the Howell Heflin Lock and Dam, arriving there just after a towboat and barges locked down. The lockmaster was waiting on us with the gates open, and in short order all 4 of us were tied to the bollards and headed up 30 feet in altitude to the upper pool.

We had heard the lockmaster radio a sailboat that had grounded a couple of miles north of the dam, to check on their  welfare. As it turns out they  had been stuck there for almost 24 hours, in 5 feet of waterwith a boat that has a 5 1/2 foot draft. The other 3 boats leaving the lock radioed the grounded captain and offered to pass as close and as fast as they could, leaving as much wake as possible. This is normally a very rude thing to do, but if you are grounded, it sometimes rocks your boat enough that you can break free and power into deeper water. (I did not offer to help, as Genesis leaves only about a 6 inch wake at full speed.) After all three boats tried to rock him free, the captain reported a few inches of progress, so the first boat made a second pass, throwing about a 6 foot wake onto the stranded boat, raising it up and down while the captain put the engine in full reverse. A moment later he thanked everyone via the radio, reporting that he was ungrounded, and in 18' of water. There was no mistaking the joy in his voice!

While the other 3 captains decided to travel another 10 miles or so to anchor for the night, Glenda and I chose to stop at Warsaw Cutoff, at mile marker 275, at 3:30 this afternoon. We dropped anchor, and I tested flying the drone from the boat.

Glenda says:
Sooo thankful to be back on the water!  Between Tom working on the boat and doctors working on Tom I was not sure we would get to travel.  I told Tom early this morning " we're not talking about the future today, we are just going to enjoy the day" and we have. There was a nice cool breeze coming through the boat all day.  Now we are enjoying the quiet solitude of the water.  We took the dinghy out for a bit when we arrived.  We both needed a little exercise.   But with both of us in it it was hard to keep her straight.  It was just reassuring to know that I could get in and out of it from the boat.

Heading North!

Sunday, May 21, 2017

After waiting over 4 months to get our rudder's hydraulic cylinder repaired, we are finally ready to take Genesis out on another adventure.

Our last planned trip, in November, ended short when the hydraulic cylinder began pouring fluid around the seals, and I made the decision to return to Demopolis for repairs. As with most boat repairs, the seemingly simple repair ended up taking 4 times as long and cost 4 times as much as originally estimated. The cylinder is back in and working well, however, so I'll try not to whine about it.

Since we missed the opportunity to leave the boat in Orange Beach for the winter, we decided that we'd rather be on the Tennessee River for the summer months, so that is where we are headed.

We will leave Demopolis in a few days and head upstream on the Tenn-Tom Waterway toward it's beginning where it meets the Tennessee River at the point where Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee meet.

This leg of the trip will be about 250 miles and we will pass through 10 Locks before turning East onto the Tennessee. We hope to do this section of the trip in 6 days, but delays at the locks can make a joke out of a boating schedule, so we will see what happens. Another thing that can slow a Northbound boat down is rising current and river levels from heavy rains. I'm not sure how much effect the rain from this week will have.

Phone/Internet service will probably be spotty, but I should be able to upload a blog post no more than a day behind real-time.

We hope you enjoy taking the trip with us via the blog, and sharing the blessing of seeing God's creation up close as we travel.

Tom (and Glenda)