Heading North

Aye Sea No Snow at Demopolis Yacht Basin

Missy and I got up early and motored over to the fuel dock at 7am to begin our trip.

Demopolis Yacht Basin fuel dock

 We were incorrectly informed they would open at 7. turned out to be 8am.  So we left Demopolis at 8:20 up the Tenn Tom Waterway.

We met 3 tows right away...Skip Jack northbound then Chipawa and Miss Nez southbound.  At 9:30 we met two southbound sailboats....did not expect to see sailboats on the river.

Tara Huckabee was southbound at 11:45. 

Lots of water-skiers around noon.

First Mate at the helm.

These white cliffs are located on the Tombigbee River at Epes AL.    

They are part of the Selma Chalk formations which were deposited at about the same time as England’s famous white cliffs of Dover.

Missy loved the floating water lilies 

Does not get any easier than this.

We approached the Howell Heflin Lock at 1:30 in the afternoon and waited only 10 minutes before the lock master was ready for us.

Entering Howell Heflin.

First Mate handles lines in Howell Heflin Lock.

First Mate holds line around the Bollard in the lock.

Missy did a great job looping the line around the Bollard in short fashion and the rise went smooth.

Friendly boaters retrieve our dropped fenders in the lock.

 As we pulled out we dropped some fenders in the lock and rather then turn around and go back for them, a couple in a ski boat was nice enough to retrieve the fenders for us.  Very nice Southern Hospitality.

I called ahead to the next lock and marina we are heading toward and all looks good.

We caught up to the tow Rhonda Lamulle just three miles from the lock and the commercial traffic takes precedence over recreational vessels so we had to wait for them to lock through first.

That is a tight fit!

It was interesting to see how tight they fit into those locks.

It was a 45 minute wait for the complete lock cycle.  We entered the lock at 6:55 PM and were out at 7:15.  The marina was just a half mile upstream so we were in the slip at 7:40.

Not much here at the marina so we had dinner on board and plan to get up early and head out in the morning.  We have 4 locks on the schedule for Tuesday.