Beautiful Day on the River

We were up at 6 AM to get ready for another great day on the river.  Beautiful morning as we headed up stream at 7 AM.

We passed a tow going down stream right away and then caught up to Green Wave at the Fulton lock.

The First Mate enjoys her morning coffee.

Green Wave had left 6 barges in the lock and then come down stream a half mile to move some other barges around at a loading sight.

The lock master was kind enough to allow us to lock up with Green Wave although normally pleasure craft are not allowed to lock with commercial vessels.  The Green Wave Captain was agreeable, in fact very accommodating, with a great attitude!

So we squeezed in to the starboard side of Green Wave and the end of the lock and rode up with them.  Green Wave was very gentle pulling out so as to not rock us against the wall.

The next lock was eight miles up stream.  The lock master at Fulton lock advised us to get going up to Rankin lock so they would lock us through before Green Wave got there as commercial traffic has priority.  We ran 8.5 knots to make sure we got there in plenty of time.

We learned over the radio that another pleasure boat had locked through Fulton lock after us and was trying to catch up to lock through with us at Rankin lock.  We looked back and observed Summer Song hauling ass up river kicking up a heck of a wake.

We only waited a couple of minutes for Summer Song to pull in and lock through together.  As we pulled out at 10:45 Summer Song advised he had talked to Whitten lock up stream and there was a tow coming downstream so the lock would be tied up until about noon.  We still had one more lock to clear before Whitten anyway so the timing looked like it would work out well.

Summer Song took off at 10 knots but I stayed back at 8 knots since I did not want to waste fuel.  We entered Montgomery lock at 11:35 and cleared the lock at 11:50.

We arrived at Whitten lock at 12:20 as the tow boat Leader was just leaving to go downstream.

The trawler Bar B was already at the lock waiting.

Tow boat Leader has fresh veggies aboard!

After Leader cleared the three of us entered Whitten at 12:40.

Since this lock has an 84 foot lift it took us 20 minutes to lift and we left at 1:05.

The Whitten is close to the highest lift in the U.S. (the John Day lock is 110 feet).

Summer Song pulled out and put the hammer down.

He was in one heck of a hurry.  My AIS told me he was running 20 knots per hour.  I'll bet he was spending $20.00 per mile in fuel.  The hailing port for Summer Song is St. Mary's Point, Minnesota so it was kinda embarrassing.  Missy said she bet it was one of the Hubbards.

We ran our normal 8 knots and slowly pulled away from Bar B as we headed to Aqua Yacht Harbor Marina.

We pulled in around 5:15 and the place was closed so we just pulled up to the dock and settled in for the evening.  Missy made a rice, beans, potato dish for dinner.  Once we got on the internet we looked up Summer Song on the Coast Guard website and Missy was right on....it was a Hubbard boat speeding off into the distance.  Funny thing is they are moored just a half mile upstream from us for the night.

We are heading off in the morning to the Tennessee River and then upstream to Florence Alabama to meet up with Rachael.  She is going to spend the next week with us as we motor up into Kentucky Lake.

Rollin' on da River....

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

We bid a fond farewell to Pirates Marina Cove in Pickensville, Alabama....

yes, there is such a place...and it is very serene and pretty although the picture doesn't really do it justice.

Then we headed north to Mississippi through four lock & dams...easy enough to handle the boat but you are completely at the mercy of the lock master....and if there is a tug....they get first preference. At our first lock and dam we had to sit for about an hour waiting for a tug....commerce people...this is capitalism at it's finest!!

There was also an airshow for us today...courtesy of the Air Force base in  Columbus, Mississippi

I guess they fly props before they graduate to jets.

Hey Darrell, what kind of plane is this?

Capt. Collins runs a tight ship :)

The First Mate taking care of lines as we leave Pirates Cove.

Lock and dam

Ever wonder where the Poltergeist tree retired to????

River home

River light house

River totem pole...nice touch

Lock and dam...again

more river workin'

and yet more river workin'

Smithville Marina in Smithville, Mississippi. This small town of approx. 900 people was devastated last year by a category 5 tornado which killed 16 in the community. It is tragically sad, but really inspiring to see how the town is rebuilding. Everyone we met from Mel's Diner to the Dollar General certainly demonstrated good ol' fashioned southern hospitality!

Very nice sunset from the boat.  Talk about nice water front property!

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.

Back on the boat.

Missy and I left Minnesota yesterday.  Sam took us to the airport at 5:30 AM (he was still up....teenagers!).  We flew to Charlotte then to Montgomery Alabama.  There we rented a car and drove to Demopolis.

The boat is in good shape.  The forward air conditioner was running as we boarded...I was very happy about that as it kept the interior temp reasonable during the six weeks we were gone. It is VERY hot here.....92 on Saturday and 97 today.  We headed off to the grocery store for provisioning and then had dinner at the restaurant here in the marina.

Schmom lets the Gator know he is not welcome on "da Boat"!

This morning I caught the Monaco Grand Prix on Speed Channel and then we took the rental car to Meridian Mississippi.  The marina has a courtesy car that we used to shuttle the rental back.

When we got back to the marina I caught the last half of the Indy 500 on the TV in the boaters lounge here in the marina.  After the 500 it was time to get things ready to leave tomorrow.  I re-inflated the dingy, washed the cobwebs off the boat, and checked out everything below.  I re-installed the Garmin chartplotter and ran the engines up to temperature. Missy and I practiced using the boat hook to grab the bollards that float up and down in the lock.  Then it was time to catch the CocaCola 600 on TV.

Dingy washed, re-inflated, and stowed.  We are ready to go!

We are both very excited to get going in the morning.  We have 300 miles to go up river to meet Rachael on the 31st in Florence, Alabama.  Once Rachael is aboard we will head up the Tennessee River to Kentucky Lake. We will be able to take our time and enjoy the lake as I have been told it is beautiful.  We will leave the boat in a marina next to the Kentucky Dam and fly home from Paducah, Kentucky on June 7th.

The plan is to fly back to Paducah June 30th (after a race on June 29th) and then take the Ohio river over to the Mississippi to St. Paul.  That will be a 900 mile voyage and I promised Tom Countryman a ride for the last 100 miles.  If anyone else can spare the time and would like to join us, let us know.

Monday April 16th - Heading home

Loaded up and leaving Demopolis

Trick and I got the boat squared away and headed off for Minnesota.  We had moved my van up to Dempolis a few days before so we loaded up and headed north.

We must be on the right road!

We got into town Tuesday afternoon April 17th.  It is good to be back home but I miss "da Boat"!

Pat Stair was a great 1st mate and it was fun to have him aboard for a couple of weeks.