It Still Beats Working

After the layover for the rainy day in Decatur, the sun came out as promised and we were again underway. 

Decatur is a very industrial area.

There were two locks to get through before a planned stop back in Florence, AL.  We heard from the lockmaster at the first lock that there was a tow at the second lock and a few pleasure crafts waiting.  It was the Wilson Lock and 15 miles away, he thought we might just make it and be able to pass through with the other boats.  I'm glad we didn't take any drastic actions to hurry our arrival, because the tow hadn't completed its passage and four other pleasure craft were still waiting.  Two more arrived and we were delayed further when the lockmaster advised there was a malfunction and he had to wait for maintenance to fix it.  It was over an hour before we all moved into the lock.

I posted about the Wilson Lock when Ron and I were making the trip up the river.  At 95 feet, it is the biggest lock of the trip, but going down was different than going up and we were the last ones in, so right in front of the rear door, which turned out to be a wicket gate that came up from below.

As we went down, water flowed from the gate, creating a waterfall.

It was a long way up when the water was all out.

When the doors opened we were second to last in a parade of boats.

The Florence stop was quick.  I had called and asked the marina dockmaster if I could pay her to borrow the courtesy car, even though we were'nt staying for the night.  She remembered me and said I could use her car, which we did.  Denise had arranged for my prescriptions to be filled there.

We went a few more miles and anchored for the night.  We planned for an early start, actually, Geo always wants an early start because he's usually up before the sun, while I can easily sleep until well after the sun is up.  It worked out for me, because again it was foggy.

At mile 217 of the Tennessee River we made the turn on to the Tenn-Tom Waterway.  Actually, the Tenn-Tom starts at the mouth of the Tennessee on the Ohio River and runs 667 miles to Demopolis, AL where it meets the Black Warrior River. 

This completed my side trip further up the Tennessee to Knoxville.  In all, the Tennessee is navigable for 650 miles.  I completed 620 of them, missing the first 25 because I went up the Cumberland to Lake Barkley and joined the Tennessee from there and the last 5 because downtown Knoxville is mile 645 and I didn't go all the way to mile 650.

The first part of the waterway off the Tennessee is a 39 mile canal that connects it to the Tombigbee River.  We are now back in Mississippi.

Like all the other canals on this trip, there's not really much to see, so I took pictures of bridges.

There are 11 locks between here and Mobile.  Eight of them in the first 150 miles.  It took us 3 days to cover the 150 miles.

We did have some entertaining momemts though.  As I came up behind a tow, I made the normal call and asked the tow captain if it would be possible to get a pass.  He came back in the thickest southern accent you can imagine and said "anything is possible."  I then asked if it would be advisable and he said "come on."

After I passed, he called and said, "see how easy that was."

Geo hasn't quit smoking yet and he tried to burn up my Skipper Bob's River Guide.

As we approached Columbus, MS, I started hearing and seeing Air Force fighter jets, lots of them.  There was obviously some training going on as we would see a jet and then a few minutes later a couple more chasing the first one.  I took lots of pictures, but its really hard to catch them.  But then two came low right overhead.

Most mornings were foggy and cold.  We arrived at this lock as early as possible.

Some old bridges.

We also came upon another deer crossing the river and had to slow down to not hit him.

For most of the time through Mississippi I did not have cell phone service.  Maybe that's why someone had put this along the bank of the river.

A few miles south and east of Columbus, MS the waterway re-enters Alabama.

Late one afternoon, the temperature of the starboard engine started going up and eventually I had to shut it down.  We continued on one engine and it was late before we reached a suitable anchorage.

Luckily, Geo was with me for the engine overheating problem.  It turned out to be a worn out impeller in the engine cooling system and I had a spare.  Getting the old one out was easy, but both of us tried to get the new one in and finally Geo was able to get it.  This solved the problem.

I had read and seen pictures of a stretch of the river that is lined with white sandstone.

We found ourselves the first boat in a lock that eventually filled with seven more.

Most of these were bigger than Tranquility, but one was not.

And they were doing the loop.

All of these boats were going to cruise faster than us, so we let them by, but ended up locking through with them again the next day.  It was helpful for them to be stretched out ahead of us because we could hear the radio call to tows and know when we were going to meet or overtake one.

One boat was a half mile or so in front of us and began an exchange with a tow captain.  At one point the tow captain told him he was going to be in the way and when he asked where he should go, the tow captain told him to go on the sandbar.  The pleasure boater thought he was kidding and then we heard the tow captain said he had no choice and he ran his barge into the bank to avoid hitting the pleasure boat.

He then called me and said to step on it and get past him, which I did.

We usually follow the Skipper Bob's guide to find suitable anchorages and this one turned out to be quite nice, but a little tight getting into. 

We encountered a couple of unique boaters along the way.

As we got closer to Mobile, AL the landscape started changing to marsh.

Take a close look at this picture and you can see the skyline of Mobile.

The river runs right through downtown and the waterfront is all about shipping and ship building.

After a relatively short trip through downtown, we were heading into Mobile Bay.

It was 31 miles to the southeast corner where we would enter the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway, (GIWW).

The GIWW was right where the chart said it would be.

We called a marina that we had read had a good water front restaurant where we could watch the big Alabama-LSU game.  Since we were still in Alabama, we figured it would be fun.  There were even a couple of LSU fans.  It was a good game, but not very exiting and LSU won.

We were only going 15 miles today, to Pensacola.  Just a few miles from the anchorage we were back in Florida.

It doesn't look very promising for a Gulf crossing anytime this week and we have flights home on Nov 16th.  We had to make a decision several days ago, in order to get decent flight prices, so we booked from Pensacola.  Since we are already here, Geo has decided to rent a car and drive to Madeira Beach to take care of some business and check on his boat there.  I have decided to keep going alone across the Florida panhandle to Carrabelle, where I have found a marina to leave the boat for awhile.  Geo will drive back early next week to Carrabelle and then we will return the car in Pensacola and catch the flights home.

I will post once more when I get to Carrabelle.   I'm not sure exactly when I will come back to make the Gulf crossing and finish the first loop.

This Looks Familiar

When you do an up and back trip, you're going to see the same things twice.  Sometimes you see things that were'nt in view from the other direction and somtimes you just don't remember, because you are old.

One thing that was different were the colors.  Over just a few days, the fall colors are now peaking.

And, I didn't see these cows the other day on the way up.

Note the one at the bottom standing in the water.  I wonder if they ever make a swim for it.

At 10:40 AM, I was surprised when I saw Geo with a beer in his hand.

He claimed he had reached for a Diet Coke and didn't know he had a beer until he took a drink.  Then at lunch he claimed this one was in fact the same one from earlier.

I'm not so sure, because soon after he was taking a nap.  I think some of my crews along the way have taken pleasure in the fact that I have imposed a strict rule upon myself and will not imbide until the anchor is down or Tranquility is tied up for the night.

There are two charted short cuts that can be used by "pleasure craft", like me.  We found this one on the way up the river and on the way back took a few pictures to capture just how narrow it is. 

The term "pleasure craft" was imposed on me when I got into the Illinois river.  That's the term used by lockmasters and tow captains to differintiate us from the commercial traffic.  When I was in Florida and on the east coast, I was a motor vessel.  That term differintiates me from sailing vessels.

I posted a picture of the Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant in the last post and here's another picture of it. 

An interesting note about the ride past is the turbulence encountered.   There's a warning about it in the Tennessee River Cruising Guide that says cooling water is being released at the rate of 1 million gallons per minute.  We did get a little push sideways and first were slowed down by about a mile an hour and then once past were pushed about a mile an hour faster, which lasted for a mile or more.  The water temperature is monitored and when it has increased by 5 degrees, extra cooling is initiated by the use of the cooling towers.

We anchored in a wide spot in the river and again awoke to dense fog.  It was well after 10 before we could get underway.

This leg of the trip took us back through downtown Chattanooga.

We anchored just past Lookout Mountain at Williams Island.  I had read about the history of the island as being the site of an Indian Village and the home of an early settler, but I thought it was now just a vacant wooded island.  We were surprised when we listened to cows mooing all night.  It sounded like maybe they were'nt too happy.

While it was foggy when we got up, it seemed to be lifting earlier than previous days and visibility wasn't too bad, so we were off before 9, even though there were still some patches near the island.

This stretch of the river is known as "The Grand Canyon of the Tennesee."  I previously posted pictures of this area and don't have any new ones to share.  That's because after just a half hour or so we drove into fog so dense that we had to slow to a complete idle and even then I felt like we were going too fast for the amount of visibility we had.  It was awhile before we could faintly see the sun trying to burn through.

And eventually it did.

Also along this stretch is Racoon Mountain.  On the top is a 520 acre lake that the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) created by pumping water from the river at times of slack power needs.  Then at times of peak power demands it is released down the mountain through giant tubes and turbines, generating electricty.   At the bottom, the water comes back into the river.

Eventually the fog was nearly gone and we were able to enjoy the scenery again.

And the colors.

Take a close look at this next picture.  Click on it to make it larger.  On the far left, about half way down, note the wake in the water.  At the front of that wake is a deer.  Geo was driving at the time and had to slow the boat to avoid hitting it.  We watched as it made its way completely across the river.  I tried to get a picture when it came out of the water, but it was out and into the woods in a flash.

In 1974, construction of the Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant began in Hollywood, Alabama.

After 40 years and billions of dollars it is still not operating.  Only recently has the TVA begun the process of getting approval to re-start construction with the target of power generation in 2020.

It had turned out to be a very nice day for cruising.

We planned a stop at the Goose Pond Marina in Scottsboro, AL because they have a courtesy car and we needed a couple of things from a hardware store as Geo was working on one of the heat pumps on the boat.  I am posting a picture of the license plate of the courtsey car because the number has special meaning to Denise.

One other note about the car.  The speedometer didn't work right.  As I was driving out of the marina I noticed I was doing 75.  At least that's what the speedometer was reading.  It was a 30 MPH zone and I'm pretty sure I was around that speed.

We thought Thursday was supposed to be a rainy day, but it was clear when we awoke, so we took off fairly early. 

Just above Guntersville Lock and Dam is this cave along the river.  Note the fence.  This is home to over 20,000 gray bats.

The guide book warned that if you were here near dusk to keep your distance as thousands of bats leave the cave to feed on insects.  Ron and I had anchored just a couple hundred yards from here on the way up the river, but we didn't notice any bats.  It could be because they have already migrated to cooler caves in the hills north of here.  They do that in the fall and spend the winter there.

Soon it was cloudy though, but the rain held off most of the afternoon and we pulled into a marina in Decatur, AL just as the rain started.  It rained all night and until early afternoon today, that and the low 50's temperature have kept us here.  The forecast for the next several days though is sunshine and eventually temps back into the mid 70's.  We are 90 miles from the turn south on the Tenn-Tom Waterway.