A fellow boater called the Lockmaster at the Aberdeen Lock, and he said that he would have the gates open and ready for us at 7:30 am. We left the dock at the Aberdeen Marina at 7:10 am with "Canadian Flyer" a couple of minutes behind us. The picture at the right shows "Canadian Flyer" as we wound around the channel out of the marina. Yes, this is also another sunrise photo...
The picture at the left shows how beautiful the channel actually was this morning. Most of the trees growing in the water are cypress trees - we starting seeing our first cypress trees just yesterday. So, we should see them all of the way to the Gulf Coast (?). The channel is plenty wide although it does not look like that in this picture, but we were about to make a sharp turn to starboard (right) to avoid these trees.
We got to the Aberdeen Lock about 5 minutes early. However, the gates were open, and we were given permission to enter with no delays. This happened to be the only lock today, but it sure is convenient to have the fist lock of the day be only a few minutes away from the dock. Being able to call and see if we should delay our departure is certainly convenient.
We saw our first "floating islands" today (picture at left). They appeared to be groups/masses of water hyacinths just like we had seen in the St. Johns River in Florida last year. So far the islands have been few and far between, and I hope that trend continues. They would probably not hurt the propellers or rudders, but for example, they could be ingested and plug the filter for the engine cooling water.
I mentioned yesterday that the actual Tombigbee River had joined up with the artificial canal known as the Tombigbee Waterway. The area around the old river is kind of swampy due to the water impounded behind the dams on the waterway. Thus, we have been seeing many more herons and cranes who love to stalk prey in the shallow water. The Great Blue Herons also seem to like standing on logs floating in the waterway. This is useful for me since some of the more water logged logs barely float and can be hard to spot. Seeing a Great Blue Heron "standing" in the middle of the channel is a pretty good indicator of the presence of a log underneath the bird...
We arrived at the Columbus Marina in (you guessed it) Columbus, Mississippi at about 10:30 am. The Admiral had already booked a rental car, and Enterprise picked us up at the marina about 11:15 am. It was perfect timing with just enough time to get Lucky Us all plugged in to shore power and the AC starting to cool her down.
From the rental agency we drove about a quarter of a mile to Sweet Pepper's Deli for some great food that was even reasonably healthy. I had a Margarita Flat Bread, which even had fresh basil on top. Then it was back to Lucky Us for naps. Notice the plural as even the Admiral took a short nap...
At about 3:00 pm we left for a movie and stopped at Michael's where the Admiral wanted to look for some "stuff". We also made short stops at Tractor Supply to see if they carried the motor oil that we use in the diesels, and as it turns out they do carry it in gallon containers for a very good price. For the movie we decided on "The Equalizer", which in spite of a lot of blood was a good flick. We are going to be in Columbus for three full days so we plan to catch up on some of the movies that we have missed lately...
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