Today we have a long trip of 91.3 miles with two locks planned so once again we departed at 6:00 am in cloudy skies. Just after entering the river and heading up toward the Junction of the Black Warrior and Tombigbee Rivers we passed these gravel barges moored along the side of the river. I mentioned on our arrival that towboats fuel up at this marina. They leave their barges moored here while they go into the adjacent Demopolis Marina for fuel. I thought that the steam rising off of the gravel in the barges quite an interesting sight on a cool, damp morning.
We had a rather uneventful trip of 50 miles to the Howell Heflin Lock and Dam. We have a second lock later, and both have a 27 foot lift today.
We were a little nervous when we arrived at the first lock. We had called about 4 miles out to tell that that we were north bound and would be there in a half hour and were requesting a lock through. They turned it around for us as it had been in the up position and we needed a lift and then started
opening the gate as we approached. One half opened and
the other half opened only about half way. We got the call
from the Lockmaster telling us to hang out and that the boss has been called.
We were told that it would be a least an hour and could be as much as a day. Since it was noon, we dropped an anchor, and
the Admiral started working on lunch. Only 20 minutes later
they called us over to lock through - yeah!
The picture above shows the lock in the up position and about to open the gates on the other side.
We never knew what the problem was, but at this point we did not care since we were on our way again with only minimal delay. Lunch had to wait another 30 minutes, but we had survived what could have been a very unfortunate (and boring) experience.
Earlier in the trip this morning we went past a number of river cuts in this same whitish rock unit, The river was meandering back and forth and these steep faces were nicely lit by the lower morning sun. I do not know much about the geology of Alabama, but I suspect that this is the Selma Chalk. Think White Cliffs of Dover, England (for Carita, the Admiral says "There will be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover")... The major chalk rock units of the World all are of Cretaceous age. This a really unusual happening and makes the Cretaceous Period unique for things other than dinosaurs, and their extinction at the end of the Cretaceous. Those can be your useless facts for today... Anyway, these walls of rock were spectacular today. However, they were not so great that after a while I could break away and go down below for a much needed nap...
It was yet another day in which we passed little evidence of civilization. There were only a couple of bridges and several loading docks. It should be obvious about the slow day for scenery when I feel compelled to add a picture of a rather ordinary (but relatively new) bridge...
On the other hand, the loading dock was interesting since we had seen very little evidence of any agricultural activity along the river. This facility had storage for grain as well as the equipment to load barges for transport. My guess is that the grain probably was shipped to the Gulf Coast for export.
The first two days as we came up the Tombigbee River from Mobile we had water levels about 8 feet above normal. After passing through the first lock, the water levels were much nearer to normal. The photo at the right shows quite a lot of the river bed exposed on the inside of a meander. We were cruising along, and as usual, I was trying to stay on the inside of bends in the river where the velocity of the water is lower. One of those tell tale signs that we are in very shallow water is when I can hear the sound of waves breaking (or surf if you will). Sure enough, all of a sudden the shallow water alarm went off (at 3 feet of water below the keel), and when I glanced at the depth gauge, it read 0.6 feet and was still getting shallower. I quickly pulled back on the throttles and made a sharp turn away from shore. We never touched bottom, but we stirred up a lot of mud... I learned my lesson and started cutting the corners a little wider. You can see some of the waves breaking along the shore in the photo, and this is after my slow down and turn. You can see the gentle slope of the river bed away from shore here. The opposite side (or outside of the bend) has a very steep slope to it since it is being actively eroded by the river.
The second and last lock for today was open and waiting for us
because we had called them 30 minutes (or 4 miles) out to let them know we where headed their
way. This is the Tom Bevill Lock, Dam and Visitor's Center. The U.S. Snagboat Montgomery in the photo at the left is one of last steam-powered stern-wheel boats to ply Southern rivers The Montgomery is on display at the Tom Bevill Visitors Center. Snagboats were very important in the early navigation on the rivers by steam boats. The rivers were full of snag, especially after floods. The snags were a complex tangle of logs that could not only block the river, but they also posed a significant hazard to the wooden hulled steamships (i.e. punch holes in the hulls). The Visitor's Center is housed in a reproduction of a Greek Revival antebellum home (circa 1830-1860), which can be partially seem in the right side of the photo.
It was only 0.6 miles past the Bevill Lock for the turn off into the channel to the Pirates Cove Marina, and we arrived at about 6:00 pm for a surprisingly quick 12 hour day. We stayed at this Marina 1-1/2 years ago during our first Loop, but the Admiral does not remember it at all.
In re-reading the old blog, she found that she was sick that day.
She vaguely remembers tying the lines on the dock before she rushed below and took a three hour nap as soon as we arrived. She really must not have felt well because she has a regular routine of closing up the boat that she follows every time, and she did not do any of the work. After the nap she was awake for an hour
before taking another nap, and then she went to bed for the night a short time later at 8 pm. No wonder she doesn't remember this place since neither of us remembers her even getting off the boat since we left at first light the next morning. In retrospect, she may be the lucky one since this is not a great marina by any means. It is clean and well cared for, and the staff are great, but literally everything could use updating/replacing. Anyway, it is run by nice people, and the price is right... Also, it turns out that there is plenty of room for dog walking in the trailer park and along the road into the marina so Lucky got a good workout.
Tomorrow we will be leaving at the crack of dawn
again. Our destination is Midway Marina
in Fulton, MS. This is an 87 mile trip
and includes five locks. Today's trip
had very little current involved so we made really good time, and we are hopeful that tomorrow brings the same
gentle current.
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