Back to FL...The Last Three Days

              I will start with Wed. where I left off the blog, many miles ago!

You can click on photos to enlarge them!

We traveled 116 miles south of Demopolis and went through the last two locks to bring us back to sea level, salt water, and tides! This was our farewell committee at one of the locks.

Here is an example of the erosion that takes place along the banks. The water levels we experienced on the river system are low...but just imagine if the rain from the east coast this week drained into these rivers!!! All along the banks you see dead trees that have dried out and are just waiting for higher water to start their descent down the river. There are literally thousands of them. 

 

They often take buoys downstream with them. Here is one example of MANY where buoys were not in their correct position.  We passed SO many tows today we lost count. This last stretch of the the Tombigbee River and then the Mobile River after that never had their ox-bows straightened by canals. 

Here is the image on our GPS that shows the turns we constantly had.  Our heading is 042 degrees...northeast. 

 One of the tows we passed warned us of another tow not far behind him, and that we would be meeting at a particularly bad curve in the river. We then heard him call the next tow to warn him of us coming!!! We can't always understand everything they say because of our "Yankee ears", but we heard plenty this time. As we approached the next curve, Don opened Snow Cat up and doing a whopping 21 mph we raced to the curve before we could catch sight of any barges. And sure enough...there was the tow just approaching the curve. It was much easier to pass before the tug reached the curve. Here's a picture of plenty of room between us and the tow!!!

We pulled into a lovely anchorage that we had never visited before. It was at mile 100 and the site of the first lock from 1906. We were tired after a long day...and when I pushed the down button on our windlass remote, the anchor would not move! We heard no noise at all! It had never failed in hundreds of uses...so time for plan B. Don hooked up line to our second anchor which would do just fine in light winds and a muddy bottom. We finally got the anchor down, and it held!!! The next morning our muscle power would not budge it, so we went forward with the boat over it, and the boat loosen it from the mud. Then I was even able to lift it up...slowly. 

 That's when we decided not to anchor again until we had the windlass checked. Don couldn't find anything wrong with it so we need to find an expert somewhere down the way. Certainly not within the next 100 miles of wilderness!!!

 We were on our way on Thurs. at 7:20 with just a little mist rising from the very warm water. By 8:00 the mist was gone, and we only passed about four barges today! No problems at all! 

 There are many staging areas, preparing barges for their journeys north. Here is a crane moving coal that fell from the hopper from the front barge to the back barge. 

 We reached Mobile Bay at 1:45 and even though there were small boat advisories posted, we decided to continue down the 25 mile stretch to reach the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. We had the wind and waves behind us, and it was actually a lovely ride. We angled towards the eastern shore and had more protection from the N-NE wind. Our goal was Homeport Marina in Gulf Shores, AL, which is right next door to Lulu's Restaurant. Lulu is Jimmy Buffet's sister, and we had eaten here in April on our way north. My blackened Mahi-Mahi was so delicious!!!

 It's October 1....heartworm pill day for the dogs!!! We had a relaxing morning. I did some laundry, and we left after 11:00. Pelicans were flying quite a bit faster than our 17 mph! Dolphins were jumping off our bow. Palm trees and white sand lined our course to Pensacola, and there were even two Navy jets flying low over us as we approached the Pensacola Harbor. In this photo it's hard to see the white sand since it is reflecting too much sun....We headed for the Pensacola Shipyard where we would have someone look at our windlass. The weather is perfect, and the north wind brings low humidity. Life is good!