Demopolis AL

A lot has happened since we last wrote. It’s been very busy as we try to push our way down the rivers and get to the Gulf, only to have a hurricane waiting for us, maybe… We’ll see.

Iuka MS is the start of the Tenn-Tom waterway, which connects the Tennessee River with the Black Warrior-Tombigbee waterway and has a total of 10 locks, dropping us 175 feet.

We left Iuka and made a short run to anchor just above the first of the 10 locks. Our goal was to try and make 6 locks the next day, so we woke before sunrise to make the lock at first light. We had contingency plans just in case we couldn’t make the 6 but as luck would have it, we did make, and we anchored out for the night.

The next day, we make way for Columbus MS and the Columbus Marina. It was nice to have power and air conditioning for the night. It’s been unseasonably warm lately and in the mid to high 80s. I’m not complaining, but it is nice to have air conditioning every now and then.

After Columbus, we continued to work our way south. Our luck with Locks had started to turn on us. We were hoping to knock out 2 locks and then anchor, but the lock just down stream of Columbus was doing maintenance and we had to wait until 9:00 before we could leave.

We did not have enough time to lock through the next one and had to anchor about 5 miles upstream. We called first thing in the morning and they said they’d be ready for us. As we approached, a North bound commercial tow had called and we ended up waiting almost an hour for it to pass before we had our turn. We eventually made it to Demopolis AL and the Kingfisher Bay Marina.

While we’re at the marina, we topped off with diesel and water. We’re also making a run to Walmart for groceries. We only have 216 miles left to Mobile, but this is the last marina and shopping opportunity until Mobile, so we want to make the most of it. Hard to believe we’re almost done.

Unfortunately, this last 200 miles is the hardest part of the entire trip. Not only are there no marinas or stores, there’s also VERY limited areas to anchor. The marina here has a 2 day limit and they already warned us that 17 boats are scheduled to leave when we are. Worse yet, we’re the slowest, so the only places to anchor are going to be the least desirable.

So far, we’ve pretty much had “off river” anchorages. The last 200 miles we’re going to be fighting to inch into a small nook in the river that’s out of the channel, and use 2 anchors to make sure the wind doesn’t blow us into the channel or shore. I’m setup to stern anchor, but I don’t like it. Worse case scenario, we continue motoring through the night. The big spot light is charged and the electronic charts have been incredibly accurate.

We’ll let you know how it turns out.