Tripping Down the Tenn-Tom

Traveling along the Tenn-Tom

What a beautiful day!

The snagboat "Montgomery" now at rest

I don't think it gets any prettier than this!

Sunset at our anchorage

Good Morning!

Monday morning we had a great breakfast of homemade Belgian waffles and eggs (I'm so glad I brought my waffle iron!). We left our beautiful anchorage at the waterfall to meet up with Sweet Pea and Erika Lin at Grand Harbor where we fueled up. Finally about 10:30 we were heading down the Tenn-Tom. Only 450 miles to the Gulf of Mexico!

The Tenn-Tom saves us from the wrath of the Mississippi River. Before it was built, the only way to get to the Gulf would have been to travel down the mighty muddy Mississippi. It is possible but not very forgiving for us "pleasure boaters". The Tenn-Tom is divided into three sections – the Divide Cut, the Canal Section and the River Section. First is the Divide Cut – just what it sounds like – a big gash (24 miles long) that the Corps made to connect the Tombigbee with the Tennessee. It's pretty much uneventful. It's been open since the mid-80s so the vegetation has covered most of the construction scars now. I understand that a whole town had to be relocated at the time of construction.

The Divide Cut finally ends and opened to beautiful Bay Springs Lake. This was a beautiful stretch of extremely clear water. Here we anchored with Sweet Pea in another great spot called Five Finger Cove. Erika Lin stayed in Bay Springs Marina not far from us. It was another great evening on the hook. We planned to go to Aberdeen in the morning - locking through five locks and traveling about 50 miles or so.  We've now entered the canal section, with several locks relatively close to each other.

Tuesday morning we were up early and rushing around to get NautiNell ready to head out only to find that we could slow down a bit. When we checked with the Lockmaster – we found that it would be about 1 1/2 hours before we could lock down. Something on the Lock had broken so they were doing some maintenance. SO we just hung out at the anchorage. No big deal…..! Finally we left and met up with Erika Lin at the Whitten Lock. We all got into the Lock and tied up only to find that we still needed to wait on another cruiser. It turned out that we waited over thirty more minutes. The Whitten Lock drops you 84 feet – even on a good day it still takes a while. Oh well, no big deal! It just shortened our trip "plans" a bit. It gets dark so early now that we have to quit traveling a lot earlier than we would like. Finally about 10:30 we were through our first lock of the day and underway. The next two locks (Montgomery and Rankin} weren't a problem. Since our travel time had been shortened we decided to stay at Midway Marina. We needed to get provisions anyway. However, one of our main provisions, of course, was beer and - guess what! Dry County! We were even told that it was against the Mississippi law to buy it elsewhere and carry it into a dry county. That would be BOOTLEGGING! Sheeh!

Later we all piled into the courtesy van to go eat Mexican (Los Compadres) and to make a stop at Wal-Mart for non-alcohol provisions. LOL! We added two more boaters to our group. Ed and Norman who were in a sailboat headed to nearby Pickwick Lake. When I said piled in – I mean piled in. This van wasn't very big! We were the only ones that really needed to shop at Wal-Mart. The others just got a sack or so. We had a load! The back door of the van wouldn't open so it was a little crowded on the way home with 8 people and an abundance of groceries. We made it, though – and the bread didn't even get smashed!

On Wednesday we woke to a rainy dreary morning. Erika Lin and Sweet Pea opted to say at the marina another day. Since it was forecasted to clear up mid-morning, we headed out. We had three locks to cover (Fulton, Wilkins and Amory) and were looking to make some miles. We had no problems or delays in any of the locks and made pretty good time. The weather turned out great after all. We ended up traveling with Loop Dreams from Texas - another boat that had spent the evening at Midway Marina. We hadn't met them before. We had planned to stay at a free dock near Aberdeen but there wasn't enough water to get over to it. At least when we tried we ran into 2 1/2 feet – so we backed up slowly and high-tailed it to another anchorage. Loop Dreams had tried it before us and ended up anchoring up the river a bit to Blue Bluff. This is where we anchored too. There wasn't a lot of water but it turned out fine. There
was a gorgeous full moon!

We had planned to make it to Pirate Cove Marina on Thursday. It would be about 50 miles and 2 locks. We were in a search for beer! We knew that Columbus Marina sold beer in their ship store. We planned to stop there along the way. However, when we got close to the marina, we decided that we'd just stop there for the evening. We had planned to take the courtesy car into town to shop and to check out the antebellum homes in Columbus. However, someone had the car for the whole day! We ended up just buying beer at the ship store and hanging out at the marina. They did have a good laundromat at least! NOTE TO BEER BUYERS! - Columbus Marina charged us $24.00 a case! We thought we were back in Canada for a minute or so! At least they had it and we had no choice, I guess. The real kicker was that they also charged us $10.00 for a 12 pack of Diet Pepsi. Wow, did they see us coming!! LOL!

Friday morning was beautiful. We got a late start (who is in a hurry anyway)! We left around 10:00 and locked right through the only lock for today. This must be the river section.  We traveled with Gold Leaf who left the marina about the same time we did - all the way to our anchorage. The scenery was wonderful. As we get farther south, more trees still have their leaves. The Tenn-Tom changes constantly from the typical river look to wide channels to high bluffs, etc. When we got close to Pirates Cove Marina we saw the 108 foot snagboat Montgomery. It was moored over by the bank. This paddleboat was used for six decades to keep seven of the main rivers in the south navigable by clearing out brush and trees. Pretty cool.

We finally made it to our anchorage at Windham Landing Cut Off. We had plenty of water and lots of protection from the wind and it's only about 70 miles from Demopolis AL. The Tenn-Tom ends just a few miles before Demopolis. We watched several muskrats as the sun began to set. We were told that we might see an alligator or two. We watched for them, but they didn't show themselves this time. Maybe that was a good thing! Anyway, we decided that we would go about 50-60 miles tomorrow and then on to the marina in Demopolis on Sunday. We will probably stay in Demopolis a couple of days before starting the Black Warrior/Tombigbee Waterway. We're still about 286 miles from Mobile!

Till next time!

Admiral "C"