Cruising down the Tombigbee River

We met a nice couple from Canada and decided our boats traveled at the same speed. Since then, we have put in 3, ten hour days leaving at first light and stopping at dusk traveling 182 miles. We have been through 10 locks with the first one an 85 foot drop. Each lock takes a minimum of a half hour to transit. That really affects how far you can go before dark.

Along the way, we saw a telephone booth placed on a bank by itself in the middle of nowhere. We are no longer on the Tennessee River having transitioned to the Tombigbee River. At one point we had 6 boats in our group. One fast boat charged ahead and the two slow boats were unable to keep up so they dropped off to find an anchorage. We have been traveling with the remaining two boats. Tonight, will be our first night anchoring on this section of the river and we hope to get through one more lock today. There has been a lot of wood in the river, a lot of it just under the water. We did hear a couple of thunk sounds on the hull, but have no vibration indicating damage. Well, we made it through the lock with an hour of sunlight to spare but had issues trying to set our anchor in a gravel bottom. We think it finally held, we will know tomorrow morning whether we have a wonderful night or not.

We started to hear the anchor chain rattle around 3 am. That is usually not a good sign. Kevin volunteered to go up to the pilot house and turn on the chart plotter. According to the AIS we had not moved so the chain must have been settling on itself. Luckily, the wind did not come up overnight and we had not moved much.

We got up at 5:30 am for a planned departure at 7. First light confirmed a thick fog with about a block of visibility settled around us. Our plan now is to delay departure until we have better visibility. We have a 54 mile run today to the last marina before Mobile with no locks to delay us. We have 266 miles yet to travel to get to Mobile, AL and the white sands of the Gulf of Mexico.