Total
Miles Traveled 1104.5
I
truly intended to get a blog out every couple of weeks, but here it is almost a
month already since my last entry. We
have moved almost every day since leaving our anchorage on the Little Tennessee
River, locking through 19 locks dropping
us over 800 feet to Mobile Bay.
Our
adventure down the rivers and lakes started out with mild temperatures, but as
time passed we had some pretty chilly weather, we even had a brief snow flurry
one evening anchored on the Tenn-Tom. We
have met a few old friends, and made a few new ones on our journey south this
year. I still have to stop and think
before hailing someone on the radio as Best Mate instead of Moni Jean.
We had a good current push most the way down the rivers, after passing Chattanooga, we averaged about 11 mph (almost boat hair speeds) and saw depths of 120 feet.
This is one of the valves at the Raccoon Mountain hydroelectric facility. The plant works like a large storage battery. During periods of low demand, water is pumped from the Nickajack Reservoir at the base of the mountain to the reservoir built at the top. It takes 28 hours to fill the upper reservoir. When demand is high, water is released via a tunnel drilled through the center of the mountain to drive generators in the mountains underground power plant.
We have found that maneuvering in the locks is much easier with Best Mate than Moni Jean.
We only had a problem with one lock out of the 19, when we approached the Joe Wheeler Lock we could not get a response by radio or phone. It looked as if there was a tow inside but we couldn't tell for sure and didn't want to get too close before knowing what was going on. It was getting late and for some reason our depth sounder decided to quit so exploring an anchorage was out of the question. Finally the lock called and said they would lock us through with a tow but it would be about an hour.....which would be dark thirty.
When the gates opened we saw the delay, barges were tied to the lock wall waiting for the tow. Our first, and hopefully our last, after dark lock through. At least we had reservations at the Florence, Al Marina about 2 miles out of the lock and we followed the tow to the entrance.
We've had a few great anchorages along the way.......
We stopped at one of our favorite anchorages on the way to Mobile Bay and found it's a popular spot for other cruisers heading south too.
The shrimp boat came in just before dark so Moni walked over and bought 3 pounds of fresh shrimp.
Our friends that we crossed to the Bahamas with in 2016, Robin and Charley on The Lower Place. We had them over for a cut throat game of Mexican Train.
Our friends Fred and Kathy stopped by for a visit on their way back to Indiana from Panama City. We also had lunch with another friend of ours from Indiana Brad Crackel, he and his wife Nancy retired here in 2016 so we try to stop and say hello when passing through.
We'll be here at the Bluewater Bay Marina near Niceville, Fl a few days waiting on the storms to pass through before heading east.
