As We Go South

Leaving town

The first portion of this trip was just going back to Chattanooga.  My great friend Tom came from Maryland to experience the Navy, go to the game and go down the river,  We left on Sunday, Nov 16, and ran down river to Blue Springs Marina.  That's about half way and they were the only place that still had a restaurant open!  Then on Monday, we completed the trip to downtown Chattanooga.  Those two days were beautiful, sunny and actually quite warm for November.  Of course, not everything can be perfect, so to prove that, my brand new alternator failed on the way down!

The grass is turning brown so the "T" is a little hard to see.

Settled in at Blue Springs.

My plan was to spend two days in Chattanooga getting the engines serviced.  Now we had to add getting another alternator replacement to the list.  I've got a great mechanic there and Jerald did not disappoint at getting everything figured out and completed.  The only downside was that instead of leaving early on Thursday morning, it turned into a 1:30 in the afternoon departure.  Best laid plans as they say.  The late start combined with a delay at Nickajack lock got us into the dark and fog about 5 miles past the dam.  Allen got out on the bow and we crept into a spot where we could anchor the boat out of the channel behind Long Island (who knew TN had one of those?).

Allen working in the rain.

Friday started out about the same.  Again hoping for an early start, the fog didn't permit it.  Once again, Allen went to the bow and acted as the lookout as we idled along until the fog finally broke up.  The destination was Riverwalk Marina in Decatur, AL where we would meet Regina who was flying into the nearby Huntsville airport.  Along the way, a stop at Goose Pond Marina was required to get fuel.  That was when we discovered the bugs!  Apparently these things descended upon us while we were anchored.  There had to be about a 100 million tiny black bugs all over the boat which I attacked with bug spray.  We got to Riverwalk marina at about the same time as Regina's flight was landing.  The harbor master took Allen to the airport to pick up his rental car and Regina.  While he was doing that, I was getting everything connected for the evening and washing the boat!

The Admiral gave me a break.

When we woke up on Saturday morning, Allen headed back to Knoxville and we started out toward Wheeler lock.  The rain was finally gone and the sun was shining - for a while.  We were cruising down the river and suddenly the fog was back.  Only thing to do is just slow down, use the chart plotter to navigate and turn on the radar in hopes of seeing anyone else who ended up in this mess.  Fortunately, it cleared soon and we got to Wheeler lock and through with only a short delay.  Next comes Wilson lock.  This is the highest single lift lock east of the Rocky Mountains at about 100'.  We had to wait for a bit while they brought up a large tow boat and barges.  As we left, there was a boat similar to mine who led the way to our next stop at Aqua Yacht Harbor Marina. 

The upper door on Wilson lock is quite different.

Aqua Yacht is one of the 2 marinas at the top of the Tennessee - Tombigbee Waterway.  Turning off the Tennessee River to start the trip down was a little sad knowing we were finishing another piece of the Era that I talked about before.  In the past, I've always stopped at the other marina, so as we continue new things, I changed this time.  It was a nice location with very helpful staff.  They even had a little bar and grill at the marina where we got to watch the Vols win the game in Gainesville!!  How good can it get!!

From the Tennessee River to Mobile Bay, it is roughly 455 miles.  The other three times I've made this trip I have had to make stops at literally every fuel stop because the old boat didn't hold as much fuel as this one does.  I filled the tanks to the top at Aqua Yacht and off we went. Sunday the 23rd was our first day and we did pretty good.  The first lock is Whitten where we had to wait about 45 minutes.  Then we hit the the next 4 perfectly.  They were ready and waiting for us to arrive and go through.  But at the fifth one, our luck ran out.  A tow was coming up and we had to wait with some other boats.  I had hoped to get through 7 locks that day.  We completed 6 and found a spot to anchor about 15 miles short of Columbus Marina.  

Day 2 on the Tenn-Tom started with fog again.  We had to wait a bit before we could start and that caused a wait at Stennis lock.  After going through that lock, we made it on down through Armory and Aberdeen before suddenly developing an alternator problem.  I was getting warning alarms for overcurrent on both engines if I ran over 12 mph.  So for a little over 4 hours, we crept down the river to get to Kingfisher Marina.  I had planned to go there for fuel, but now I needed a mechanic.  Luckily they were able to get a guy there that night after we had arrived in the dark.  And even better, he found the problem and had it fixed in about an hour!

Day 3 on the Tenn-Tom began by getting fueled up for the remainder of the run south.  As I was filling up the tanks, the dock master mentioned that the lock had some unusual schedules and suggested that I give them a call.  So I called and the lock master said "If you can be here in 20 minutes, you can go through.  If not, it will be 3 hours."  Don't think I have ever gotten the boat moving that fast before!  I had wanted to do a little test run to be sure the alternator issue was fixed, but that turned out to be a race to the lock and fortunately, everything worked correctly.  We got through Demopolis lock as well as Coffeeville lock (the last one)while in and out of showers all day.  Finally about 4:30 the rain got so bad that we just had to stop and we were very close to an anchorage I had used before so into Three Rivers Lake we went.  Interesting place down a sort of long, narrow entry creek, but totally protected.

I think this is not in the right place!

Tenn-Tom day 4 started out nice and sunny.  I have never gotten down this far, this fast.  Now it's only about 100 miles to the bottom of Mobile Bay.  The cruise down the rest of the river was uneventful.  We arrived at the end of the Tenn-Tom about noon and entered Mobile Ship Channel.  Big ships are everywhere.  After the Channel, it's into the Bay.  The winds have been picking up and are blowing straight out of the south.  The top of the bay isn't too bad, but by the time we got mid-way, it was getting pretty choppy.  That was about the time that a Coast Guard cutter went roaring by leaving a 5 or 6 foot wake!  I'm pretty sure that we had to be airborne for a couple of seconds before slamming into the next one.  Then we had to make a turn that put us broadside to the wind generated waves, not a comfortable ride!  Bottom of the bay got better as we headed east toward the ICW.

For some reason this has been nicknamed the Dolly Parton bridge?

This guy is the one!!

Once on the ICW, we had about an hour and a half until w reached Pensacola.  That was pretty much a nice smooth trip until we got closer to the city.  The approach toward the city harbor was getting very choppy from winds.  The next few days are going to really be blowing, but since we are taking a little break for Thanksgiving all is good.  I'll start the next couple of legs over toward Carabelle, FL with a new first mate.  Regina goes back to work and my buddy Wayne will join me until we can get across the Gulf and down to Sarasota.

All my Tennessee flags are flying here in FL.

Back into salt water so routines change.  Boat gets a bath after every trip and we're surrounded by sport fishers!