Monday, October 4, 2021
Temp: 80/69, Humidity: 77/100%, Top Wind: S2 mph, Precip: foggy, cloudy, some sun, Miles Traveled: 60,
Number of locks: 4, down 107 feet (25,25,30,27)
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Our first of four locks today, the Fulton Lock, was only three miles from the marina, so I planned to get up and call the lock on the phone to check traffic. The wifi and cell service here has been slow, plus the USACE Lock Queue website has been really slow to non-responsive. So, I was awake at 5:00. 🙄Really?! That’s what I thought too! Oh brother! So I got up and checked the weather first, and naturally as things go, it was predicting FOG until 9:00. 😩 Well that isn’t good! I waited until about 5:45 to break the news to the Captain. However, I could see the lights in the darkness from the lock down the river, so the fog wasn’t terrible yet. I finally got the lock queue report to pull up, and it showed two tows were upbound that had come through the Wilkins Lock, which is fifteen miles farther downriver. That means they could be arriving at our lock and delaying progress. What to do, what to do? Captain says ‘we’re not going in fog again!’ I agree – it is way too stressful on the rivers with barges. As it started to get light out, it didn’t look bad. But that’s what happened to us at Cuba Landing: everything looked fine until we got out on the river and the sun came up, then it socked in really bad. What to do, what do? We were thinking that we should get ready to go anyway, just in case the other boats peeled out, we’d be ready to go with them. Then, at about 6:50, Tom on Maggie Jo called on the phone and said that one of the boats on the fuel dock had talked with the lockmaster, and there were tows coming down, and tows going up, so if we wanted to get through, we needed to come right away, otherwise we’d be here all day. That sealed the deal – we were outta this joint at 6:59.
She’s the One and Tipsy Turtle led the way, but Maggie Jo wasn’t going with us. She has an issue that needs to be fixed, and actually has to go back upriver to a boat yard that can do the work. Fifteen minutes later, we were at the lock, and they were just about ready for us to come on in. YAY! We heard the lockmaster talking to a tow down below. He told the tow what the traffic was and that he’d be letting some PC’s down, then would bring him up. The tow called back and said in his sweet southern drawl, “Awe, they be ah’righ‘ – they on v’cation.”. We laughed, and were very thankful that the lockmaster showed mercy on us and got us through!!
The fog wasn’t terrible, so we were very glad about that.
The tow that the lockmaster had been talking to was just waiting in the middle of the river, and he advised us to go around at no-wake on the two, because it was a bit skinny here. He was nice and helpful telling us the river condition here.
It was a very low ceiling kind of day, so we were just putzing along in the clouds. The fog didn’t have anywhere ‘up’ to go! Thankfully it wasn’t thick blinding fog like we’ve been in before!
We could see a pretty good distance, but occassionally we lost She’s the One. They cruise a bit faster than us, so they gained distance on us during the fifteen miles to the Wilkins lock.
We arrived here by 9:15 and found the second upbound tow that we were warned about. However, due to the fog, he had just parked himself in the lock and was blocking our entrance. The lockmaster radioed him several times and must have finally woke him up. He pulled forward and tied off to make room for us to go around and get into the lock.
We didn’t even have to squeeze. Once we were in and secured, he fired up and moved on up the river.
This was another 25’ drop. The locks have signs for distances along the wall, starting at 100, 200, 300. Our routine became that She’s the One goes first and takes the 200 or 300 pin on the starboard side, we take the 200 or 300 on the port side, and Tipsy Turtle takes the 100 or 200 on the starboard side.
We were out of that lock by 9:50 and headed to the Amory lock which was just five miles away. Uh-oh. When we got there, there was another upbound tow in the chamber coming up. This time we had to sit around and tread water for awhile because we couldn’t even see his top when we arrived.
It was completely calm, and the fog had lifted into the clouds pretty well by now. We were thankful that there was barely any current and there was no wind, so sitting in one spot wasn’t terribly difficult.
There were several places where there were trees in the water, and they had beautiful fall color. I think these are a variety of cyprus trees. The phone camera just couldn’t capture the pretty color on the dreary day.
Once the tow was out of the chamber, we were cleared to come in. As usual, we went to the 300 spot on the port side. There was water spurting up through some grates on the walkway nearby, and we noticed a guy pressure washing farther forward. There was some water gurgling around the floating bollard, so we just attributed the all the water to some kind of cleaning project. HA! Weren’t we surprised when it turned into a waterfall as we were lowered down in the lock! Fortunately for us, the bollard sits mid-ship, and we each sit forward and aft of that. The gunwales of Island Girl got doused really good! As we pulled away, I looked back to take this picture, and the peeps on Tipsy Turtle were looking at the water fall and pointing, then looked at me. I just shrugged and smiled. Whatcha gonna do? 🤷♀️
It wasn’t long before we were at the town of Amory, and as usual, we try to figure out what the facility is that we’re passing. I knew this one in a heart beat. It is a chip facility! Weyerhaeuser, where I worked for over 30 years, owns or maybe formerly owned this facility. Do you see where there is a gray arm that reaches out with a piece that goes straight down over the barge? There was a steady flow of wood chips blasting out of that to load the barge. It was like a big firehose blowing chips!
This is where we were. That really helps, doesn’t it? 😏
It was fun to watch the operation as we went by, because I am such a big manufacturing machinery & equipment geek. What was cool was that we could see where the big giant log picker would pick up an entire logging truck load of logs, and dump them into the debarker, which was a huge rotating drum. It was cool. Probably nobody else would think so, but I knew what was going on, so I loved it.
We continued on our merry way, and I was intrigued by some of the plants along the river. With this low resolution, you can’t really see them, but there were bunches and bunches of these tropical looking elephant ear plants! YAY! We’re getting closer to home where tropical house plants live and grow outside. 😉🌺🌴
We had a fourteen mile stretch which took over an hour, so I fixed us some samiches for lunch. We were getting just a little bit of help with the current – not even a .5 mph push. By 12:30 we were at the Aberdeen Lock and were able to tootle right on in! This timing was awesome today!
I checked the bollard wells more carefully this time, and picked one that did not come with a complimentary waterfall. Today’s locks were nice and calm. Going down is not turbulent, and there was no wind to speak of most of the day, so we were able to pretty much keep the fenders off of the walls. The walls below the high water line are goopy, grimey, grubby, so if the fenders slide along in the slime, then the slime gets all over Island Girl, and then she looks like PigPen.
We were down another 27’, making a total of 107 drop in elevation today. We were out of that lock well before 1:00, and headed for today’s finish line. And would you look at that sky? No fog at this elevation! 😁 The Columbus Marina was another 22 miles, or just over two hours away. We planned to get fuel at the marina, and She’s the One radioed us to verify that, because they wanted fuel too. The channel into the marina is very skinny, so if someone is on the fuel dock, it’s so sketchy for another boat to pass that Steve (the dockmaster) doesn’t want people doing it. So, She’s the One peeled out and went fast. He likes to go fast. (Later we met David and Lisa, and Lisa says his driving style is B.O.H. … BatOuttaHell.) Tipsy Turtle went a little faster than us, and we slowed down a bit. By the time we got to the marina, boat #1 was all done, boat #2 was just pulling away from the fuel dock, so we could pull in. Perfect timing.
The dockmaster Steve is so funny that he had us laughing the whole time we were coming in, docking, and fueling. He’s really a great guy and a super helpful AGLCA sponsor.
We got all settled on the transient dock for our two night stay, right behind She’s the One. I should just refer to them as STOboh. 😂 Right along the dock were some pretty water hyacinth? I think. You haven’t seen a flower picture for quite awhile, so I figured it was time, and these are pretty.
We saw Patty from Hide Aweigh up in the office. We first met them in St Michael’s on the Chesapeake Bay. They are on a BAYLINER too!, with two cats! She invited us to docktails at 4:30, so we all gathered on Dock C under cover where they are docked. One of their cats likes to act like a dog and go for dock walks and come out for docktails. The other one never leaves the boat. We all got together for docktails, and we finally met the people on She’s the One (STOboh), Tipsy Turtle, plus Maggie Jo and a looper boat already here called Time Makes Two. It was a fun talkative time, and we all agreed to go out to dinner tomorrow night. Everybody is here for awhile except for us and STOboh – we’re both leaving on Wednesday.
We headed home and my plan was to use up some leftovers, although my dinner plan was going to take awhile to make. Kenny was OK with that, so I fixed us an amazing meat-pot-pie. Wow it was good! 😋. The left over InstantPot cooked beef spare ribs was so infused with flavor that it was sooooo tasty and tender surrounded by veggies and a creamy beefy sauce encased in a pie shell! Yum!
Tomorrow is a stay home day since it is forecasted to rain all day. Mechanic will change out Laverne’s thermostat, but that’s about all the plan that we have. I’m starting to keep a real close eyeball on the tropics forecasts. We’re getting close enough to the Gulf that we need to stay aware of anything nasty that starts to brew. It is still hurricane season!