Thursday, October 7, 2021
Temp: 82/65, Humidity: 57/100%, Top Wind: NE4 mph, Precip: FOG, cloudy, sunny, Miles Traveled: 50, Number of Locks: none
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I actually slept pretty good last night. I woke up several times with bonks against the hull, but I didn’t stay awake long. Captain didn’t sleep quite as well, worrying about his ship and all. We were both awake at daybreak to see that there was plenty of fog outside. Grrr 😠 That’s not good because we won’t travel in fog unless we absolutely have to. The good thing was that we only had fifty miles to go today and no locks, so we didn’t have to. David called to see what we were thinking, and was relieved to hear that we were thinking about just sitting here awhile until it cleared up. We anticipated that it would get thicker as the sun came up, and then it would burn off, and that is exactly what it did.
Around 7:00, Kenny went up onto the bow to check out the anchor chain and bridle. Holy floating forest Batman! Thankfully we have a really long boat pole that he could use to poke and prod to try to get the stuff loose.
What you cannot see here were two very large logs that were under all these branches. He was able to get some of the branches loose, but everybody was holding on for dear life. And then he broke the end off of the dock pole. 😲 GRRRR. We took a break and relaxed and waited around for the fog to lift. Finally around 8:30 it was looking better, so we decided to start trying to free ourselves from the grips of the river. Kenny had time to mull over different options for breaking free. We might not have had this mess if we had not used our bridle, but there was so much tension on the anchor chain and gypsy that we had to use it. Hmmmm…. now what?!
I am always the crew member that runs the anchor, and Kenny runs the boat. We decided that today was not the day for that duty asignment, so I ran the boat and Kenny ran the anchor. There was just too much stuff caught up that I wouldn’t be able to untangle. So with our headsets on, he could direct me to go forward or stop, depending on what he was doing that I couldn’t see from the flybridge. He was going to have to lay on his belly and reach down towards the water to lift, tug, and untangle. We went forward just a bit and were only able to pull in a few feet of anchor chain before it stopped. There was a really gnarly log with lots of crazy stubby arms that the bridle rope was all tangled up in, and it was too heavy in the current to lift whatsoever. I tried to swing the boat sideways to the current, hoping that it would help the branches loosen up and drift away down our starboard side. He was able to knock one log out and some of the branches so that he was left with less stuff in the main blob. Then somehow he got it all to the starboard side and the chain pulled up enough to reach the bridle hook on the chain. The problem now was that there was so much tension on everything that he couldn’t get it loose. I’d take tension off of the chain and he’d have a couple of seconds of slack to work on it before the current pulled on the log and everything went tight again. Then the chain would be too tight and jump out over the gypsy. We had to do this a few times, and he was finally successful in getting the bridle off and untangled from the log. This picture is what you can see of the log. It had these branch arms all the way around it, so it really was a bugger!! After that was loose, it was pretty easy to bring the rest of the chain in, drive forward over the anchor to jostle it loose from the mud, and by the time it came up through 20’ of swift running river current to the surface, it was nice and clean! WHEW! Our buddies didn’t have nearly that much trouble. Since they were right behind us, we caught almost all of the floating forest, but they did wait around to make sure we got clear and on our way!
This whole procedure really only took about 10-15 minutes, so we were on our way, dodging logs in the river pretty quickly. The fog lifted right away, and we had a beautiful blue sky. Every once in awhile we’d see a random swinging bench along the banks to remind us that all is well in the South.
Around 10:30 we came upon a dredge operation, and a little boat came out across the river to deliver crew. Then this little tow boat decided to race us down the river. They were laughing and having fun and waving at us. They’d rev up and go, then slow down, then rev up again. It just plowed the front end down when they went fast and we all laughed. It was fun to play with them a bit.
The white cliffs of Epes are really unique and pretty. We were just tootling down the river, and around one corner appeared these big white cliffs!
They are really cool and unique along the river, and remind me of the hoodoos in Utah at Bryce Canyon.
Peekaboo!
I was trying to get some decent pictures with the sun shining on them, which really only worked after we went by.
Hey look! We’re both here at the white cliffs!
There was still really a lot of debris in the river. It was like playing a video game dodging all of the logs. On the winding river, the flow of debris crosses back and forth with the current and eddies. We had four eyes on the water most of the time!
Oh dear. I imagine Ma & Pa still live here, but who knows for how much longer?! Maybe they just don’t go out on the front porch anymore? Now Billybob, if you go out on the porch to sit a spell in them chairs, the wood’s gettin a lil soft, so stay close to the house walls. 😬
By 2:00 we arrived at Demopolis, or rather what I refer to as DAMNopolis. This is where I broke my foot in 2018 when I was rushing to follow the dockmaster’s instructions, and I missed a step in the cockpit and rolled my left foot. I broke a bone and had to wear a boot for six weeks. But because of that, we were blessed to have a dear friend come and join us for the rest of our loop, which was a really fun time that we treasure! Blessings CAN come out of a bad situation! So there is really good, bad, ugly, and blessed! Right Wayne? 🥰
The marina has changed and been upgraded since we were last here. They had some severe flooding, and I think changes were made in the rebuild. While docking this time, I just tended to my duties as I have for the other 12,000 miles of marinas that we’ve been into, and just kept repeating, “we’re fine, we’ll be fine” with each command of “watch this, watch that, stay here, push off, you’re too close,” etc. I know she’s really trying to be helpful, but nope – I’m calmly doing it our way, and we’ll be fine. And we were. WHEW! I conquered and came through injury free this time! 👍
We just chilled out and I spent some time figuring out how fast we could get to Carabelle for the Gulf Crossing from here. It’s good to know what our options are in case there is a fabulous calm weather window that shows itself, and we want to go. We’ll time everything that we do from here on out based on that.
For dinner, we joined David and Lisa for a trip to a local barbeque joint. The food wasn’t terrible or fabulous, but we enjoyed having dinner with them and talking about the days and voyages coming up. They’d like to stick with us, which will be fine.
Tomorrow morning, David will call the Demopolis lock at 6:00 to get a transit report. Unless it’s super foggy, we’ll go at daybreak and make a long one-hundred mile day of it, IF we can get right through the lock. Only two more locks to go, and we’ll be in SALT WATER AGAIN! If we have any delay in the morning, we’ll anchor somewhere along the way. If we can do the 95 mile day that we think we can, we’ll spend tomorrow night on a small dock at Bobby’s Fish Camp. And with any luck, we’ll even have power there!