MONDAY,
OCTOBER 13
I forgot to
mention in yesterday’s post that we hit a milestone – we have over 1,000 miles under
the keel since we left our home port in Sturgeon Bay! If we had traveled to the same point by land
we would have covered only 700 miles.
These rivers don’t seem to run in a straight line for some reason!
Got up at 7
and took off early as we have to go through Pickwick Lock today and the weather is supposed to deteriorate. As we continued south upriver (yes, south and upriver, seems weird doesn’t
it?), the channel narrowed, the depth became
shallow and the current picked way up.
That coupled with the strong southerly wind made for a very slow moving
Free Bird. Caught
sight of this poor house along the way – bet it has been condemned!
With weather predicted to
come in soon, we were anxious to get past this lock and to our next marina. We passed the banks of Shiloh National
Military Park where we are hoping to go tomorrow to tour by car. By the time we reached the lock it was
10:30. We had to wait for 1 tow and
barge to go up and then it would our turn to rise 57’. It took what seemed like forever. We didn’t
even enter the lock until after noon and the wind was continually increasing –
yuk! Once through the dam, we were on
Pickwick Lake - shallow and windy. The waves were whipping up just like they had
that first day on Kentucky Lake, even worse actually as the winds were
20+MPH. Poor Molly, I kept looking at
her and she didn’t look great but I thought she was faring OK. The last 15 minutes before we could turn the
corner were really rough. As we were turning
onto the Tenn-Tom, we got a double whammy with barge waves hitting us on the
beam and we really rocked!
A little
bit on the Tenn-Tom Waterway - it connects the Tennessee River at Pickwick Lake
with the Tombigbee River at Demopolis, AL.
This waterway is relatively new.
Construction began in 1972 and it was open to river traffic in
1985. A grand project it was indeed as there
was more earth moved to create this waterway than was moved during construction
of the entire Panama Canal. We will lock
DOWN 341’ through 10 locks over 450 miles between
this point and Mobile, AL!
We had marina
fever now and were looking so forward to getting there, out of this wind and
getting tied up before the storm hit. Were very glad to see the sign for Grand
Harbor Marina. Got diesel, pumped the
heads, took a slip and within a short time there were tornado warnings and
downpours of rain. That was calling it a
bit close.
Went to check on Molly and
she seemed no worse for wear but soon discovered she had gone into her litter box
and thrown up in there. I again did not
take her food away that morning and I should have as we knew Pickwick would be
a challenge. What a little sweety, once
I gave her some “TREAT” she was back to normal and jumping around like a
kitty.
Most of the
Loopers at a Looper Rendezvous at Joe Wheeler State Park about 20 miles farther
up the Tennessee River. We decided to
forego that and embrace the peace and quiet for a while. The rendezvous ends on Thursday and we will
have Loopers everywhere after that.
Figured we would take advantage of the fact that there is relatively no
one at the marina right now. For example, normally
there is a 2-hour time limit for the courtesy car but since no one else is here
they said we could take it for 4 or 5 hours.
Yippee, we are looking forward to a day of shore leave!
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