After a couple of weeks at home, we headed the 780 miles back to Columbus. Four miles short of our destination our GPS sent us down a dirt road through "Deliverance" country, kicking our heart rates up a few beats. So far, this is the only time this trip we have been lost, by land or by sea. Resting a day, we left our slip in the company of two other boats. After three locks, we three rafted up and enjoyed a grilled pork roast dinner together. We got to know some great, interesting people, including a retired navy captain, a retired farmer and tow (tug) captain, and a former pitcher for the Texas Rangers. We were delayed a bit the next morning while a stern anchor had to be extracted from running gear, but this was but a minor blip in what was a beautiful day. We cruised past the sun-drenched chalk cliffs at Epes, AL, deposited about the same time as the famous White Cliffs of Dover. These spectacular white walls kept our eyes glued to the river bank for miles.
We next stopped at a marina at Demopolis, Alabama, the last full-service marina until Mobile, 217 miles downstream. We spent a few days there with John (the navy captain) and Pat, visiting an antebellum mansion and enjoying lunch at the local hospital's cafeteria..
At 5:00 PM each day, the marina held a meeting to coordinate boats leaving in the morning for an early morning lockdown. With water low because of draught conditions, lockmasters tried to keep lock turnarounds at a minimum. At 7:00 AM, fifteen of us squeezed into the chamber and uneventfully locked down together. On this part of the waterway, the river follows its natural course, with no artificial cuts to alter its serpentine shape. We stopped at Bobbie's Fish Camp one night, rafting off with eleven other boats on a dock which had face room for four. The next misty morning, the twelve of us stacked up in a lock, then moved downstream to pick out our next destination. We picked a secluded, tight, little cut off the river to raft alongside, bow to stern with John and Pat, each putting out an anchor to keep us centered and off the shore. Having used this technique for the first time for each of us, we congratulated ourselves and slept well that night in the most enjoyable anchorages of the trip so far.
Cruising past increasingly swampy banks, we finally approached Mobile, the sixth largest port in the U.S. Passing naval shipyards and commercial loading facilities at idle speed, we entered Mobile Bay, a huge body of water with an average depth of eight feet. A channel through the center of the bay with a depth of 35 feet allows commercial traffic to enter the harbor. Smaller channels with dredged depths of 8 feet cut east and west from the main channel. One of these took us west to Dog River Marina, where we stayed for six days to rest, ride our bikes, and allow for maintenance on our boat. Our stay here was a welcome respite, but for the moment of panic Linda experienced when she came eye to eye with a possum who took refuge in our trash can.
Renting a car, we went across the bay to visit the pretty little town of Fairhope, AL, multiple winner of national and international awards for green space architecture and floral plantings. We walked the town, smelled the roses, and ate at Shux, a seafood restaurant on a fishing pier that stretched our into the bay. I had oysters on the half shell and gumbo. Linda had a skewer of grilled shrimp and calamari. Our kind of place! After boat maintenance , we will next cross the bay and follow the intercoastal waterway east.
