If there is no fog, I like to start pulling up anchor just after first light, so I can be underway right at sunrise. With a little over 10 hours between sunrise and sunset this time of year and an average 7.5 MPH on the boat and faced with a 450-mile trip, that I want to complete before my flight leaves St. Pete Airport on Dec. 20, for the next few weeks, it’s early to bed and early to rise (not my normal retired routine). I know that my Travel Logs show that I am averaging more that 7.5, but remember, I have been going down stream.
At the end of this leg, I will have completed two round trips on the rivers between KY Lake and Mobile Bay. You noticed some of the same towboats (a.k.a. tows) along the way. The Joe Cain is one of the boats I think I have seen on every trip. It seems I often play leap frog with him. I overtook the Joe Cain Wednesday early in day and watched him slowly disappear from the AIS. I guess he passed me during the night, because about mid-day on Thursday, I see the Joe Cain on the AIS ahead of me. I hear him talking on the radio to some other tows, they discuss passing and waiting when they are approaching sharp turns, and we were coming up on a set of turns that looks like an S-hook followed by a couple of lazy S turns. By the time I caught up with the Joe Cain, I could see 4 tows coming at us, yowzers!!!! We passed the first tow and then the Captain of the Joe Cain told me I could go by on the 1s if I wanted to. So, I turned my boat slight right and blew by him (his 4.5 MPH to my 8) on his starboard side.
I kept checking Nebo (the boat logging app) and could see the M/V Angelita ahead of me. They were running just about a tenth of a MPH faster then me, so I know I would not catch them today, but as the day wore on, I thought they may be heading the same anchorage as me, I would see them there, maybe.
Actually, I had two anchorages picked out, one at the 17-mile mark and one at the 12-mile mark. I knew the 12-mile mark would be stretching it up to sunset. I found the last couple of days that with afternoon clouds and the trees on the river banks, it gets hard to see debris floating in the river before it reaches sunset. But by the end of today, I should be in a much flatter area so maybe it will be better, so we’ll see. As I was approaching the 17-mile point anchorage, I knew I would be there an hour before sunset. Mile point 12 would take me 40 minutes to reach, perfect. Well that is if I can get past the railroad lift bridge without delay. I am about ¾ of a mile behind the towboat Judson B. I hear him call the bridge and the tender say he will get it up for him. YES!!!! As we round the bend and see the bridge, I call the tender and tell him I am behind the Judson B and would like to come through as well. He says can you speed it up a bit and catch up with him. I’ll do my best, but I only have a little more to give it. After about 5 minutes he calls back and says he is going to have to close the bridge after the tow because he has a train waiting to cross. I thought really you can’t wait 3 more minutes, but I said “Understand, you gotta keep the trains on schedule.” He said it would only be a few minutes and he would get it right back up for me. Pssht, it will take a couple of minutes to get the slack out of the train.
I was about 1.1 miles from the mile point 12 anchorage, so it was too late to go back to MP 17. The bridge finally went up and I got to the anchorage as the last light was fading. And there in the anchorage was Angelita.
The next day I hauled anchor at dawn and headed for Mobile Bay, but I didn’t stop at a marina until I got to Gulf Shores. I thought I went trough a time warp as I was leaving Mobile Harbor. I fell in behind the Nina and Pinta. They are a lot faster than I thought they would be, I stayed about a mile behind them until I turned east toward Gulf Shores and they turned west.
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| The Pinta is .84 miles ahead |
I made it to Lulu’s Homeport Marina, Gulf Shores, AL. The forecast is for some nasty weather over night and into tomorrow. I am going to wait it out here and hope to get an early start so I can get to Niceville to see my sister and brother-in-law before he has to leave on business trip. Hopefully I will be back on the move Sunday.
I started using a new app to log the boat trips. Take a look at the Travel Logs at this link. I think you will find them interesting.
Lesson Learned: Just because the tow in front of you is going to get through the lift bridge, doesn't mean you will.
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| This is as close as I could get the the Nina and Pinta |
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| Darn train bridge. |
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| Everybody else post pictures of their food |
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| Sunset at Anchor |
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| This section of the river has a lot of switchbacks |
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| Lesson Plan at Lulu's |
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| Book recommendation. If you enjoy my stories Floyd's adventures are more enjoyable to read. The phone number is a (502) area code, so I am sure it is not a good number. Maybe you can find it on Amazon. |
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