Weekend Traveling Frenzy

We have not had Internet or cell service for a couple of days. So, it's time to catch up.

Saturday morning we left Demopolis Yacht Basin a little earlier than planned. We were up at our usual 5:30 and about 15 minutes later, we heard a boat from Demopolis talking to the lockmaster. The lockmaster said he was turning the lock around and to bring it on. So, we hurried and left the harbor at 6:10. There were nine boats in the lock together. We spent the night at Bashi Creek, anchored out with "Runaround Sue", "Trusty III", "Surprise", and "Livin the Dream". We had Happy Hour on the back of our boat. They all came by dinghy.

It was so quiet and peaceful back in that creek until 3:00 A.M. Ann and John on "Livin the Dream" had an intruder on their boat. They woke up and there was a man on their boat. He swam/waded across the water to the boat. They think he was looking to steal gas. They yelled at him to get off the boat and he did leave. How scary is that?

On Sunday morning, we tried to leave at 6:30, but there was too much fog. We pulled up anchor at 7:15, but once we got out on the river, it was foggy again. Once we got through the fog, it was smooth sailing until we reached our anchorage at Three Rivers Lake. We had passed through the final lock (Coffeeville) along the way. We had cruised 81 miles and it was just getting dark when we arrived at Three Rivers Lake. The 81 miles was too far for the 2 sailboats to make before dark, so it was just "Runaround Sue", "Trusty III", and us. We were ready to call it a day. We had a wonderful, peaceful night's sleep here with no surprises.

On Monday morning, we left at our usual time. It was beautiful out for most of the day. Once we reached Mobile Harbor, the AIS was driving Captain John crazy. There were so many tows that the alarm kept going off and the screen looked like a mine field. Mobile was not as deserted as in the spring, but it's not as active as last year when we made our way down river.

We saw our first crab pot. Yikes! We must be ever vigilant, keeping our eyes peeled for the pesky little devils.

We reached Dog River at 3:00P.M. after doing 85 miles today. As we were pulling up to the fuel dock, our boat became grounded. When we made our way along the 7 mile channel to the harbor, the water depth beneath our boat was only 3 to 4 feet. We had spoken to the fuel dock attendant on the radio as we entered Dog River and he was standing on the dock watching us and failed to mention that the route we were on was too shallow. We were going very slowly and it was a soft grounding. After being pulled off (Thank you, "Dollar Boat"), we tested to make sure there were no vibrations. Of course, during all of this, it decided to rain. By the time we were fueled up and tied to a slip, every one of us was soaked to the bone. It felt so good to tie up and go to Happy Hour on "Trusty III". Yvette and Claude are gracious hosts and we enjoyed ourselves yet again.

We plan on stayng here Tuesday to reprovision and get caught up on some maintenance chores. Hopefully, we'll be back on the water on Wednesday.