Saturday, June 12, 2010

Today is Tony and Cara's Wedding Day. We hope your future is filled with lots of happiness and prosperity. We wish we could be there with you tonight. However, we are in Columbus, Mississippi. Today is also Jay and Cynthia's Anniversary. Happy Anniversary!

We left our anchorage at 6:50 A.M. We passed through two locks, Thomas Belville and John Stennis. There were so many fishermen on the river today. Slow down, speed up, slow down, speed up...... We saw many gorgeous homes and lots of boats. We even saw a red telephone booth on shore sitting all by itself. I thought that was hilarious.

We are docked at Columbus Marina in Columbus, Mississippi. This is a nice marina. We borrowed the courtesy car and went into town. There were lots of old antebellum homes near town. They had signs in the front yard that had the name of the house and the year it was built. We enjoyed our self guided tour. The courtesy car was a Chevy van that would only stay running if you kept your left foot on the brake and your right foot on the gas at the same time. It was only running on about 3 or 4 cylinders and the rear tire felt like it was going to shake off the car. Driving was an experience, but we got there and back with no incidents. It's nice when the marinas have courtesy cars. We appreciate it a lot.

ON THE MOVE

We fueled up at Demopolis Yacht Basin at 6:00 A.M.and left at 6:30 with "Runaround Sue". We headed north on the Tombigby Waterway. We passed through Howell Hefflin Lock and Dam. The morning was wonderful. The sky was blue and there was a nice breeze. We grilled chicken while on the way for lunch. Yummy! Once we were through the lock, the sun was blazing hot. It was 93 degrees and extremely humid. We anchored out at Cook's Bend Oxbow near Carrollton, Alabama. It's supposed to be even hotter tomorrow. Welcome to summer. It's what we've been waiting for since winter.

JUNE 10, 2010

Today I received lots of well wishes for my birthday. Thank you all so much.

The handle did not arrive today, but we are moving on tomorrow anyway. Today was a nice relaxing day. Hot and humid, but nice all the same. We are anxious for a change of scenery. Til tomorrow......

STILL IN DEMOPOLIS

This is starting to feel like a second home. We know where the stores all are located. The bad thing is there are no fabric stores for 50 miles. Doesn't that stink? Well, our refrigerator arrived a day ahead of schedule. It came yesterday. John and Norm installed it. We went to the grocery store today and filled it up. We are ready to move on, except that Dog River Marina is mailing our handle for the windlass. Supposedly, it was mailed on Friday, but we have not received it yet. We will wait one more day and then call and tell them to figure something else out. The plan for tomorrow is to go for a dinghy ride to explore, if it isn't too hot and humid.

We heard this afternoon that our old store (Billie's Pony Keg) was robbed at gunpoint again on Sunday night. The surveillance video is on the Cincinnati Enquirer's web page. The images are very clear and we hope the police catch the guys and that this doesn't happen again. We feel really bad for the new owners.

Demopolis

Demopolis has a strange hold on us. We can't seem to just pass through. Our refrigerator should be here Wednesday. We have been eating things like Dinty Moore Beef Stew, Chef-Boy-R-D Ravioli, peanut butter and jelly(things that don't require cold).

Today we borrowed the service dept. truck. The speedometer is stuck on 120 mph. It feels really strange to be going 25 mph and have the speedometer say 120. Norm, John, and I all went to get haircuts. It feels so much better. It's supposed to be in the 90s every day this week.

Demopolis Yacht Basin is digging a new section of marina. This has been going on since before we were here in the fall. Supposedly, the new part should be done by Nov., 2010. They have remodeled the laundry and women's restroom and showers. It's nice to be spending this time with Norm and Sue. It makes the waiting time go faster.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

We had decided that on Friday we would sleep in and only travel 40 or so miles. We left Bobby's Fish Camp at 7:50 A.M. So much for sleeping in. We were only a half hour later leaving that the day before. We anchored out just north of the State Highway 10 Bridge. We did the bow to stern thing again and didn't swing at all on anchor. We were completely tied and ready to relax by 3:00. That was kind of nice to have some time to chill. We had leftover fish for dinner, played farkle, and then John got out his guitar and we sang until we couldn't think of any other songs to sing. What an enjoyable evening.

Today we got underway at 7:00 A.M. and hoped to reach Demopolis Yacht Basin. We had only seen one barge and one fishing boat all day until about 8 miles before the Demopolis Lock and Dam. Then 3 boats our size or larger, passed us. Their names were "Lady Michigan", "Last Chance", and "Galati". However, we all locked through together and we all headed into Demopolis Yacht Basin. We arrived here at 2:30 P.M. John says he'll be happier here this time than on the way down river because now he has his satellite TV. No more PBS.

We had dinner at the restaurant here at the marina. The food was good and the air conditioning was wonderful. By the time we finished dinner, our air had cooled the boat down and made it quite comfy. We will be here at least until Thursday due to the refrigerator issue.

MOVING ON

Port of Mobile, June 2, 2010

We were without wi-fi service yesterday, so now you get two days worth.

The fuel dock at Dog River Marina opens at 7:00 A.M. We were there and ready at 6:50 A.M. on Wednesday, June 2, 2010. After getting fuel, we pulled away from the dock at 7:30 A.M. The day was cloudy and humid.

Mobile Harbor is like a ghost town. When we came through in the fall, there were so many large ships and towboats moving around in all directions. It made us feel small and insignificant. On this trip there were only three tugboats moving and three ships docked. The docked ships were not being loaded or unloaded. They were just sitting there idle. It's really sad to think of all the people the oil spill has put out of work. Three nights ago, as we were having happy hour on the back of our boat, we saw a Carnival cruise ship leaving Mobile. We wonder if the passengers will have to make alternate return transportation.

We had a thunderstorm just like every day for the last 10 days or so. We only passed about 4 pleasure boats all day. I really thought we would see a fair amount of boats our size trying to head north away from the spill. Most likely, they got an earlier start than we did.

We stopped Wednesday at Bates Lake This is a lovely anchorage. We tied up differently this time since there is very little current and no wind. One of us is pointing upstream and the other is pointing downstream and we both have our anchors deployed. So we're thinking this is the same as having a front and rear anchor out. We arrived at 5:00 P.M. just in time for happy hour. All in all, it's been a great day!

Today, Thursday, June 3, 2010, we left our cozy anchorage at 7:15 A.M. We called Demopolis Yacht Basin to ask if we could have a refrigerator delivered there. Ours is running 65 degrees. We had to pitch a bunch of food and move the rest to the coolers.

We were held up briefly by barges that were scattered across the river. We think that towboat captain wasn't paying attention and ran his barges up on shore and they scattered across the river.

We stopped for the day at Bobby's Fish Camp. Bobby Dahlberg, the owner, passed away in February and his daughter is now running the place. We ate catfish at the restaurant. It was really good and a lot of food. We also had fried pickles. I don 't like pickles, but I discovered I like fried pickles. We arrived here at 5:00 P.M. Bobby's doesn't have electric service and our generator isn't working. It's 90 degrees in the boat. Welcome to the joys of boat ownership. It's always something.