Day 190 & 191- October 23 & 24 Demopolis, AL to Bobby's Fish Camp, Silas, AL to Tensaw River, AL

Leaving Demopolis, Alabama in the typical early morning.  The Demopolis lock is only 3 miles away and a call to the locktender tells us we are good to go.  But how far?  There is only one facility, if you can even call it that, for the next 200 miles and it is about 98 miles away.  Too far, I'm thinking.  An early start will help.

The old and the new, sharing space.

These are the waterfalls next to the lock and dam.
We are the only boat moving this morning, so locking was smooth and efficient.  We cleared the lock shortly after 0700.  The original plan was to make for an anchorage about 30 miles short of the halfway point, have a very short day the next day and a long day to an anchorage on day three, arriving in Mobile on day 4.


This video shows all the waterfalls next to the dam.

Another calm and sunny day on the water.

In one place we saw the leaves turning and around the corner not so much.

The scenery is not exciting and amusements are few.  Most notable is almost a complete lack of human activity.  We are by ourselves all day.

Thus, a burbling water pipe merits our attention.

Back in the land of changing leaves. Pretty.

Traffic!  A whole dredge operation on the move.

This big auger is what digs the bottom.   Dredge spoil (silt, sand, mud, etc.) is sucked through it and out the back of the dredge through long pipes, which carry it off to a spoil area. These spoil areas often make the riverbanks.

Isn't he cute??

Four days of smoothies ready for the freezer!
Since we start most days with a protein smoothie, one of the tasks we have repeatedly done during this trip is make smoothie kits. For the curious, the kit has 1/2 a banana, 4 strawberries, about a 1/2 cup of blueberries and a hand full of spinach. Then we freeze them. In the morning we add unsweetened almond milk and protein powder and let the Bullet do its magic. Yummy!
We have made well over 300 of these to date.

Well, surprise, surprise!  We made it to the lone 'facility' on this stretch.  There is no picture.  It was not worth it.  It's called "Bobby's Fish Camp".  A small dock (with power) and a cantankerous gent who took my money. More than double any other marina on this section of the river!  There is nothing there.  When we got there, a boat was already tied up.  It was about 4:30 in the afternoon.  He had been waiting since 12:30 for "Bobby" to come and pump some gas. He waited until about 6. Good thing he wasn't in a hurry.

But, we made it the full 98 miles to Bobby's Fish Camp and saved a travel day.

Reluctantly dragging myself away from the many charms of Bobby's Fish Camp, the Coffeeville lock was only 3 miles away. This lock is noteworthy as it is the last lock on the Tombigbee River.  After here, we will be in tidal water becoming more salty as we progress.  There is also no way we can avoid anchoring up tonight.  It's 119 miles  to Mobile.

Another day of river scenery.


Interesting tug name, Safety Forever?!

Sure, it's 119 miles to Mobile on the river.  About 50 as the crow flies.  See above.

One of the remarkable aspects of the Tenn-Tom waterway is that it was completed ahead of schedule and below budget.  That success was achieved by not spending a dime straightening this thing out.  After all, the motto of the US Army Corps of Engineers is "The only good river is a straight river!"

These two 'oxbow' turns are amazing.  At the narrowest, it's only about 900 feet from mid-channel to mid-channel across the land at both of these.  The river, however, takes about 2.25 miles to get from one side to the other of each of these.  1800 feet?  4.5 Miles?

What is more amazing is that the tow operators maneuver 15 barge tows around these corners.  Thankfully not while we were there.


We saw a lot of these little ducks. Always in a good sized flock.

If the floating log is moving, it could be a gator!

Fly baby fly, there is a gator in the water!!!

We know we are getting close to the gulf when we spotted that gator.

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