November 3, Day 143 - Columbus to Cochrane Cut-Off

We were quietly enjoying our coffee early this morning when the boat in front of us headed out of the marina for the lock. It was only 7:00, but we decided to quickly detach the electrical cord and untie the lines and join him and one other boat in the lock. We were off the dock and out of the marina within 5 minutes and locked through immediately.

We had planned to go approximately 60-70 miles today but, with the flooding, a couple of the anchorages were no longer usable and so our options were pretty limited. We spoke with our friends on Second Star and Emotion 3 (who we are trying to catch up with) and they told us the Cochrane Cut-Off anchorage was good. They had actually stayed there a few days and were heading on towards Demopolis. They checked back with us later and confirmed they had tried the anchorages along the way and couldn’t get in any of them.

We locked through Bevill Lock, along with a lot of debris, and arrived at our anchorage a little after 1:00. Gerry worked on e-mail and Linda did blog stuff and read. It is very beautiful and peaceful here, in fact so peaceful Gerry had to take a nap. As night came, the surroundings came alive with the sounds of birds and critters. Not sure what all is out there. While Gerry was out grilling dinner, a tug/barge came by in the main part of the waterway. It was pretty eerie as the large lights on the tug shown brightly through the trees and up the cut-off. We think we are in the “middle of nowhere”.

We plan on leaving at daybreak tomorrow so we can make it to Demopolis and join up with Second Star and Emotion 3.

Arriving at the first lock of the day - Stennis Lock

Gerry had line duty so Linda could finish breakfast since we'd left so fast

After clearing the lock, we saw this crane loading scrap metal

We saw lots of birds sitting on the power line towers

We saw lots of nice homes along the shoreline

This house was right at the Mississippi/Alabama line .... not sure which state it was in

Humm........In case you need to make a phone call, nothing like a convenient phone booth on the river's edge.

Here's a house for sale ..... a real nice spot if you want to live in Alabama

Birds seemed to love the bare trees ... they were everywhere

This is a 108 foot snagboat that is permanently on display at the Tom Bevill Resource Management and Visitor Center

The bollard inside Bevill Lock .... Look, it has an ad for Green Turtle Bay stuck on it.

This locking thing is pretty hard work .... looks like Linda is really having a tough time of it.

Some of the crap (flotsam) inside the Bevill Lock. We had to zigzag through tree trunks all the way through.

A notice of what to expect as you exit the lock. They weren't kidding .... very strong current as a result of all the water being released from the dam.

You can see the current flowing swiftly as we exited the lock. We had to power through it, but it did give us a lift of about 3 or 4 knots.

Here's the water being released from the dam.

Here are some bluffs along the Tenn-Tom .... pretty unusual, as it's mostly low lying land.

More of the bluffs along the waterway.

Here we are at our anchorage for the night. Very nice

Another shot around the anchorage

Anchorage -- Just before dusk

Tree and its reflection

A shot looking in front of where we were anchored. If you look closely you can see the float on our trip line and the current line flowing from it. Also, notice the Great Loop flag. Seems unbelievable we're down towards the bottom of the map !!!