Tuesday-Wednesday, November 10-11 - We traveled with Sum Escape and Mazel Tug and anchored out both nights in a couple of great anchorages. We anchored along the river behind the bouys marking the shallow section of the river. Both days we cruised long days, met a few tows/barges along the way, and stayed in the channel. The lower part of the Tenn-Tom/Black Warrior Rivers took a lot of time because there were a lot of twists and turns as we followed the natural curves of the rivers. We did see more Bald Eagles along the way - some with fish in their talons as they "fished for dinner" in the river around our boat. It is a sight to see! Both nights when we anchored we heard owls and coyotes in the distance at night.
Thursday, November 12 - The two other boats we were traveling with decided to leave our anchorage early so they could spend a long day cruising to get to Dog River Marina in Mobile, Alabama. We wanted to anchor out one more night before we arrived in Mobile so we left a couple of hours later. We found a great anchorage in the Tensas River. We cruised up and down the shoreline of this river to find a good depth for us to anchor for the night. We finally found a spot that was about 11 feet deep. The good thing about this anchorage was that the river had a strong current so LeeLoo stayed straight and we didn't have to throw out a stern anchor. It was a wonderful evening of listening to the owls and watching Mother Nature's show -- a beautiful night sky full of stars!
Friday, November 13 - We woke up and luckily our boat had stayed straight in the current. There were 2 other boats who anchored in the river for the night. One boat was probably a 25 foot boat (and we thought LeeLoo was small!). We left before the 25 foot boat and as we cruised by them, we realized that they had a tree that was longer than their boat wrapped around their boat. The tree was caught in their anchor chain and the captain was on the bow trying to push the tree off his boat. The current was so strong that it pushed the tree along and it caught on this small boat! We circled back to see if the captain and his admiral needed assistance, but they were finally able to dislodge the tree. Now that's not something you see everyday!
As we cruised down the river towards Mobile, the landscape changed quite a bit. The first sign was that we started seeing trees with Spanish Moss.
We also cruised under a fairly new railroad bridge with a 7 foot clearance when it is closed. After radioing the bridge master, the bridge was raised so we could go under it. What we found interesting about this bridge was that it looked to be in really good shape. Most of the other railroad bridges we have gone under have looked very old and in need of some upkeep.
We were so used to dealing with tows pushing huge barges on the Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee Rivers, but once we were on the Tenn-Tom, the barges were few and far between. Below is a picture of the last tow/barge we passed.
As we traveled down the river towards Mobile (we are now at sea level), the shoreline became more swampy and the water shallow. We heard reports from other Loopers who had gone before us that they had spotted alligators, but we did not see any. We did see more Pelicans and other water birds.
Once we reached Mobile, the river opened up into a huge shipping channel! There were ocean going barges and ships everywhere. We felt so small on LeeLoo as we cruised by them. There is also a Navy shipyard there and we saw some of the ships they are building. The pictures probably do no do justice as to how huge these ships were.
As we cruised passed Mobile and all the huge ships, we did notice the skyline of the city. The city was beautiful against the blue sky!
Now, the fun began! We had spent 2 months cruising on the (for the most part) peaceful rivers. We now found ourselves on Mobile Bay, which seemed like an ocean of water before us! Our destination was Turner Marine Services in Dog River where we would spend several days. Suddenly, we had waves (something we had not seen since Lake Michigan) and not much depth to the water (skinny water). Navigating on Mobile Bay was a challenge since we had to stay in the channel or be in very shallow water. The channel is marked by green and red markers and you have to stay between them. As we rocked and rolled along, Carey steered while Nancy used the stabilized binoculars to find the next set of markers. Someone later asked if we had seen any dolphins in the bay. Needless to say, we had no time to look for dolphins! As we finally approached Turner Marine, we called on the radio for our slip assignment and we couldn't get anyone to answer us (sadly, that's not uncommon). We finally called on our cell phone and talked to someone who gave us directions. It was very frustrating after a challenging day.
Saturday and Sunday, November 14-15 - One of the reasons we came to Turner Marine Services was to have some repair work done on LeeLoo. We had a raw-water pump that was leaking and needed rebuilding, a couple of fans we wanted installed, and the shaft seal inspected and reseated. Unfortunately, Turner Marine Services does not do repairs on the weekend, so we had to wait until Monday. So, we rented a car and did some sightseeing instead!
Our first stop was to the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park. This was a short drive away along Mobile Bay. The battleship was a WWII-era battleship that was built in February, 1940. The battleship is now a museum and visitors are allowed to tour the entire ship from top to bottom. There were self guided tours through the ship with lots of information available. The battleship was huge and its history fascinating. There were other planes, tanks, and a submarine on the grounds of the memorial park.
Monday-Wednesday, November 16-18 - Repairs on LeeLoo are taking longer than expected. On top of that, a bad storm is moving through the area and Mobile Bay is very rough. The water forecast we get is choppy, moderately choppy, very choppy and rough. We have a hard time translating that into what we had on Lake Michigan since everything was measured in wave height. We are hoping that the repairs get done so we can leave on Thursday for Orange Beach. Time to move on - we've been here almost a week!
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