Mile stone!

Monday December 7, 2015

Today is the last lock on the river system! Gators and Gulf Coast ahead!

We called the Coffeeville Lock and requested to lock down.  They had a barge on the way and said we could go down if we left right now!  We had a quick push off at 7:20 AM.  We were in the lock at 7:40 AM.  The barge coming up stream asked that we wait for him to come by us so we had to wait at the Federal Moorings just outside of the lock until it was safe to pass.  The barge captains have been very nice.  We have tried to reach out to them before we are right up on them to give them time to advise how they want us to pass them.  Coffeeville Lock is the last lock we will see for a while.  We are now in gator country! We cruised on at 1800 RPM’s we were not in a big hurry since we intended to anchor out tonight.  As you travel down the waterway north of Demopolis you get a smell of paper plants now and then.  It reminded Chris of his consulting job with in Chillicothe, Ohio.  We did hit a submerged log along the way but it did not seem to cause any damage.  We found a place to anchor out at the Alabama River cut off.  It was a very beautiful water way.  We pulled in 200 feet to stay out of the barge traffic.  There was a strong current so when we set our front anchor the current took us into the small trees along the bank.  We threw a stern anchor to keep us out of the bank and also out of the channel.  There were a number of fishing boats that came by us at all hours.  We started our generator so Janis could make some dinner and then it over heated in 5 minutes time.  We checked the water flow – all OK – so maybe it is the thermostat??  Not sure but no worries – we made dinner on the grill and enjoyed the evening light and then viewed the stars.  Since there are no city lights near us the sky was so full of stars it was amazing!   Since this was our first time to anchor out we set alarms so we could wake up and check the boat during the night to make sure we did not change positions.  Because of this neither one of us got a good night sleep even though there were no issues. There some all night fishing people who buzzed us half the night.

OH yea no gator attack as seen in Janis’s dreams.