Day 44 - 11/14/2023

We got underway at daybreak again. As we were making our way south, someone on the marine radio asked why all the birds are flying north. I noticed that too. We're traveling south, like birds migrating this time of year. But flock after flock of birds flying overhead were heading north. They must know something we don't know.

We spotted this popular landmark on the Great American Loop. It's a phone both on the river bank, out in the middle of nowhere. I didn't stop, so I don't know if the phone is hooked up or not.

Back home near Cincinnati, most of the leaves have fallen from the trees. While navigating back and forth across the Alabama/Mississippi state line, there are still plenty of leaves on the trees and plants on the ground and water. We're getting close to alligator territory, so we've had our eye out for them. Apparently Alabama has 70,000 alligators!

Tonight we are anchored in a place called the Warsaw Cuttoff Anchorage near Aliceville, Alabama. The towboat/barges in the video are in the main channel while our boat is behind an island. It's raining and windy, so we're keeping an eye on our location and any indications of dragging our anchor.

DAY 43 - November 13, 2023

 This morning we woke up a little after 5:00am and the docks were already alive with people getting ready to leave at first light. We joined in at about 6:00. Our flotilla consisted of twelve boats with one of them being the huge 65 foot boat on yesterday's blog and at the other end of the size spectrum, was us. 

Shortly after beginning we pulled into our first of four locks for today. This is the view from behind our boat once the chamber doors closed. We had an easy day locking because at each lock we rafted to a large boat called Surf Rider. The couple on the boat were very friendly. Before retirement he was an emergency room doctor and she was a dermatologist. They took care of keeping their boat close to the wall, while all we had to do was sit back and wait for the water to drop us down 50 or 60 feet.

This is a short video of the boats following behind as we left the lock.

Today we traveled 52 miles to bring our total miles traveled up to 818 miles. Tomorrow we begin two days of travel without stopping at a marina or anywhere for that matter. We'll be anchoring tomorrow evening. If you do not see a blog update, it's because we can't get a cell signal.

DAY 42 - November 12, 2023

 

We left Bay Springs Marina at daybreak, along with two other boats. Together we traversed through three locks. Along the way we passed a huge wood chipping operation. The size of the wood piles can be judged by the loader parked in front. This was a view of just two of many piles of chips. The roads down here are busy with load after load of harvested trees and wood chips are a byproduct of the lumber mills.

We made it through the three locks and arrived at Midway Marina in Fulton, Mississippi by 2:00. Once we arrived I attended a board meeting of my church via telephone. After the meeting we saw this huge trawler arrive. It's 65 feet long and has a two person crew that pilots and takes care of the boat as the owner travels aboard. It's from Key West, Florida where boats like this are not uncommon.

Like some of the other marinas, this marina has a courtesy car. We signed up for a two hour time slot and drove five miles into town to a Walmart. After re-provisioning, we ate dinner at a Mexican Restaurant.

This is what the courtesy car looks like. It's not the best car I've ever driven, but not the worst either.

DAY 41 - November 11, 2023

Last night we entered an anchorage in the dark and rafted together with 4 other boats. This morning one of the boat captains took their dinghy out to take photos all around our boats. If you're been following our blog, you can pick our boat out right away because it's the smallest one there. We're on the left in the top photo and on the right in the bottom one.

Upon leaving the "Rockpile Anchorage" we could see the three rocky islands we had to navigate through, in the dark, and my radar just happened to quit working yesterday..

Denise did a little cooking along as we traveled and made chicken salad from scratch.

We passed by Grand Harbors Marina right as we turned from Pickwick Lake into Yellow Creek. Our turn into Yellow Creek means we're resuming our Great Loop route. In order to attend the AGLCA Fall Rendezvous at Joe Wheeler State Park, we went quite a bit out of our way. Yesterday and today we backtracked to where we were early last week.

Yellow Creek took us to a man-made canal called the Divide Cut. It's 25 miles long with no stops.We passed several outfalls which allow water to flow from creeks or lakes, through the concrete baffles and into the canal.

While traveling through the canal we passed a sailboat and we were passed by a large trawler.

These are a couple of videos I took while traveling through the canal.

We pulled into Bay Springs Marina for the night and found ourselves tied next to a huge boat called FULLABULL. My bicycle is parked in front of the boat to give you an idea of its size.

We finally got one of the beautiful sunsets we've seen so many photos of from loopers.

DAY 40 - November 10, 2023

Today was a challenging day. We were among those boats leaving Joe Wheeler State Park and resuming our travels on America's Great Loop. This involved passing through two locks. In the past I've usually gone through locks by myself or sometimes with another boat. Today was going to be a new experience because there were twelve boats in our flotilla and we would all be in the lock at the same time.

The two locks we were going through are busy with commercial traffic during the day, so we had to be ready to lock at daybreak. We got up at 5:00 and our flotilla captain contacted everyone by VHF radio at 5:20. We left the marina in the dark and rain with limited visibility, arriving at the lock by 6:00. Since we were in the smallest boat, we were to enter last. We ended up "rafting" to another boat. This was the first time we rafted (tied up to a boat that's already secured to the wall). 

 

Denise can be seen looking between our boat and the one we rafted to.

After we were lowered in the lock chamber to the next pool level, we exited and headed for the next lock as a flotilla. The picture above is a screen shot of the boats we traveled with that use NEBO. All of the boats have a flag next to them with the AGLCA logo (AGLCA is the organization we met with over the past week). The blue boat on the right is us. To everyone else using NEBO, our icon looks like the rest of them.

Along the way to the next lock we saw the best fall color leaves we've seen on this trip. The drought conditions have prevented the leaves from being as pretty as otherwise expected this time of year.

We received a call on the radio that there would be a four hour delay in entering the next lock, so everyone  pulled back their boats to idle. After that call we received another one indicating a second flotilla would be locking through with us. And......later still we found out there would be about ten bass boats from a fishing tournament also joining us.

Once again we had to raft to a larger boat already against the lock wall. Then another boat rafted to us. In the picture above you can see boats tied up on both side of us.

These are boats rafted behind us. The last boat on the right side is a huge catamaran called Beluga. After completing the great loop, they plan to have their sailing mast reinstalled and will be crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

This picture shows the boats rafted together in front of us, including the bass boats.

The boat next to us had a dog. At one point the dog jumped from its boat, onto the deck of our boat.

This is a photo the lock master took of all the boats in the lock.

This is a photo the lock master took from the other end of the lock. You can barely see us squished between two larger boats. All together there were 22 trawler boats and 10 bass boats, for a total of 32 boats in the lock at one time.

This is our flotilla after leaving the lock. We joined four other boats and travel about 42 total miles for the day to an anchorage known as The Rock Pile. We entered the anchorage in total darkness and all five boats rafted together. Then we walked across several boats to the flybridge of one of the larger boats. Once there we had a total of twelve people having "docktails" and snacks before returning to our own boats for dinner.

 

DAY 39 - November 9, 2023

Today was our last day at Joe Wheeler State Park. We learned a tremendous amount of information about traveling America's Great Loop and met many like minded people! It didn't matter if someone had a 65 foot, million dollar yacht or a small boat like we have, everyone shared information and got along great.

One vendor at the conference was giving way these can koozies (yes I spelled it correct). Unfortunately I don't drink bourbon and I didn't bring my dinghy.

DAY 38 - November 8, 2023

 Denise went out for her morning run here at Joe Wheeler State Park and saw two deer in front of her, crossing the road right at their designated deer crossing.

The deer crossing the road was about the extent of our blog worthy content today. We've continued taking classes and meeting people who are either planning their loop, are in progress, or who have completed the loop. We be doing more of the same today, then resuming our loop travels tomorrow.