As we last left off, were staying in Dempolois a few extra days for their Christmas on the Water celebration. With it being absolutely freezing, there were only a few BBQ places that showed up to the park for the event. The food, mainly pulled pork sandwiches and a few offerings of some ribs, was good and there were all kinds of different flavors to everyone’s idea of BBQ. Oh, and the beer tent didn’t show up this year, but there was hot chocolate! Turns out the BBQ Competition was to start after midnight and into the next morning with judging later in the afternoon on Saturday. We did not go to that but it was fun to participate in this little town’s holiday festivities.

On Saturday there was a lighted boat parade and fireworks. Turns out we actually saw the best of the lighted boats, (pictures were in the last post), from our dock where they were all parked and lighted up the couple of night before the parade. It was still very cold and there were very looooonnnngggg spaces between each float as they made their way along the river, so we headed back to our boat to get warm. The fireworks, as usual for us, were behind a huge forest of trees, so we saw nothing of those.

On Sunday, December 8th, we left Kingfisher Bay Marina in Demopolis, AL at 6:00 am, in the complete dark, with two other boats; The Rich Life and Gadaboat. Rich on The Rich Life had already called the lock and they were expecting us at 6:15 for a lock down river. Well…as it turns out when we hightailed it there, we had to wait an hour as they were locking a barge up. Why the lockmaster just didn’t say that when Rich called!

That night we stopped at Bashi Creek, a little hidey hole off the Tenn-Tom Waterway, to anchor. Depth was good but it was a little skinny so we had to keep our stern from swinging into shore and getting stuck as the tide went out as well as keeping it out of the way of any other traffic to pass, which a giant Kadey-Krogen did later that evening, so Michael got the dinghy down and tied us to a tree on the bank. It worked. We stayed there all night and were able to use the tie to swing the stern around to get the bow of the boat turned so there was no chance of the props hitting the bank or the trees as we turned to leave.

We had only one more lock, Coffeyville Lock, to get through then we could call them done and over with! As it turns out this was the most painful of all the almost 300 locks we have encountered on this journey. We knew there were a few barges in front of us and a couple a few hours behind us so we should have been okay getting through, but no! The lockmaster made us wait 6 hours anchored off the side of the waterway as he put all 5 of the barges through the lock before us, even though we had checked in before 3 of them and he even waited quite a while for 2 of them to catch up to the lock. I was not a happy Captain, and I am pretty sure the lockmaster knew that by the time we left – in the DARK!

The stop for that night, which we planned on getting to by 1:00 in the afternoon, was anchoring at Sandbar Mile Marker 105 on the side of the waterway, yup, that’s all it is; a skinny spot out of the channel on a straightaway on the river. By the time we got there it was pitch black, no moon, no city lights, nothing. Michael was on the bow with a light marking channel markers and watching the water for floating crap. We got to one point where I knew there should be an upcoming red marker but couldn’t find it until I saw it almost scrape along the port side of the boat as we passed. We finally found where we were headed, at least where we were going to go, and dropped anchor. We were outside of the channel, just outside, so fingers crossed the boat stayed where we put it. The last barge to go through the lock that we had passed to try and get here quickly, came around the corner and I got him on the radio and asked if we were good; were we outside the channel and to verify he could pick up our AIS (Automated Information System that tells others where we are and allows us to see where other vessels with AIS are). He said we were good and anyone would likely run aground before they hit us and our AIS was working just fine. It was a pretty stressful night as I was up several times on the bow and the stern with a light making sure we had not drifted into the channel. I even woke Michael up once to have him verify our position with the markers. He does have an anchor alarm on his phone that keeps track of where the boat is and it is deafening if we move too much, which he showed me we had not moved since we anchored, but still…

It turns out there were no available slips at any of the several marinas in Mobile Bay for our size boat over the next 4 days and further through the weekend as all the Loopers had gathered there waiting out weather before heading down the Florida coast and there was a holiday boat parade on Saturday December 14th; therefore anchoring is what we were left with, which really was just fine with us.

On the morning of December 9th, we took off from MM 105 anchorage and headed to the Tensaw River anchorage where we stayed for 3 nights. It was a nice quiet place to spend time and to wait out the weather the next few days before moving closer to Mobile Bay.

On Friday December 13th, which I was not aware of and Michael purposely did not tell me it was Friday the 13th, we made our way to Big Bayou Canot Anchorage for 2 nights.

Here we learned that this was the site of Am Track’s biggest train disaster in history. According to reports, on September 22, 1993, on a very foggy night with poor visibility, a tug boat pilot, who was not properly trained on how to read radar and on a boat that did not have a compass or charts of the waterway, oh come on!!! thought he was still in the Mobile River. He mistakenly pulled into the Big Bayou Canot, a channel off the river that is closed to commercial traffic due to the railroad bridge crossing over the water. He mistook the bridge on radar as a tug parked alongside the river. He struck the bridge causing it to shift about 3 feet out of alignment causing a kink in the track. Since the track did not break, the safety circuits did not break sending out warnings to oncoming trains. The train hit the misaligned track causing it to derail and nosedive into the water, driving the nose of the first engine into the bank on the other side of the river, killing 47 people and injuring 103 more passengers. Due to this accident the NTSB has made many changes to the way water travel is handled on the rivers and waterways.

From that anchorage we traveled through Mobile Bay and what a hectic place that was. Thankfully it was Sunday so a lot of the commercial traffic was not on the waterway, but there was still a lot!

From Mobile Bay we turned west heading to Biloxi, MS. We spent one night anchored off Gaillard Island and one night off Horn Island then on to Point Cadet Marina in Biloxi, MS. We totaled 9 nights on anchor, the most we have done in one stretch.

Here we met up with friends Gary and Diane from Kokomo. They invited us to their house to do laundry and to bring each of us up to date and to out for dinner. Yesterday we met them on Kokomo, only 10 minutes from our marina and had dinner with more hours of fun and talk. They are great fun and we will be keeping up with them in the future. We already have plans to meet up with them in a few months as they travel along Florida and with Debbie and Mark from Meant to Be who live about 10 minutes from us in Florida. We have also put a date on the calendar for next October for a huge car show that takes place along most of the Mississippi Gulf coast over a week or so.

While here, and again waiting for a weather window to move to New Orleans, we got a rental car so we could re-provision groceries, as we were pretty slim by this time in the trip, as well as other maintenance stuff we needed.

We have also done some touristy things. This marina is attached to the Golden Nugget Casino with several other casinos within walking distance. We are not gambling people but we will watch others throw their money away and there are a pretty good selection of restaurants in them as well. Way better than those we found in Atlantic City.

Yesterday we took a drive down the beach through Gulfport and then came back to tour the Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum. That was very interesting as well as educational. The seafood industry in Mobile Bay and the Gulf of Mexico is incredible with the amount of seafood that comes from this area. The most impactful; however, was the hurricane section. This is a beautiful place but, nope, just too many hurricanes and most of the homes I would like to live in are not able to get insurance, therefore they are a cash only deal and who wants to roll the dice on a million dollars. Not me.

Yesterday, we also took a look at the weather forecast, hoping to be able to move toward New Orleans after Christmas. Once again a huge change in the weather and an even bigger change in plans. There is just not a weather window that will allow us to head west toward New Orleans any time before January 5th, so as of right now, we will be returning the rental car on the 26th and heading east to Florida and making our way home.

I’m ready. January 8th will mark the start of year number 4 for this adventure. Has it been worth it? Absolutely. We have been to places we would never have ever seen or even known about if not for this trip. We have had so many amazing experiences. Who would have bet that at 65 I would become the Captain of a 50 foot big boat? Not me! And we have met soooo many wonderful people along the way and a lot of them we will keep up with as time goes on. We have thoroughly enjoyed those who have traveled some of this trip with us and I hope you all know how dear that time has been for us.

Welp, before this gets too sappy, that’s all for this time. Check back later to see where we are.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to all. Love always. Gina and Mike