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| Leaving AYH |
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| Critter alert - Bald Eagle |
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| Katherine at the big lock |
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| Really big drop at Whitton Lock |
We traveled through the Montgomery Lock (a 33’ drop) and the
Rankin Lock (a 31’ drop) before pulling in to Midway Marina M393.8 at around
2:30pm. We could have gone a lot further but Kermit wanted to top off fuel and
do another pump out because the next few days might be at anchor.
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| Cute little resort cabins at Midway Marina |
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| Midway Marina |
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| And the cutest little bathroom! |
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| Isn't that adorable? |
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| Handmade bunk beds from local cedar |
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| The view of Midway from the guest house |
The new owners are building five resort cabins. They are
adorable! The carpenter invited us in as we took our afternoon walk. The cedar
he used for railings and some of the furniture comes from the property. They
will rebuild the restaurant when they are finished with the cabins. All in all,
it looks pretty spiffy.
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| Critter alert - White Pelicans |
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| Critter alert - blue heron |
We got up optimistically at dawn determined to travel
through five locks. Our goal was Columbus MS M331, a challenge but doable.
Nothing went as planned. I can break the day down into two bad situations.
We called Fulton Lock M391 at 6:30am indicating we were ready to go through the lock. The lockmaster indicated he had a tow coming from either direction. Tows get priority so we would have to wait about 1.5 hours. Ok, not good but we should still be able to get pretty far that day.
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| See us at Midway at the top? See the green triangle entering Fulton Lock? See the other green triangle coming the other direction on the other side of the lock? Our dilemma... |
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| 1st Lock of the day - Fulton Notice it is fully light by now |
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| Another bald eagle |
We waited. And waited. Finally about 8am, as predicted, the
tow Jackson II came around the corner headed south. We watched our GPS as he
went into the lock then departed, passing the northbound tow that headed into
the lock. We could go through after that one came out. At about 9:30am we
headed towards the lock, properly positioned to enter the lock smoothly.
This is not where the problem happened. We went through the
lock and quickly caught up with the Jackson II. We followed him at glacial
speed knowing it was no use to pass him. He had priority at the lock. There was
no way we could get ahead of him in enough time for the lock to go down then
back up without making Jackson II wait. The lockmaster wouldn’t let it happen.
So we dragged on behind him.
That is when the problem happened. Around noon we were close
to Smithville M376. We only traveled 17 miles in about 3 hours. Actually 17
miles since we were ready to leave at 6:30am. Glacial.
Kermit called the Jackson II on the radio and asked if there
was any way we could scoot into the lock with him then get ahead of him for the
next lock. He said no problem as long as the lock allows. The nice lady
lockmaster said no problem. They had a plan. Great.
Just then, as the plan was confirmed, BUMP, we stopped. Dead
in the water. F**K. Evidently the green buoy we were keeping on our starboard
(right) side was way off the mark. We inadvertently left the channel and
grounded the boat. Double F**K.
Kermit tried everything. Put it into gear. Back and forth
between reverse and forward. Back it up. Nothing. Just an occasional ugly
grinding noise. The bow of the boat was much higher than the stern. We moved
stuff around. We turned on water faucets to make the boat lighter. Nothing.
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| Little guy came out to help! So nice! |
Time to call Tow Boat US. That Unlimited Towing Package has
to pay off sooner or later. A fellow saw us sitting out there and overheard our
conversation with the Wilkins Lock, now in sight about 1 mile away. He said, “I
thought you were anchored!”
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| Good Samaritan - check out the shorts! |
This Good Samaritan came out to visit on a pontoon boat with
his grandson. Grandpa was wearing shorts. I assure you it was not warm. And it
was windy. At least it was sunny. He didn’t have to come out to us. He could
have stayed back in his house watching the Brown’s game. We are glad he came
out!
Unfortunately he could do nothing for us except give us
depth readings that confirmed were not in the channel. No way could he tow us off this pile of crap.
Or do I have it backwards: No way could he tow this pile of crap off the dirt.
At the same time Tow Boat US came up with a name of someone
from Midway Marina who might be able to help.
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| Big heart! |
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| Little boat |
We sat down to wait. We were both
seething, imagining the bill for more maintenance and frustrated with this
entire experience. We did not speak. I put on headphones and listened to quiet
music. Kermit puttered around somewhere out of my sphere. We choked down some
lunch without speaking.
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| Little friends with big hearts |
Another tow, the St. Matthew, came through northbound out of
the lock. He commented on how far out of the channel we were and how that green
marker was absolutely in the wrong spot. We were all (the St. Matthew captain,
the lockmaster and us) kind of hoping that the engine wash should move the dirt
under our boat. He couldn’t come close to us though without endangering his
load. So we waited silently in our own little worlds.
Around 3pm we saw a center console boat (a small 20’ boat
with the controls in the center and a single outboard on the back). The helpers
from Tow Boat US!
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| They really tried - eventually the engine wash made all the difference to dislodge us |
Keep in mind this POS weighs in at 64,000 pounds. No way
could a little console with a 200 hp engine pull us anywhere. But God love
them, they tried. And tried. They tied our lines to their little stern I-hooks
and pulled until one of the hooks pulled out. But while they were whirling
around I noticed that the water under our boat was moving. We began moving
enough that the boat was swaying from side to side. We asked them to push
engine wash under the boat to see what happened.
It worked! The engine wash from the little 200hp engine
dislodged the dirt under the boat and we finally moved backwards into the
channel!! We were free! We excitedly paid the nice people from Midway Marina
and thanked them profusely.
Only problem. It was 4pm. And it was clearly too shallow to
anchor here safely. So we had to move through Wilkins Lock M376.3. The next
lock was Amory Lock M371, just five miles away. We saw a good anchorage at
366.3 in a little oxbow. Wilkins Lock and Amory Lock lockmasters both
recommended this spot. Waterway Guide confirmed it with recent information.
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| Entering Wilkins Lock at dusk |
We entered Wilkins Lock around 4:30pm for a 25’ drop. The
sun was waning. We entered Amoy Lock at around 5:15pm for a 25’ drop. The sun was
down, dusk was upon us. We left the lock in darkness. We made our way to our
anchorage five miles down the river at M366.3 in total darkness.
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| Entering Amory Lock in total darkness |
You might think, “How hard is that?” Let me tell you. There
is an exercise trainers use to illustrate listening skills and leadership
equated with emotional intelligence. One party is blind folded. The other party
has to give complicated directions to the other person who does their best to
follow instructions. We played that game that night.
We had to cover all the helm navigation displays and turn
off all the lights except the exterior navigation lights. This protected our
night vision. I had an iPad with Aqua Map on my lap on the lowest possible
display light.
I gave Kermit directions on how to stay in the channel. “A
little more to the right. Now a little more to the left.” Kermit had to comply
as best he could even though he could barely see anything around us. I called
out the mileage. “Two more miles. One more mile.”
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| Check out that GPS notation. We did that in the dark! |
Our anchorage was a channel off the Tombigbee River at N33” 57.8
and W88” 31.82. We had to go past the entrance to avoid what looked like a
little spit of land in the middle of the channel and turn back into the south
side of the channel. In the dark. After being grounded. We were a little
nervous.
We did it! We maneuvered in safely. Anchoring was
complicated by the dark too. Normally Kermit uses hand signals to indicate what
we need to do. But it was dark. So we turned on all sorts of lights and used
our big flashlights to illuminate the shore until we stopped in a safe spot
while Kermit put down the anchor.
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| Moonrise |
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| Xmas lights on back deck |
There were a few moments when I had to walk
out of the pilot house and say, “If you refuse to listen then I will go to bed
and leave you out here alone.” But we got through it without bloodshed and no
damage to the boat.
We warmed up some leftovers and ate silently in our
designated corners, Christmas lights twinkling away.
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| We woke up to fog |
We saw a million stars. After a while a huge full moon came
out to illuminate everything. Of course it came out AFTER we traveled and
anchored in darkness.
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| Beyond that little piece of land is supposed to be water - but it is not |
The next morning we realized how precarious our situation
was. That spit we saw on the chart that looked like it was in the middle of the
channel was actually real ground. If we would have turned early we would have
grounded ourselves again. Either we were lucky or we sort of know what we are
doing sometimes.
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| Safe in our little channel off Tombigbee |
What did we learn from this adventure?
- Blanche DuBois was right (Tennessee Williams reference!). We all depend on the kindness of strangers.
- Sometimes it is ok to go to your designated corners rather than saying something you might regret later.
- Listening to each other is good. We should do it more often.
- Marissa was right. This boat is not Good Karma. It is “I told you so!”
- Those Christmas lights are lovely, as is the real clear sky they represent.
- I wish I was home for Christmas instead of our here.
More later. In the meantime, Merry Christmas!!
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