Tenn-Tom/Tombigbee Waterway

 

TRAVEL DAY 138 - Iuka to Fulton

November 9, 2023

10.28 Hours/ 55.5 Miles

    We inch ever closer to home and now we are about a month from crossing our wake and returning to where we started. With less daylight and longer runs, we start at first light. Throw in 3 locks and we anticipate burning a lot of fuel and daylight.

Dawn 

    The Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway or the Tenn-Tom is a 234 mile artificial waterway connecting the Tennessee River to the junction of the BlackWarrior Tombigbee River system near Demopolis, Alabama.  2 boats left Iuka in the dark and we rounded the bend of Pickwick Lake past a working tug boat with all it's lights on and onto a 29 mile narrow rip rap lined ditch known as the "Divide Cut".

 

Divide Cut

    3 hours or so into the journey, 7 other boats caught up to us as we approached Whitten Lock, the 4th highest lift lock in the US. As per normal for these locks, a tow was just entering and we were instructed by the lockmaster to wait until the tug & barge were through and the lock could be turned around. We knew this would take awhile as this lock would provide us an 84' elevation drop and dispersing some 46,000,000 million gallons of water downstream. Once in, the lockmaster held the gates while 3 other boats caught up.

 

Whitten Lock - Tenn-Tom

    The Lockmaster at Whitten advised us to "slow-roll it" to the Montgomery Lock 5 miles away. We putted along at 5 mph in no hurry knowing we may still have to wait, and of course we did. Instead of hovering outside in the pool, we dropped a shallow anchor and Runaway rafted to our starboard. The 4 of us sat on their bridge and chatted until we could see the gates open and a tow emerged from the 30' elevation change. This time 3 more boats caught up and we were 16 boats strong.

 

Deck Crew in the Lock

    The 3rd and final lock was the Rankin Lock, another 30' drop. This time however, the green light was on and we moved right in. With more boats than pins, we rafted to Runaway and 2 other vessels also had to find a raft boat. The gates opened and the horn blew leaving us just enough time to get to Midway Marina and settled before dark.

 

Runaway, Pau Hana, Carma's Reward, Papilion & Endless Sommers

Iuka to Fulton, MS

TRAVEL DAY 139 - Fulton to Columbus

November 10, 2023

8.55 Hours/ 59.5 Miles

    Another dark departure for the anticipated 4 locks for the day. Fulton (25' drop), Wilson (25' drop), Amory (30' drop) and Aberdeen (27' drop). A total of 107' of elevation change and closer to the Gulf of Mexico.  

 

4 more Locks

    It takes a fair amount of coordination to get a flotilla through a lock. So far all of the lockmasters on this portion of the waterway have been great and pretty responsive. Their main objective is to get the commercial priority traffic through first, we are second.

 

Our Flotilla in the Lock

    Not the most beautiful waterfront we have seen, but not the ugliest either. After the Fulton lock, there was a tow ahead of us so we "slow rolled" our movement down the Tenn-Tom to time our entrance in the subsequent locks and it worked well.

Pau Hana, Stillwaters II & Compass Rose

    Arriving at Columbus Marina at 3:45 left us plenty of light to get settled in our slip. Our crew caught up with Compass Rose, who are on the beginning stages of their 2nd Loop and the crew of Stillwaters II, both of which we met at our very first rendezvous when planning our Loop adventure. This is a well run marina with a courtesy car which we used the next day to provision and grab lunch. We spent the afternoon of the second day watching college football and cheering on our favorite teams, "Go Noles"!

 

Fulton to Columbus

TRAVEL DAY 140 - Columbus to Gainesville, AL

November 12, 2023

9.97 Hours/ 69.5 Miles

    The crew was somewhat recharged for an early am departure to shorten another lengthy day. The days on this portion have been pretty tough, honestly since Chicago, but it is part of the trip and puts us closer to our "Bachalooperate" degree. Because it was within sight I called the Stennis Lock from our slip at 5:30 am to find out how soon we could get through. The Lockmaster's response was 6:15 as that would give time for the tow now entering the lock and to get the chamber turned around. We gathered outside the lock opening with a little light showing on the horizon and got a green light at almost 6:30.

 

An unchanging view

    With at least 2 locks for the day, Our flotilla debated among ourselves over the radio as to how far we would go this day and if we would attempt the 3rd lock, Heflin and the anchorage just beyond. It seemed like a longshot as we would most likely run out of daylight if we got held up by the 2nd lock.

  

US Snagboat Montgomery (Retired)

    Today we crossed over from Mississippi to Alabama. The scenery is a little tiresome and doesn't change much, but we trek on ready to see something different and put more miles under the keel. After noon, we decided we would go for the 3rd lock as we bypassed 3 "bailout" anchorages. 

  

Now that is how you unload equipment

    The boats a ahead of us made the lock and with a tow pushing natural gas between us and the entrance, we knew we would have a wait. The Lockmaster assured us she could get us through by 5:30 pm, so we slow rolled it to the lock. We hovered by the entrance until getting in at about 5:25 pm. She dropped the lock quickly and as soon as we cleared the brightly lit chamber, it was dark, very dark. 

  

Last lock of the day

    We moved out and around the point of land beyond the lock exit short distance and turned to our starboard into the Tombigbee Oxbow anchorage. I used my radar to pick out the shoreline and the other boats in the anchorage. The radar showed me something to our port and the deck crew pointed to a stump. Thank you technology.

  

Dropping the anchor in the dark (3 fingers = 30' of chain)

    I continued slowly back in the creek with our buddy boat behind. The Deck Crew dropped the hook in 12' of water and I reversed the gear to set the Mantus in the mud bottom. I called to Runaway that we were set and to come along side. Fenders out, we got them tied up to our port, turned on our anchor lights and fired up the generator and the grill. Lights out, night, night.

Columbus to Gainesville

TRAVEL DAY 141 - Gainesville to Demopolis

November 13, 2023

5.0 Hours/ 49.3 Miles

    We awoke in our quite anchorage, with the exception of a slight swing, we were almost exactly where we planted the anchor.  An 8 am departure and no locks for the day, we were anxious for the Kingfisher Bay Marina in Demopolis and a 2 day rest.

 

Tombigbee Oxbow Anchorage

    Still mostly uneventful, at mile marker (mm) 249 and descending numbers, we passed the White Cliffs of Epes. Deposited around the same time as the England's White Cliffs of Dover, these 30' cliffs are part of the Selma Chalk formations.

  

White Cliffs of Epes, AL

    At mm 225 we were at the halfway point of the Tombigbee Waterway. Pau Hana rounded our final bend and entered Kingfisher Bay Marina to our starboard. Straight to the fuel dock to top off and then to our slip. We tidied up the boat some and headed to Docktales with some of the other 18 Loopers here.

   

Looper Crowd

      Day 2  

   With the crew of Runaway, we got the 2 hour courtesy car and went into Demopolis to get some lunch. Not a lot of choices here and honestly not a pretty town from what we saw, but in all fairness, we were only there for 2 hours. After lunch we went to Walmart and grabbed a few things to tie us over for the next 4 days at anchor as we make our way to Mobile Bay. Filled the water tanks, straightened up the boat and hunkered down for the night as the rain and cool weather moved in. Tomorrow will be another early day. 

Gainesville to Demopolis