Thoughts on Locks, the Bermuda Triangle of Electronics, Anchor Goddesses, and Clinchers

. . . Locking Through Mississippi

Rain lingered on the Tombigbee Waterway over last weekend.  Despite a wet night anchored above Bay Springs Lake, we pulled anchor early Sunday -- before 8 a.m..  We had a big day planned with four – maybe five -- locks to go through – the huge Whitten, then Montgomery, Rankin, Fulton and Grover Wilkins.  A distance of roughly 10 miles was between each one.  For anyone reading this blog who doesn’t travel by boat, that’s a LOT of locks.

You enter the lock slowly. In our case, Kent drives the boat to the bollard on the side of the lock, and Jane “lassoes” it. A bollard is a floating metal post that rises or falls with the level of water inside the lock and stabilizes a boat or barge as the lock fills or releases.

The lassoing part is much easier with the Bollard Tamer that Bob on Pogopelli made and gave us as the cruise started. Although we had an old one, this one seems better.  It’s rounder. The rounder, the easier to catch a bollard in the lock. It’ll see a lot of use on this trip.

A bollard and the Bollard Tamer, a line inserted in a clear plastic tube, then spliced
 back on itselt to make a stiff loop. The tamer is cleated off to the boat or held as the 
lock fills or releases.

The funniest lock of the day was Montgomery Lock and Dam. The lock had a weird squealing sound, and we all decided it was haunted. 

The Bermuda Triangle of Electronics

We could have made all five locks in that series, but stopped because we found a protected anchorage on the charts right above the fifth lock. The prevailing winds and rain that night would have made anchorages below the Grover Wilkins Lock very rocky roll-y.

We affectionately call the place the industrial complex anchorage. Heavy equipment and pilings for barges were nearby.  We had sundowners and then ate barbecue tenderloin cooked in the slow cooker, along with rice and salad.  Rain and light winds started after night fell, but we were secure and dry.  

Life was good, well except this is our second day in the Bermuda Triangle of electronics.  .  . little or no cell service, Sirius radio, Internet, and the iPod  doesn’t want to cooperate. No one with Verizon can “hear me now” in the northern Tombigbee.

Anchor Goddesses

We’d talked off and on with another Looper on the VHS radio and invited him to join us in our safe anchorage out of the winds.  When Say Good-Bye’s skipper, Ralph Yost, joined us, he mentioned sending his anchor babe to the foredeck.  Jane and Trish thought long and hard about that title too, but decided they want to be known forevermore as Anchor Goddesses.

Beauty in Quiet Places

Since making the left turn onto the Tenn-Tom, we’ve seen so much beauty we want to tell you about before we forget, such as navigating the narrow, skinny water, cypress-knee trail to the Aberdeen (Mississippi) Marina.  Who would have thought that the alabaster white Cliffs of Epes were in Alabama and not a more exotic area? They were surpassed by the White Cliffs just a few miles later.

Pogopelli navigates between the red and green sticks in the water to reach the
Aberdeen (Mississippi) Marina.

The trees above the Cliffs of Epes show a touch of fall color.

The chart just calls them White Cliffs. Gorgeous!

When Bob and Trish did their Loop in 2007, a train started on the track over the Cliffs of Epes and really startled them. The same thing happened to both boats on this day. What are the odds?

Pogopelli repeats an experience from five years ago -- the Cliffs of Epes at the same
 time a train passes overhead.

Colorful People

Let me tell you about David near our Summit Recreation Area anchorage. He was walking his Chihuahua and never met a stranger. A stranger might be a little reluctant to meet him, though, since he had a gun strapped on.  He said that the gun is for rattlesnakes and wild hogs. “If it’s a hog, it makes it into the freezer. If it’s a rattlesnake, it makes it into a fryer.”  We don’t make these things up.

Plain Old Bridges vs Clinchers

Along with locks we go through, the waterway features bridges we go under – some 22 of them. You may know that a big worry before the cruise was the bridges. All must be at least 52’ at normal pool on the Tenn-Tom. However, some are just that – 52’, and rain might raise the river level. Did I mention that the height of Carina’s mast is 50’ 7” including antennas and such?

We started calling the lower-height bridges clinchers. . . well, you can figure out why. The early ones seemed the worst, particularly one when Jane was at the wheel.  Friday, we passed under our last clincher, the Highway 39 bridge, a 52-footer just before the Howard Heflin Lock and Dam. We cleared it by 2-3 feet. That’s our story. 

Going under our first clincher on the Tenn-Tom.

Approaching our final Tenn-Tom clincher, the Highway 39 Bridge.

Goodbye to the Tenn-Tom Waterway

At this point, we’ve gone through all 10 Tenn-Tom locks and reached the end of this waterway just before Demopolis.  We'll start on the Black Warrior-Tombigbee River Waterway on Sunday. Most Tennessee-Tombigbee locks and dams were named after the politicians who made the waterway possible in the 70s and 80s. Foremost were U. S. Senator John Stennis, Mississippi, U. S. Senator Howell Heflin, Alabama, and U.S. Congressman Tom Bevill, Alabama.

What seemed a $2 billion pork-barrel project at the time has returned $43 billion in a recent period from 1996 to 2009 and directly created some 29,000 jobs. It is the largest civil works project the U. S. Army Corp of Engineers has completed and is five times longer than the Panama Canal. 

So here’s a tip of our hats to the people who made it possible. We will pour a little libation into the waterway tonight in their honor.