2,000 Miles and 100 Days

Today we passed the 2,000 mile and 100 day marks on our voyage, about one-third of the total that we expect to travel. We’re almost done with the Inland Rivers portion of the Loop, and are more than ready to reach saltwater, which we plan to enter in two days. 

It was 36F when we arose at 7:00 AM. We were awoken earlier at 3:00 AM by a passing tow, which cleared our anchored vessel by about 150 feet. I watched the tug and barges approach, then cruise by at close range in the dark, and instead of being terrified of being run down and never seen again, I was thinking how amazing it was to be watching this scene from the deck of our own boat—exactly the type of once-in-a-lifetime adventure I was hoping for on the Greet Loop.

After two days of early departures with frozen fingers and toes, we cooked a hot breakfast and let the sun warm up the world before a civilized 9:15 AM underway. We passed two frolicking otters on shore, the first we’ve seen. The river is still extremely serpentine, and I was begging for a cutoff at one point, when it took four water miles to cover about 3/4 of a mile as the crow flies.

We counted at least a dozen navigation buoys that were washed up on shore, and another dozen that were indicated on our chart and nowhere to be found. Navigating wasn’t terribly difficult with our instruments and eyes, but we were beginning to think that the Army Corps of Engineers was neglecting their duties, although we did come upon one of their survey vessels, hopefully taking notes.

We cruised 41 miles in six hours and are anchored in the Tensaw River, a tributary of the Mobile River that is wide, wild and very beautiful. One other Looper boat arrived after us, but is not one of our buddy boats from Demopolis. We are within 50 miles of Mobile Bay, our portal to the Gulf of Mexico and the scenery is changing. We’re seeing more Spanish moss on the trees and grass and leaves that are still green—good omens that we will eventually get to the warm weather that we’ve traveled 2,000 miles and 100 days for.