Last of the River Locks

Greetings and salutations from our anchorage on the Tombigbee/Black Warrior River.  The closest town to our location is Sunflower, AL.  We are continuing through what I’m sure we will remember as the Frigid Leg of the Loop.  We are once again at anchor because there are no more marinas on the river between Demopolis, AL where we spent the weekend and Mobile Bay.  

We started our day earlier than I would have like given the overnight temperatures.  Because we were anchored with our buddy boats in a narrow creek, we had to all leave in the reverse order of anchoring so that we weren’t blocking anyone from leaving.  That meant pulling apart a frozen cleat hitch on the bow anchor line and weighing anchor in below freezing temps with frost on the deck.  DA lesson learned: Don’t leave your anchoring gloves outside on the lifeline overnight to dry when it is going to be below freezing: 1. they will not dry and 2. you will instantly freeze your fingertips when you attempt to bend your fingers to use said gloves. 

On a brighter note,  I had just finished my “Mood Ring” neck cowl and that was significantly warmer than the buffs I’ve been wearing on my neck - here is a picture of me sporting my cowl while in the process of putting on all of my layers.

We started out driving at our fast (for us) cruising speed because we needed to refuel at the last stop for gas before Mobile and so wanted to gas up and still be able to go through the next lock with our fellow sailboats who we’ve been traveling with over the past few days.  It turned out that we needn’t have hurried as the lock was having minor mechanical issues and so we ended up waiting for around 45 minutes for the lock to open, definitely not our longest wait.  What was unique about this wait was that one of our fellow boats anchored next to the lock and then we rafted up to each other to wait together.  This was significantly more fun than all of our long waits we’ve done alone, especially since one of the boats had two dogs and the other had a very friendly and curious cat.

We locked down the Coffeeville Lock today at noon and with that, passed through the last of the locks on the Rivers portion of the Great Loop.  Thus far we have gone through 49 locks and don’t expect to go through another one until the Dismal Swamp in Virginia.  Transiting locks is not difficult, but, because it is not predictable when a boat will be held up at a lock, it isn’t always predictable how far you can get with the available daylight.  This was a concern today since we needed all of the time the sun was up to get to our anchorage this evening.  

This river is in what seems to be an uninhabited part of Alabama - uninhabited by humans but with far more egrets than we’ve seen thus far.  The banks are very sandy and even though the trees are mostly bare, the expanse of wilderness on both sides of the river is very beautiful.

Because we had to wait at the lock today, we ended up reaching our anchorage at the end of twilight, which we try very hard to avoid.  We knew that one of our “buddy boats” would be there which made us a little more comfortable when we were determining where to place our anchor.  There really aren’t any places to pull off the river here, we just try to get out of the channel and as far away from where to tows transit all night long and hope they’re keeping an eye out for our anchor lights. 

We were treated to a beautiful sunset as we were motoring there, 

though I was grateful that Tony suggested I wear a head lamp when I went to the bow to set the anchor since it was pitch black by the time I was done securing the anchor for the night.  

Here's a picture of the first tow to come by in the dark!

We are settled in for the night. The propane heater Little Buddy is drying the anchoring gloves and keeping the cabin warm until we shut it off for sleeping.  Here’s hoping we are able to wait until it is at least 40 degrees before we weigh anchor in the morning.