Series in Blue and White

Greetings to all of you from Alabama - yes we are once again in Alabama.  We left the state of Mississippi today after locking down the Tom Bevill Lock first thing this morning but before locking down the Howell Heflin lock around 1 PM.  We are currently anchored in a lovely Oxbow on the Tombigbee River with three other boats and will head to Demopolis, AL tomorrow.  We will take a break from travel over the weekend and provision the boat since it will be only anchorages in the final push to Mobile (~220 miles).  We are eager to get to Mobile and points south because the weather has been mighty chilly.  

Today we woke up to fog for the first time in a while so thankfully (in my opinion) we couldn’t leave at 6AM which had been our original plan.

However, we did break our rule about not moving if the temperature is below 40 degrees today because we were traveling with two other boats through the locks and it had only warmed up to 35 degrees by the time the group left.  I had the first watch on the helm and was wearing almost all of the warm gear I brought with me.  I LOVE Smartwool!

Thankfully, it was in the upper 50’s by the time we stopped and I was able to practice my fiddle in cabin after we were snug at anchor as I haven’t touched my fiddle since we left for the BVI and was having a bit of withdrawal.

 

The hobby I did enjoy while sailing the islands was knitting.  I had a load of blue and white yarn which I’ve been using for a few projects.  The first I started prior to the Loop - it was a Norwegian sweater that I made for my twin brother as a result of losing a bet.  

I had much of it done and put together prior to Labor Day but it took till the end of October to complete since I found I wasn’t just sitting around looking for things to do as we were driving down the river.  After the sweater was done I decided to make a Christmas stocking for him since I the yarn. was still getting in my way.  Unlike the usual stockings I am known for, I decided to make his match the patterns in the newly completed sweater and shipped that off to him prior to Thanksgiving.

And yet, I still had more yarn taking up space on the boat so I decided to make mini stockings for Tony and myself to hang in the boat above our mini Christmas tree (since we didn’t bring along our home stockings).  These I made on my trip to the BVI and finished just as our charter ended.

It is comical how much bigger they are than the tree, but Unfortunately my full name is too long to fit around the top of the stocking.  Second unfortunate item - they are too small for me to wear because they would have been super toasty this morning on the frosty dock.

That's all for now.  Going to enjoy the propane heater until its time to crawl into the rack.  Enjoy your central heating!!