Escape from Pirate's Cove

My crew, Roy, had a business commitment on Wednesday, so I really wanted to get him to Demopolis with plenty of time to do his car shuttling on Tuesday. So we decided to make an aggressive plan to complete the 91.1 miles from Pirates Cove to Demopolis is one day. This required a predawn departure from the marina, via search light to spot the buoys out of the marina. We left at 5:35 with coffee brewing in the galley as we crept our way out of the slough.


Roy and Ron

Our bold plan called for both of the locks between us and Demopolis to be swift lockages with no waiting. Sure enough, the Tom Bevill Lock one mile from Pirate's dump was "green light with gates open" when we got there at 5:50. We were out of the lock at 6:15 with just enough predawn light to center the boat down "the ditch."

We ate our breakfast (microwaved Quiche) with one eye on the auto pilot as we clicked off the miles. There was no wind and the water was glassy, so Agaliha glided along at 8 mph. Roy and I had a great time recalling all of the great things that we had experienced together over the past 30 years of working together.

I called ahead to the Gainesville lock at 10:45 and told the lock master that we should arrive at 11:15. She said, "I have no traffic. The green light will be on and the gates will be open." Roy and I high-fived over the incredible luck that we would pass through 10 locks in three days without a moments delay. It will never happen again. So, we entered Gainesville at 11:15 and exited at 11:45, now only 76 feet above sea level. If we had been delayed by either lock, I had a bail out plan to anchor in an industrial "cut" and then finish the trip on Tuesday morning. It didn't look like I would have to use that back-up plan.

Now, all we had to do was maintain our good speed to cover the remaining 50.1 miles to the Demopolis Yacht Basin. Our speed/distance calculator said we should be there a few minutes after 6:00 p.m. -- just before sunset. One stretch of the river/canal along this section was a straight 10 mile shot heading due east. Unfortunately, the wind came up at 10-15 knots out of the east. So with our speed, we had about a 20 knot wind coming across the deck. Even though it was 77 degrees, it seemed much cooler.

The scenery got better as we got further downriver because we were increasingly using the real Tombigbee riverbed with fewer and fewer man made cuts. We saw a pair of Bald Eagles fishing pretty close to the boat. And we saw a family of four wild boars scurrying along the riverbank. Roy whistled at them and they were terrified of him. He hadn't shaved in three days and I was, too.

At 6:08 we pushed our bow into the Demopolis Yacht Basin, where a dock hand was waiting to help us tie up. He told me the marina was shallow, so he had reserved me the deepest transient space they had. It was 5.1 feet deep. I had one inch to spare. (Let's hope they don't lower the river tonight).


Demopolis Yacht Basin

This marina was a little run down, but we later learned that a brand new facility with floating concrete dock was being dredged out of the river just a few hundred feet upstream. The fuel dock here is a major production because many of the commercial tows stop here to take on thousands of gallons of diesel fuel. This assured me that I would get fresh fuel -- which is really important. I had passed up refueling at Pirate's Cove because I could imagine that their fuel had been there since the Civil War. As a result, I came into Demopolis with only a gallon or two in the tank, which is closer than I like to call it.



The Fuel Dock

We ate a decent meal at the marina's restaurant and then retired to the boat in hopes of watching Monday Night Football. Those hopes were dashed when the TV did its channel scan. We only got one network, PBS and a preaching channel.
The next day I asked an old codger in the marina office if the cable worked and he shook his head no. I told him that we were not able to get but a couple of stations off the air and he said, "Well, that PBS is pretty good and there ain't nuthin' but bad news on the rest of it." Well, alrighty then.

Roy got a ride to Tuscaloosa with a young lady that works in the marina office. She was also going back to pick up my next crew in Tuscaloosa in the afternoon. The logistics of making this plan happen could fill another web site, but so far, it has all worked. I spent the day doing laundry, filling all the tanks and writing. It was a rainy, overcast day -- perfect for those activities.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad