Demopolis, Alabama - “Deliverance”

Today was the day I’ve been dreading - our trip through the Tombigbee River. It turned out to be long and tedious, but not sketchy. We woke up at 4:00 am (yes, that time actually does exist) and were on our way, in the dark, by 5:15 am. We used our headsets, and I had the important job of shining the spotlight on the fuel dock and the channel markers so the captain could see them. And we didn’t run aground, so I count that as a win. We had to travel 120 miles (80 by car) through a long and very winding river with lots of logs and stumps. 



I know it’s hard to see, but this is me standing in the dark holding the line to the bollard.



The sun finally came up around 6:30 am, after we had done over an hour in the dark. At least the lock was lit up like daytime. 


Then the fog rolled in

The lock doors opened to this tow waiting to lock through the other way


The third lock was the most exciting of this day. 

The third lock was the most exciting of this day. 

As the water started to go down, the floating bollard didn’t float. It stayed where it was as the boat went down, so now the bollard is above the boat’s rail. I started to think that I might have to get out the knife attached to my life jacket, so I could cut the line and release the boat from hanging. Just as I had that thought, I think the line pulled on the bollard, and it dropped about 10 feet (😬) then popped back up where it should be. At that point, it stayed with the boat the rest of the time. Sure scared me though!

Alabama is absolutely beautiful!  





And the wild life is incredible!


Quite a surprise was on the bank.  
The cell service WAS bad at this point in the trip  😀


 And to top it all off, when we finally got to our marina at 3:30 pm, basically 12 hours later, some of our Looper friends were waiting to help us into the slip. They had already figured out dinner, so all we had to do was sign up for the shuttle to the restaurant.

Looper friends had dinner all figured out.


And the menu tonight had an interesting offering.
That was a first for all of us. 

All in all, a successful day!

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