Leaving Pebble Isle marina was a little sketchy. We ran aground, or more accurately just stopped moving as we were creeping forward and we had to back up and search for deeper water. We were very relieved to get out and keep on moving down the river. We found some really beautiful anchorages in this part of Kentucky lake and onto the Tennessee river, and enjoyed a few really beautiful sunsets. We spent two nights at the Grand Harbour Marina after the Pickwick lock, at the beginning of the Tennessee Tom Bigbee waterway. After arriving at the marina we met a man from Quebec who had a terrible situation with his wife the week before. She had a medical emergency and had to be airlifted off the boat and back to Canada for treatment. He was getting his boat hauled out and heading back to see her. I offered to take his house plants and take care of them for him until he could get to the Bahamas where he was planning to go before her illness. It prompted Douglas and I to think a lot about what would happen to us in a similar situation and realize that we needed to do more cross training so that each of us knows all the jobs on the boat and can replace each other if needed.
The Tennessee Tom Bigbee waterway is a section of the river that was created to make an alternative route to the lower Mississippi. This section of river has ten locks and some days we had to traverse several of them. Along the way we made a lot of new friends and ended up in some pretty crazy anchorages! The oddest one was probably Bashi creek where we had to tuck into a small creek about 40 feet wide with trees hanging over the sides. The next morning because the creek was too narrow to turn around so we had to back out while dodging trees sticking out of the water. It was like being in Jurassic park. Alligators started to become really common in this section of river, as well as water snakes. I was Pretty unsettled and constantly on guard to say the least. I had Douglas doing snake patrol on the boat checking under and in everything on deck every morning before I would come above.
After the Tom Bigbee we had the Black Warrior river to get through, which had a few more incredible anchorages, beautiful sunsets and a lot of good times with friend boats. At one point we were traveling with a friend sailboat that had had their mast put back on further up the river and had to call the railway bridges to open for them. One day a bridge would not respond on VHF or telephone. Douglas and I went through the bridge to read the water gauge which wasn’t super clear. We sent a picture to our friends and told them that we thought it was about 48 feet of clearance, they thought it was almost 50, which is the height they needed. So they decided to go through. The whole way through their VHF antenna scraped the bottom of the bridge! It was scary, but they made it and didn’t even lose the antenna.
The Black Warrior river ended with the beginning of Mobile Bay. As soon as we started getting close it became chaos. There were so many tugs working in the harbor it was insane. I kept on the radio talking to them and telling them how many boats were traveling with us and where we were. Some of them were really helpful and told us what times some of the cruise ships and cargo ships would be leaving docks and how to avoid them. It was really intimidating because they can all move so much faster than we can.
Once we got past the industrial docks and into the channel we were met with dozens of dolphins. They stayed with us as we made our way to the Dog River Marina. When we got to Dog River and pulled up to the dock our mast was there waiting for us right next to the dock. It had been packaged perfectly, thanks to Racine Riverside Marine. What a relief! We felt very good about our decision not to carry it strapped to the boat like some other people had done. It just isn’t worth the risk if something bad happens and you end up damaging your rig. We hired a professional rigger to help us get everything set up and we learned a lot from him.
Mobile was also a place where we met up with a lot of our friends that we had made coming down the river. Everyone is on their own schedule but they all pass through Mobile at some point. We spent a few weeks in Mobile getting the boat ready to move on, and also resting from our wild river adventure. We had a few more boat projects to do in Mobile, including changing the stuffing in the stuffing box. That was a task and a half because water pours into the boat during the procedure and we ended up with the wrong size stuffing. Luckily the bilge pump held up and we were able to get the correct size stuffing installed and the geyser stopped.
I can’t say that we would do the inland river system trip again unless we were helping someone else take their boat down, but I am sure glad that we did it and got to learn more about the rivers and how important it is to the American economy and way of life. We felt like it was a fascinating journey where we learned a lot about our boat and also about the US heartland, and the amazing and generous people who live there.
