Fall colors

When we arrived during the night at Midway Marina and after an exhausting day, you’d think sleep would come easily but it did not. The theory was that we had too much adrenaline in our system to sleep. At some time after midnight, a sound sleep arrived. The next day we waited for the approaching rain and wind storm. At about 4pm the weather passed and we met the other loopers for docktails and a captain’s meeting. Most of the conversation centered around the previous night’s experience and plans to leave the next day. There are four locks to pass through from Midway Marina to the next marina at Columbus, MS. Boat captains usually coordinate arriving at the locks at the same time in order to get through them as quickly as possible and to avoid having to wait on each other. We were staying an extra night, so we planned on having this same conversation the next day. That evening we ate dinner with other loopers at Guy’s Place, the marina restaurant. We knew from our trip this summer that the food was surprisingly good for a marina restaurant.

The second day at Midway we did our laundry and caught up on boat chores. The captain was expecting a package from another boater but there was a mix up so one of the Harbor Hosts from Pickwick Lake ended up driving it to us at Midway Marina. It turned out he knew the marina owner, Guy. Guy asked us, as transient boaters, to participate in an interview later that day, with a news station out of Tupelo that was doing a ‘Hometown Tour’ of Fulton and highlighting the marina. We said ‘sure’ and an hour later we were being filmed and interviewed. You can watch the short segment HERE.

That evening we coordinated the next day’s departure to Columbus Marina with the other captains. The plan was for three boats to leave at daylight after confirming the timing with the next lock. Per the call with the lockmaster, the first lock, Fulton, was ready when we arrived. We had to wait a while on the second lock, Wilkens, so we decided to drop the anchor with our buddy boats and wait until it was ready. Eventually the lockmaster gave us the green light (it's an actual green light like a traffic light) to enter but then made us wait on two slow moving sailboats before dropping us down the river. A bald eagle lived at the lock and watching it made our wait more tolerable. The lockmaster called it Patriot, Keeper of the Lock. Patriot sat perched on a light pole while we rode down the lock. We passed through the remaining two locks, Amory and Aberdeen, with minimal delays. On the way to Columbus Marina we passed by Columbus Air Force Base which is a training base. We were entertained by the pairs of training planes and jets that passed overhead. When we reached the marina and turned into the channel we were greeted by a large flock of white pelicans that spend the winter there. They looked like white balloons floating on the water.

In Columbus we topped off the fuel tanks, got a pump out, and replenished our provisions. The marina had two courtesy cars, a minivan and a truck. As luck would have it, we got the truck to use to pick up supplies. It was nice enough until it died twice while waiting at traffic lights making for a stressful shopping trip. It’s hit or miss with the courtesy cars but we're grateful they had them.

After a two night stay in Columbus, we left early with two buddy boats as we had several miles to travel and two locks to get through before reaching our anchorage at Warsaw Cut Off. We were expecting heavy rain and were eager to get settled before the front arrived.

Surprisingly we haven’t seen much wildlife on this part of our trip. However on this day we were rewarded with seeing a deer swimming along the left descending bank.

A wonderful thing about traveling on the water this time of year is getting to see miles and miles of beautiful fall colors.

Boaters always say ‘there are two types of boaters…ones who run aground and ones who lie about running aground’. We knew it would happen one day as nearly everyone we’ve met has shared their ‘run aground’ story. This day was our day for a ‘grounding’ story. Parts of the river have lots of curves and tight turns. It’s not a problem to navigate until you meet or pass a tow. We met one in a particularly narrow and shallow curve. The upbound tow captain had asked us to meet him on the ‘2 whistle’ (starboard to starboard passing). This would put him on the outside of the bend where there was deep water and us in the inside of the bend where it was really shallow. At this point, the captain decided to tuck into a creek on the tow’s ‘1 whistle’ (port to port passing) but he misjudged how to enter the creek resulting in what's called a “soft grounding”. In other words, soft mud. Once the tow had passed, we were able to back out of the mud and continue on our way. We reached the anchorage before the weather arrived and without any other incidents.

While we do our best to keep up with the weather using multiple sources we’re at the mercy of the weather experts' information. We woke up to a light rain which was supposed to end early in the morning so we decided to leave the anchorage in order to make sure we arrived at Kingfisher Bay Marina before dark. However, the rain didn’t end until after lunch making for a stressful cruise as we don’t have windshield wipers. We also had to pass through a lock, Heflin, in the rain. By this time, the first mate decided she was ‘done’ with the locks.

The rest of the trip was uneventful and we pulled into Kingfisher Bay before dark. We planned to stay there a couple of nights so we could attend the Halloween party and get a much needed break from moving the boat. This is the marina where we kept the boat for 10 months. We enjoyed catching up with friends we had made during that time. Once we leave Demopolis, we’ll have three to four travel days to get to Mobile Bay. There will be no marinas, no fuel, no water, and no provisioning until we reach the Bay.