On this Veteran's Day, thanks to all of the men and women serving in our armed forces - but a special thanks to our son-in-law Matt! He will be coming home in March - we missed him our last couple of months in Encinitas last spring. As a side note: the Marine Corps celebrated their 235th anniversary yesterday!The strangest things are spotted along the river but I believe the phone booth takes the prize so far! Lots of blue heron along the waterway and we are beginning to see turtles occasionally but other wildlife are difficult to spot. When we spent the night at Pirate's Cove, we used the car to visit the Bevill Visitor Center. A very nice place that gave the history of the Tenn-Tom. The map below shows what they call the "missing link" to connect the Tennessee River with the Tom Bigbee river - hence the Tenn-Tom Waterway.
The visitor center was a replica of a southern home from the 1850's - complete with 5 floors. Look closely and you'll see Steve several floors down on the left of the picture. We toured the last steam powered snagboat that was used to keep the waterways clear of fallen trees and other 'snags' that caused the tow boats problems navigating the river. Very interesting and gave an appreciation for the dedicated individuals who worked to keep several rivers in Alabama and Tennessee navigable.
Steve found a new way to get the dew off of the plastic in the morning - chamois on a boat scrub brush (it's getting warmer as the lows are in the 40's now). The river was again calm to the point of it being difficult to determine the shoreline from the water!
Our anchorage last night was very quiet and since Steve had taken the time to reinstall the recently fixed windlass (nice of Lemar to foot the bill under warranty) it was more enjoyable to anchor out. It was an out of the way place so Steve had to go to extremes in order to pick up a very weak but usable internet signal - the wireless card is at the top of the boat hook taped to a second boat hook taped to the mast! All was quiet when we left this morning.
Sights along the way today: nice views everywhere but in particular the white cliffs of Epes. Not sure what the stone is but it appears to be soft - maybe limestone?? Very impressive approaching and motoring alongside the cliffs.
We are still encountering tow boats - only passed 2 today and neither was at a curve so that's a good thing:-) We are now in Demapolis - 250 miles from Mobile. A HUGE boat came in at dusk - the guy on the front is circled in yellow. Looks like all of 160 foot to us - the largest we have seen on this trip. We plan on being to Mobile by the 17th but some not so good weather is being forecast. Hopefully it will not delay us too long! We'll leave tomorrow at 9 am boat time with 2 other boats that will be traveling south also. Probably we'll anchor with them as well as we all travel about 8 mph. One is a boat from Ohio that we first met on the Tennessee River. I'm pretty certain there will be no internet tomorrow so until the next day or so ....
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