The Tenn – Tom Waterway – or – Yeah!, the rivers are done

Intro to the Tenn-Tom – found a link that will save me a bunch of typing. https://www.ltlooper.org/tenn-tom

Keeping track of your “plan” when you don’t really have a schedule, and everything is dependent on the weather and the locks and the tows you can’t control, leads to keeping track of life on a whiteboard, or in our case a pilothouse window, with a dry erase marker.

Florence to Iuka (Aqua Yacht Harbor) – 44 Miles…After our Thanksgiving break with Brianna and a couple of boat projects we headed downstream on the Tennessee. Iuka is on the Yellow Creek which connects the Tennessee River to the TennTom waterway. It was a cold day, but dry. We arrived at Aqua Yacht Harbor in the afternoon and borrowed the courtesy car for a quick trip to a recommended Mexican restaurant. It is strange when you enter a restaurant and you are the only customer. Must have been the early hour as a few more customers arrived later.

Just a note: we weren’t far from the Pickwick State Park Marina where we stayed 2 nights and visited Shiloh battlefield.

So now, we are off the Tennessee entering a waterway. Each section of the loop comes with its own challenges. I’m not an adventure loving person and the unknown of the next section of the loop felt overwhelming to me until I decided to take it one day at a time. Another big thing was that anchoring at least 2 times in this section was a must and I’m not “onboard” with the concept yet. That is basically true of this whole loop journey for me.

Aqua to Midway – 54 Miles plus 3 Locks. Whitten (84′), Montgomery (30′), Rankin (30′)–We left Aqua a little later than planned due to the fog on the river. Our plan was to get to Midway Marina by late afternoon (Sunset is early this time of year). Time to go through a lock is dependent on commercial traffic so to have 3 locks in one day our timetable could go sideways. Fortunately we had little delays at the 3 locks and arrive at Midway late afternoon without any trouble. We did pick up another looper coming down the river, so now we have company.

Midway to Columbia – 59 miles and 4 Locks. Fulton (25′), Wilkins (25′), Amory (30′), Aberdeen (25′)–Another long day on the waterway. Again we were fortunate to get through the locks in record time and arrive at Columbia Marina late afternoon. After three days of travel we decided to stay and extra night at this location to relax and get some exercise on land. We used the courtesy car to taste some local food in town. Always nice to have someone else cook for me. We enjoyed a long walk around the park next to our next lock.

Columbus to Heflin Lock Anchorage – 69 miles and 3 Locks. Stennis (27′), Bevil (27′), Heflin (37′)–Another looper boat arrived in Columbus Marina our second night, so now we have 3 loopers traveling together. The lock masters want us to travel as a “pod” or whatever we might be called so as to make better use of the resources of the lock and water. We headed out at 6:30 to the first lock which was just downriver from the marina. FYI: Apparently when these locks were built, the government encouraged marinas to be built just above the locks…. So again we have 3 locks and again we locked thru very efficiently time wise. At the end of the day was an anchorage–oh no!!! This anchorage was in an oxbow….the dam was on the oxbow and the lock was actually on the waterway. So the area we anchored in was below the dam just before the water joined the river again. A good current and plenty of depth made me more comfortable with the anchoring thing. The moon was full so the whole anchorage was beautiful in the moonlight. We are still having some issues with the anchor chain/bridle making noise in our stateroom so I didn’t sleep well, but hopefully we’ll figure it out soon.

Heflin Anchor to Demopolis (kingfisher) – 52 miles–We were up-and-at-it early and on our way to Demopolis. And yeah, no locks between us and our destination. We did pass the white cliffs of Eps, this is the same rock formation as White Cliffs of Dover in England. There has been a lot of logs, branches, and plants in the river so both of us have our eyes on the river watching for and avoiding anything that might cause damage to the boat. We had planned to layover at this marina for 2 days, but due to the storm coming in a couple of days decided to continue our journey south along with 3 other looper boats. We did manage to get to Walmart for some shopping that night as well as get some laundry done. We had a pump-out done as well as refilled our fresh water tanks.

Demopolis (Lock) to Bobby’s Fish Camp – 98 miles and 1 Lock. Demopolis (40′)–Again fog was not our friend, but the fog lifted enough for us to leave around 7. Still lots of logs, sticks & plants on the river. This was a very long day of travel with our speed higher than normal and a good current in our favor so we could reach our destination. It was good to see the ever (in)famous Bobby’s Fish Camp after so many miles–remember we are only going 9mph but with the current an added 1-2mph. Bobby’s Fish Camp is one section of aluminum dock, twisted out of shape, and described as a marina with character. The restroom “facilities” at this “marina” consist of a Rubermade backyard storage shed with a shower, toilet and sink installed inside. Not much to speak of, but a place to tie-up to for the night, get a good nites sleep, and purchase fuel if you need it. Impromptu “docktales” were had before night descended on us.

Bobby’s Fish Camp to Tensaw Cut-off – 79 Miles and 1 Lock. Coffeeville (34′)–One more lock to go on this section of the loop. I forgot to mention that Tim & I have a tradition that as we exit the lock we have a homemade cookie to celebrate. Because we had 12 locks so close together, we only had half a cookie each lock so the cookies would last until the last lock. So we continued our journey south on the waterway dodging the debris in the river and then it happened. We hit something hidden which caused our alarms to sound. We had a few moments of total crisis, but discovered the transmission had kicked out of gear. We don’t know what really happened, but thankfully after restarting the engine everything continued to function as it should. We were at mile marker 98 in the middle of no-where. I am very thankful that we were safe and that nothing broke.

We make it to another anchorage which was wide and deep. Very nice night and very quiet before we enter civilization again in Mobile Bay.

Tensaw to Mobile to Gulf Shores. 79 miles and 1 Major Shipping Port–Started early today as we had many miles to go to reach our intended marina. It was really strange to enter civilization after being so isolated on the rivers. Mobile is a very busy port and has become busier due to the issues in the west coasts ports. There were freighters, tugs and barges everywhere. One of the highlights was the navy ships apparently under construction. It was announced that one of the navy boats were preparing to leave the harbor and had a police escort. This navy boat (as pictured) made a “slow” pass on our port. I was glad it was a slow pass because the wake was still very big. It was crazy to see a navy boat in action and so close to our little boat. I do have to say, I’m not impressed by the strange look of the navy ship…but if it protects our country…..

I thought that once we hit Mobile Bay we would be close to “home”, but the bay is much larger than I thought. It took many hours to traverse the bay (via the shipping lane), but we arrived at Homeport Marina just before 4pm. Done with the rivers for now and now the GICW (Gulf Inter Coastal Waterway (which runs from Appalachiacola, FL west to Brownsville Texas)).