14th Segment: Iuka, MS to Dog River, AL

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Midway Marina
Fulton, MS
10/4/2010

Since I had arrived back from my drive to St. Louis late I could sleep in the next morning. It felt a little lonely to be by myself for a couple of days. I decided to visit the Shiloh Church battlefield. This battle during the early years of the Civil War cost about 26,000 soldiers their lives. The Union troops had taken a fort on the Tennessee River and another on the Cumberland River and after these successes tried via the Tennessee River to occupy Corinth, which had an important railway connection. Access was necessary in order to reach and control the all-important waterway - the Mississippi River. The commerce of the confederacy depended on the river.

The Union troops landed at a place today known as Pittsburgh Landing. The Confederate troops had become aware that they had formed a bridgehead and surprised them. Two days of fighting ensued. During the first day Union troops were able to hold their own against the Confederates under General Johnston. On the next day however the Confederate Army had to retreat since additional Union troops had arrived overnight. I visited Pittsburgh landing, which we had passed two days earlier on the Marilsnick without realizing its historic importance. The Union war cemetery like all war cemeteries caused me to react emotionally. One has to ask why we humans cannot settle our differences peacefully. The majority of soldiers were not identified by name. The casualties of the South had been interred in mass graves. General Grant, the leader of the Union Army found no time to bury them individually because he felt a threat to his troops from infectious diseases. A driving tour led me through of the battlefield finally ending at the Shiloh church. Originally this was nothing more than a log house. Today there an active church at the site of the old church with an active civil cemetery nearby.

On Friday evening close to midnight my new partner George Penfield arrived by plane in Memphis. The next morning I picked him up with the rental car, a large pickup, and we drove from Memphis to Corinth to drop off the rental car. The clerk at the Enterprise rental counter told us that we should leave it at the Aqua Marina in Iukla. Apparently I had paid not only for having the car delivered but also for having the car picked up at the marina.

During the day George learned the basics on the boat and we did a little docking maneuver for practice ending up at the fuel dock and accomplishing a pump-out. George did well. He is a natural in following my advice. The next morning we left Aqua Marina and slowly entered the Divide Cut, a 25-mile canal that had to be dug in order to connect the Tennessee and the Tombigbee River. Nature had filled in all the scars that the giant earth-moving project had left and it was a pleasant run. We reached Bay Springs Marina in the early afternoon and the dock master even assigned us a covered slip.

We used the courtesy car to buy a few bottles of Bloody Mary mix in the town of Belmont about half an hour away. On the way back we got hopelessly lost. We had left the GPS navigator on the boat.

The next morning the wind was blowing pretty hard and the temperature dropped during the day into the sixties and by night into the forties. After a restless night we awoke to a scene that could have been painted by an artist of the romantic period. Soft clouds of fog arose out of the lake but a mild wind blew them quickly but gently away.

We called the first lock, the 84-foot high Jamie Whitten Lock only a couple of miles away from the marina. The lock master advised us to come quickly but then did not have the lock doors open when we arrived. After making a wide turn the red light at the lock turned green and we docked at the lock wall. It felt to me that either my new mate George was a natural at docking at the floating bollards or he had followed my instructions closely. The Marilsnick bumped the lock wall slightly (my fault) and then the tying on was easy. Later two more locks followed in succession. We probably could have made it to another marina downriver but decided to stay at the Midway Marina near Fulton, MS. The dock master was accommodating and we decided to get the shopping out of the way since the CC (courtesy car) was available. The owners of the marina have learned what makes those marinas attractive to Loopers. There are basically two items beside clean docks: a courtesy car and fast Internet access. The Midway Marina had both. We paid $36 for the overnight docking. Considering that we had a free car available we wondered how the marina is making any money on us.

Sumpter Recreation Area’
Somewhere in Alabama
October 7, 2010

The headline to be describing the next three days could be “Lock Delays”. We made it through the first lock easily but then as we approached the second we had a huge barge ahead of us. The barge was loaded with rocks to fortify the waterway and would be with us for the next two days since it was going all the way to Pirate’s Marina Cove. It took this bog load about half an hour to approach the lock than another half hour to fit into it and a third half hour to leave it. Then another barge was locked up so that we had a delay of more than two hours. At the Amory lock five miles downriver it was a similar story. Anybody who knows me has at one time or another experienced my lack of patience. Here it was tested seriously.

The scenery was monotonous but nice. Dense growths of trees lined both banks and we saw many birds, which I still have difficulty to identify. Early in the afternoon we reached the Aberdeen Marina and realized that we could not make it to Columbus our planned destination.

The Aberdeen lock people were most friendly and had the gates open when we arrived. We do not leave the dock in such places until we know the lock is ready for us. When we could pass the John C. Stennis lock with equal easy we thought we had made it. Not so. Shortly before we arrived at the Pirate’s Marina a member of a dredge crew asked us to wait for thirty minutes. After thirty minutes waiting it was another thirty minutes. What a test for a German who appreciates punctuality and kept promises! Apparently the crew had problems sinking one of the dredge pipes. One of the small Corps of Engineer boats then guided us over the newly dropped pipe and we docked at the Pirate’s Marina where a real pirate welcomed us. He was a “cool” guy with long hair, a cigarette in his mouth and prison tattoos on his arms. He lived on a sailboat in the marina and told us that he had been born in Holland, was adopted by an American family but did not have the right papers when he was grown to document that he was not an illegal alien. He was deported back to Holland then made it through England and Canada back over the green border into the States. He did not tell us more details but there must have been more behind his story than he offered. George, my mate who had been a lawyer in Cleveland was sure that his tattoos had been acquired in some jailhouse.

In Pirate’s Cove mostly junky old boats had found a resting place. A dog, a bitch with hanging teats and a wagging tail was living on one of the boats together with her six pups. One of the dredge crew had found the litter on a fire aunt hill and delivered it to the lady owning the boat who agreed to take care of them.

Although the marina was in poor shape it provided a rental car. We used it to visit the Tom Bevill Visitor Center next to the Tom Bevill Lock and Dam. Tom Bevill apparently was an important Alabamian who saw to it that the Tenn-Tom Waterway was built. An imitation southern mansion housed the visitor center with a few exhibits. One was devoted to the Congressman, who as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee had not only the lock and dam but also several buildings in Alabama named after him. It was another example how powerful politicians make their name at the expense of taxpayers.

Next to the southern mansion the snag boat “Montgomery” was exhibited. It was one of the important workboats keeping the marine highways open for navigation. It removed fallen trees obstructing the rivers with a large crane mounted on its bow. It had been build in 1926 in Charleston and had a steam engine that powered both the crane and the large paddle wheel.

We had a good dinner in the little village of Pickensville. The two ladies running the establishment wondered about us talking funny and we did have the same reaction to their accent. It is melodious, making three syllables where we get by with one but we had a hard time understanding them. The menu was also southern: catfish in a variety of forms, fried sweet potatoes and green beans out of a can.

At the marina two other boats had docked both flying the AGLCA (looper) burgee. Two brothers, former lobster fishermen from Maine, had built their own boat. A couple from Michigan owned the other boat. Their son had been a lecturer at the Seattle Boat Show. The skipper had been a mechanic and had taken the engine out of his boat, repairing at in his garage and placing it back into the hull of his boat. Erwin and Marilyn were nice and loquacious. We decided to follow them the next morning to our next destination Sumpter Recreation Area. Going at seven knots it took us five hours for 37 miles. We were rewarded with a beautiful anchorage in a little bay near a park. The anchor was set at the first try and we spent a lovely afternoon relaxing.

The weather was extraordinary since George joined me. According to the local weatherman it was ten degrees warmer than average and did not see a cloud on the sky for several days. Basically during the whole journey we only experienced summer although in the Tennessee River the leaves were slightly beginning to turn, which was the only indication that the summer might be ending.

Dog River Marina
Mobile, AL
October 12, 2010

There could not have been any greater contrast between our Sumpter Anchorage and the marina in Demopolis. The anchorage was lonely and peaceful and the boaters at the site all were Loopers. After the three of us had pulled in three other boats followed near dusk. In the evening we talked about each other’s plans. We decided to be the first out in the morning since we had the biggest distance to cover. The Howell Heflin Lock was not a problem. George again was a good line handler and by then it would have been a shame if I had been unable to smoothly direct the Marilsnick to a lock wall with a bollard. After fifty miles we reached the end of the Tenn-Tom waterway (officially called the Tennessee - Tombigbee Waterway) and entered the Black Warrior - Tombigbee Waterway. The Black Warrior River enters from the west and the Demopolis Marina was our stop. The bottom of the slip we had been assigned had shoaled and the propeller through up lots of mud, which was not a comfortable feeling for this captain. A courtesy car took us to town, which according to the map is of the size of Selma. It turned out the deadest town we visited on the whole Loop. There had been definitely a city with a large furniture store, a city hall, and many other businesses as well as several old classic homes. The stores were closed to 95% and the nice homes had run down. We could not even find a convenience store to buy a few needed items. We resorted to our I-phone, which told us that there was a Walmart somewhere. We engaged our little GPS navigator and found a highway lined with stores and restaurants. There was even a big hospital. It was sad to see how the citizens of Demopolis had virtually abandoned the center of town. In this case it was not an indication of the current depression because the businesses along the highway were busy including the little Mexican restaurant where we had dinner.

Obviously Demopolis did not warrant a stay for another day and night as we had planned. We decided to leave at daybreak the next morning after the fog had lifted. It was to be the second longest run of the trip. The distance of 97 statute miles took us almost ten hours. The scenery right after leaving the first lock was fascinating: For the next five to six miles we passed white cliffs with beautiful formations that only nature can form. Then the trip became monotonous: trees lined both banks and only birds provided an interruption of the monotony. At one time a bald eagle circled around the boat. Bobby’s Fish Camp was our destination. It was not a marina but merely a fuel dock to which another hundred feet had been added. We had read that we would most likely have to raft to another boat and that proved to be the case. The Blue Max II, whose crew we knew from Aqua Marina and the Duchess had both docked already and were ready and willing to take our lines. It was an easy maneuver. The dock master - we never saw him or her - had asked the crews to leave a spot at the dock for another large boat, which arrived after we had gone to sleep and was gone by the time we woke up.

We had a great dinner together with the other Loopers at the restaurant near the dock. My friend and crew mate George enjoyed the hush puppies and the French fries.

The next morning we all went through the a lock, which was the last for us on the Great Loop, the Coffeeville Lock. Then we passed the slower boats whose crew made fun of us being in a hurry. But I felt like the horse, which sensed that the barn was close and wanted to get into the anchorage at Three Rivers Lake about 55 miles away. We passed through cypress forests and began to see many egrets. The river now had tidal changes and that apparently provided a great environment for these birds.

The Three Rivers Lake anchorage was another beautiful anchorage. It was anything but a lake. A river not more than 70 feet wide and about 12 feet deep provided a narrow anchorage. As we entered a gentle tide swept into the river, which was not much more than a creek. We lowered the bow anchor, set it and then fed another twenty feet of chain out before throwing the stern anchor overboard. It worked! The boat held steady in the middle of the current, which during the next six hours changed direction. The night was surprisingly pleasant. Normally George preferred to sleep on the flying bridge until midnight but here he had to escape from the mosquitoes into his V-berth.

I had a difficult time worrying what if one of the anchors could not be lifted and was relieved when this did not turn out to be a problem. We were able to turn the Marilsnick and escaped into the wider waterway. When we left the anchorage there had been hardly any fog but a mile or two south the situation was different. The fog was so thick, that we turned around. Only half an hour later when the fog had lifted we realized that we would have missed a green marker if we had proceeded to follow the bank visually. We had avoided a grounding. In open waters a fog is not necessarily a problem but on rivers the situation can be quite different.

At the 45-mile mark we reached the Alabama River, which we almost followed into Mobile Harbor. There was a moment of uncertainty when a canal had been dug to shorten a loop of the river. The charts were somewhat misleading but we made the right choice.

The last obstacle before reaching Mobile Harbor was a railroad swing bridge. A boat ahead of us asked for the opening and we slipped through with him.

At the big highway bridge the waterway ended officially: we had reached mile zero of the Black Warrior -Tombigbee Waterway and had covered a distance of 450 miles since Aqua Marina.

The Mobile harbor did not appear as busy as I had suspected. There were many berths for large ships but we saw only one big tanker. None of the big cranes was busy and many berths were empty. As we left the harbor and entered the bay a few barges passed and a shrimp boat crossed the waterway dragging a net behind. A few further miles and at the marked entrance of the Dog River marked the big moment had come: the Marilsnick crossed its wake and thus had completed the Great Loop. It would have been an emotional moment but the narrow waterway with shoals on either side demanded my attention but we made it safely even the last few miles into the Dog River Marina. Wind and current complicated the final docking but with George’s help I avoided hitting a sailboat in the last minute. We had made it!

An epilogue will follow when I make it home to Puyallup.

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