Thursday, October 27 - More TENN-TOM

Do my titles give you an idea how I am feeling about this section of the Loop?

The water in our tank was really low, so we went across the waterway to a small marina on the eastern bank while Jaycie Lynn stayed at our wonderful little anchorage.  Boy, did they miss an adventure,  We couldn't see a marina anywhere, so again we called the lockmaster.  He directed us to the opening of the "path" and assured us it was well marked.  Again, stumps and trees everywhere. The markers were PCV pipes painted red and green, some sticking up only inches above the water.  The path was not visible to the eye at all, it looked more like a pathway in the Okefenokee Swamp! Finally we rounded a curve and saw the marina ahead, with a fire truck turned sideways at the bottom of the boat ramp.  As I came out of the store, the firemen were standing by the edge of the water starting up the hose.  They sprayed river water for 30 minutes checking the water pressure of the hose.  It was quite a show for us, complete with a rainbow!

Leaving the marina was much less tense than going in!  Jaycie Lynn was waiting for us, and we locked down.  About an hour down river, Scott radioed us and said, "this is about like riding a lawnmower to Florida."  It was an accurate description.  We passed several tugs with barges, but not much else.  It is hard to believe there is such a long stretch of land with so few signs of civilization.

Scott and Mary peeled off at Columbus, MS, we locked through John Stennis and kept going.  We were now in the river section, but it was still straight!   The Corps of Engineers had straightened it, leaving lots of oxbow.  The chart plotter looked crazy, kind of like dollar signs stacked on top of one another.  That's not the best description, maybe one day I can add pictures.

Late in the afternoon we started seeing houses,  Danny found a spot to anchor in the mouth of a creek, and proceeded to take a lake bath.  Marinas and very cold water had interfered.  While we were sitting on the back of the boat, a gentleman in a bass boat pulled up and started talking.  As he started to leave, he said he wish he could invite us to his house for dinner, but Thursday was men's steak night with some of his friends.

We still couldn't get the satellite to pick up our local channel for the news so we watched CNN for a little while, ate our shrimp ring and went to bed!