Morning on the Water

Many of you know that Larry and I prefer to not actually witness sunrise. We have a zillion photos (oops, don’t let the folks up in Washington hear that there is such a number... at least not with a $$$ sign in front of it) of sunsets but very few of sunrise.  Sometimes though, when we are traveling, early departures are just unavoidable. However after eaving Mobile while traveling up the Tenn-Tom Waterway anchorages and marinas are few and far between making long days, and thus early departures, a necessary evil.

I must admit that on a warm, sunny morning it is a sublime experience to listen to the bird songs and enjoy the morning hush before we crank up the noisy old CATS to get underway. Not that I want to make a habit of it mind you, because those sunsets and twilight can be pretty spectacular too.

Spring morning at Sumter Morning Anchorage above Demopolis.  This is one of our favorite anchorages

The reason we choose to get underway early rather than enjoy that extra sleep in the morning is because on this particular stretch of water you never know what you might find. The river is constantly changing and shifting and silting in; if we arrive at a planned anchorage late and find that it has shoaled too much for us to enter we may not have enough daylight to find a safe haven. By starting early we can stop early if our planned anchorage is good, if it is not then we have a window of time to push farther before dark.  Then again late afternoon in a quiet anchorage is hard to beat, especially with scenes like this to enjoy

Generally we plan on it being a 5 day trip upstream from Mobile to Columbus, MS, this year was no exception.  This trip we encountered a lot of current below Coffeeville Lock probably due to two factors. First the river is tidal all the way to Coffeeville and the tide was against us and secondly there had been some rain about 24 hours before we started up and the river drains a large area in the mountains of Alabama. Tributaries include the Alabama River that goes to Montgomery and the Black Warrior that goes to Birmingham. The only real harm was that we had to push the power up to meet our goals which resulted in burning a little more fuel this trip. Basically I guess we spent what we saved last fall with the fast current taking us down. 

High water levels and the fast currents associated with it, along with wake from the many boats (commercial, recreational, and local) combine to wreck havoc with the riverbanks along much of the waterway

You can see that the landowners try just about anything to save their bank.  Here the big home has had old concrete paving trucked in & dumped.  We also see old tires, wood or concrete bulkhead and regular rip-rap stone.  It appears none are totally successful.

Notice the size of the tree that was eroded to the point that it just fell over.

The home/cabin below has been abandoned and none too soon, you can see that the front corner is no longer supported. 

The scenery is diverse as you can see, the white cliffs are near Epes and they are not limestone but a chalk like rock that is even softer than limestone. I find it interesting that on one side are these high nearly pure white rock banks, while only a few miles up or downstream the rock is grey with the rusty streaks from minerals in the runoff water.

 At anchorage in pretty little Foscue Creek near Demopolis, AL we saw the USCG Buoy Tender Wedge moored at the Coast Guard Station there. They could really have used a little of her services on the river below Demopolis where many of the navigation marks have fallen victim to the erosion mentioned above.

This Daymark is about to become another victim of the bank erosion.

On our last day before reaching Columbus we passed a string of nice homes and one had this houseboat sitting out front. This has to be one of my favorite ever boat names!