Tuesday, November 18, 2008

November 14, 2008: Bobby's Fish Camp




We cast off this morning under gray skies; our destination is Bobby’s Fish Camp, which is the only marina between Demopolis and Mobile. We are looking forward to meeting Tom’s sister and brother-in-law there. They are driving up from Mobile and taking the challenge of finding it from the land side.

We spotted the tugboat, Boliver Point and chatted with him. He was pushing a tanker carrying Zylene to Decataur, Alabama, and he plans to pick up a load there and take it to Texas. I’m not sure of his route, but he said “by way of Mississippi Bay”. He said they took on about 10,000 gallons of fuel every 7 days.

Bobby’s Fish Camp’s accommodation is a 160 floating dock along side the river. There is no protection from the river waves, but it was certainly a popular place. I have seen many patches of water hyacinth for the past several weeks, but at Bobby's I actually saw one blooming. It reminded me of a large lavender azelia blossom.

We were the third boat to tie up there, and then watched as the 140 foot yacht, Freedom, docked by dropping an anchor and bringing its stern to the dock. The captain wouldn’t tell us who owned it, but it was previously owned by Jimmie Dean (Jimmie Dean Sausage). It carried a ski boat and a jet ski on the upper deck that could be lowered to the river by a crane. The captain and 4 crew members were taking the boat to Key Largo to meet the owner for Thanksgiving.

Martha and Gil arrived mid afternoon and it was great to see them. They had left a car at the Ciba Chemical plant where Gil works and caught a ride to Bobby’s. We had dinner tonight at the old silvered wooden building that is Bobby’s restaurant. The sign on the door said that this was not a fast food place, so not to expect fast food; and they were right. All seven tables were full by the end of our meal, most of whom were boating folks. On the wall was a stuffed (apparently real) Alligator Gar that a local had caught in the river there. It had a mouth like an alligator but was a fish (so it had no legs). Pretty amazing. The table under the Alligator Gar was the last one to be filled. We all ordered catfish, and were served a 9x13 tray with paper towels in the bottom full of fried fillets, another tray of French fries and hushpuppies, and a bowl of delicious creamy white coleslaw. The fish was hot and crispy and yummy and we enjoyed the dinner.

Monday, November 17, 2008

November 17, 2008: Mobile, Al







When we first peeked out the window this morning we were all fogged in, but by the time we got up for breakfast, the fog was gone and so were the other four boats who shared our anchorage.


We passed under the bridge for

Highway 61, locally called the Dolly Parton Bridge. This is the first bridge we have seen that crosses the TomBigbee for 71 miles, which just indicates that we have been “in the wilderness”.

When we came to the railroad bridge, we had to wait for a train to go through before the bridge opened for us.


We passed another connection with the Tensaw River with an wide anchorage. The locals call this a hurricane hole as the nearest safe place to move your boat up from Mobile for safe haven during storms about 10 miles north of Mobile.

We are now in the Mobile River Delta – 25 miles wide and ranks second in the nation in plant and animal diversity including Alabama’s only population of black bears. It is a network of creeks and islands where we are now seeing palmetto plants with the wide green fans.

As we neared Mobile, we began to pass a huge industrial area, including loading docks full of coal, lumber and tractor trailer containers. The area was alive with commerce. There were ocean going freight ships from Italy and Greece being loaded by conveyor belts where you could tell how much of their load was by how much of the red bottom you could see above the water line. We also passed Carnival Cruise ships with passengers waving from the top deck and a Norwegian Cruiser in dry dock. There was the ship that was the USS Shadwell, the Naval Research Laboratory docked there as well. On the city waterfront, we sighted the Battle House Tower with its pointed top and 35 stories as the tallest building in Alabama.

Passing the city, we reached Mobile Bay, and it was the largest expanse of water that we had been in since we left Lake Michigan. The Bay brought brown pelicans, sportsmen fishing, Sea Gulls, low white fishing boats with the back full of crab pots and huge live oaks. The Bay was very calm as we crossed to marker 63 to make our turn into the Dog River Marina. Although the Bay is very broad, it is not very deep; you have to stay exactly in the channel.

Tonight we have tucked The Next 30 Years into a large slip under a shed roof at the Marina. This will be the home port for the next several months while we go home for Thanksgiving, our Grandbaby’s birth, and the Christmas holidays.

November 16, 2008: Tensaw River, AL






This morning we had breakfast overlooking the magnificent cypress tree with its silver gray knees reflected in the still water. Then we took the dinghy in and docked it next to a floating cabin that was moored to 40 foot post on the bank.

We rode in with Gil and Martha and decided to go on our way to church to also see the Ciba plant where Gil works in nearby McIntosh, Alabama. Gil is a PhD Chemist and has worked there for many years.

We road by a number of huge factories, railroad cars and pipings on the way in. Gil explained that there is an extraction process of pumping water into a salt (NaCl – sodium chloride) deposit underground and then pumping the dissolved salt up. This is an unusual geographic feature--a giant underground salt dome which was discovered in 1945. The salt solution goes into a process that separates the chloride from the sodium. There are several companies in the McIntosh area that use water from the river and the byproducts of the NaCL.

They showed us the plant, built in 2001, where Splenda is made, the sugar substitute is made by Johnson and Johnson. Gil works at Ciba where they take the chloride and make chemical brighteners that are used in detergents like Tide. They actually create reflection in the cloth to make clothes look cleaner. Gil said that it is what makes clothes glow when put under a “black light”.


After our short tour of the chemical industry north of Mobile, we pulled into Malcolm Baptist Church very near the anchorage. This is a church whose congregation was organized in 1878 as Rose Bud Baptist church. Their building was the traditional white siding country church, and the parking lot had its share of pickup trucks. We were a few minutes early, and met one of their choir members who was full of news about the church and community. The congregation of 25 folks gathered at 11:00 AM with the prelude being played on the piano, “His Name is Wonderful”. We shared traditional hymn singing, rousing anthems by their choir and experienced their friendliness. The scripture passage was from Acts 4: 1-22. The message was on the impact of the “unschooled and ordinary” Peter and John, changed by having been with Jesus. It was great to be with this small group of Christians worshiping on Sunday morning.

After church Gil and Martha took us to Rebecca’s. There were amazing huge live oaks in the sandy parking lot but the real amazing thing was the buffet inside. I did not have some of everything, but I did have fried shrimp, sweet potato casserole, summer squash, collards, creamed corn, chicken pastry, rice, butter beans, a nice salad, and warm peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream. Oink, Oink!

After saying goodbye to family, we headed back down river past the new steel plant that is being built on west side of the TomBigbee. This is a massive plant that will provide exciting employment opportunities for employment in southern Alabama next fall. The friend at church told us that they had dug a foundation for the plant that was 288 feet deep to get to a firm foundation with the width of 360 feet and length of 980 feet. What we could see from the shoreline was a group of 5 or 6 cranes and trucks moving dirt.


Following the river along we saw a white egret or a blue heron every 100 yards or so; sort of like they each had staked out their fishing zones. Tonight we are anchored along with four other boats in the Tensaw River, just beyond the bend, and about 39 miles north of Mobile, Alabama.

November 15, 2008: Bates Lake




When we got up this morning, four of the six boats had already left the dock. We had a leisurely breakfast of waffles before casting off for Coffeeville Lock. We had seen the sailboat, Solace, passing by, so we radio’ed ahead hoping to lock through with him. Just as we reached the lock, we heard a tugboat call ahead asking for lockage as well. So the Lock Master decided to wait for the tug, giving us our first experience of being in a lock with barges. The tug boat was pushing 6 barges loaded with coal, so he entered first and fully occupied about 500 feet of the lock. We followed him in and took the first cleat on the right and the sailboat Solace took the left side.

We were thoroughly entertained during the locking process by a snowy white egret that came for breakfast. She started at the top of the lock doors and then proceeded to move down the door as the water drained out of the lock. She marched across each of the cross beams of the door carefully inspecting each one and was finally rewarded with a catch of a small fish stranded in the door frame. We also had a brief conversation with Solace. The white haired captain had sailed his boat from Greece to America by himself and said that he was enjoying the beauty of our country. I told him over the radio that he was a very brave man! It was amazing to watch the Cherokee tug boat Captain push the long barges which were such a close fit to the lock width out of the lock. The tugboat captains are very skilled boatmen.


This lock is the last lock on our journey, and took us down into the river pool which is once again a tidal basin (just like home).

Our cruise today passed some high limestone cliffs called “Lover’s Leap” and some low shore

line with a little herd of cows, all different

colors, cavorting on the bank. There was a lumber mill with tall stacks of light pole sized timbers and industrial docks loading barging.

This afternoon, we reached Bates Lake which is where Martha and Gil left their car and was really just a narrow tributary to the TomBigbee. We were not sure if it was too shallow for us to take The Next 30 Years up the lake, so we took the dinghy off to take a short tour to investigate. As we entered the waterway, a neighboring fisherman came and told us that it was dangerous to anchor where we were and that the lake was over 3.5 feet deep – we should anchor there. So tonight we are anchored out in Bates Lake next to some magnificent cypress trees and very interesting floating cabins.

After a galley cooked dinner of Fettuccini Alfredo, Tom and Gil tried to watch some of the Florida State-Boston College game. The reception changed as the boat swung on anchor, so Tom went upstairs and got the remote control for the engine thrusters. Then he could keep the boat lined up for the best picture.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

November 13, 2008: Barron's Landing - Landrum Creek





We delayed our departure this morning from 7:30 to 8:30 am due to the fog. Our first job for this morning is to traverse the Demopolis Lock just about 3 miles south of the marina. We had to wait a bit for the tug, the Island Trader, with a barge that had Navy priority to go through before us. Congregating at the lock to wait were 5 boats; and once again the lock master asked for the names and registration numbers of each boat. They must be more concerned about security as you near Mobile. I had to smile at the boat names called out on the radio; as there was conversation with the lock master he addresses the captain by the boat name each time. Accompanying us through the lock this morning were: Elegant Lady, Grumpy Old Men, Sure Thing, and Tricia Ann. Just as everyone got in place, the sailboat Solace joined us with perfect timing to make the lock without waiting. The captain had an unusual accent and asked the lock master to repeat himself “because he was European and did not understand”. The lock action dropped us 33 feet into the lower pool, and there were beautiful waterfalls along side the river as we exited the lock. The lockmaster told us to be safe and watch out for the 7 tugboats north bound below us on the river.

The first one we passed was the Navy barge that had preceded us through the Demopolis lock and was heading South carrying a unique load. We heard the boats in front of us questioning him about it before we saw it ourselves. He was pushing a group of grey shuttle transports, sections that could be used to build an emergency bridge or transport heavy equipment. He was taking them somewhere in Florida.

The TomBigbee river is as crooked as could be. At one time, we were about 100 yards away from the river through the woods from a point that was three miles ahead of us by water. A lot of this land is just flood plain with a curvy river bed running through it. We saw the old remains of the Rooster Bridge, it was made famous by a video clip from April, 1979 that made the rounds on the internet recently showing the tugboat Cahaba being pushed under the bridge by flood waters and then coming up on the other side. We’re glad we are not in a torrent like that today. http://www.snopes.com/photos/accident/towboat.asp


We passed a loading dock for wood pulp with a mountain of wood fragments at the end of a long conveyor belt from the river shore. This was near a large paper plant with smokestacks billowing.


So this afternoon we anchored out just where the river widens at a spot where tiny Landrum creek merges with the river. This is called Barron’s Landing, where Lock #2 on the TomBigbee used to be. The sandy banks are forested with the ground rising gradually away from the water. You can see where the flood erosion has brought the demise of a number of large trees that have toppled into the water. After a very grey day, the sun is beginning to come out and sitting in the sun, we can hear the wind in the trees, song birds and crickets, see the splash of fish jumping, touch visiting red black-spotted lady bugs and watch the tugboats go by.