The crew was a little rusty!

Yeah!!  7am. November 6th ready to go and No FOG to wait on.  We called the lockmaster at Demopolis lock which is only 2 miles from the marina.  The lockmaster was difficult to understand but we heard him to say come on. He was locking a tow through and would be clear when we arrived.  Excitement filled the fly bridge as we prepared to leave. It was a beautiful sun shiny morning, so coffee in hand we were off.  Have you heard of the saying "hurry up and wait"?  Well that was us. We arrived at the lock about 7:20 and waited and waited and waited!  Lesson learned, always repeat what you think a  lockmaster with a Southern accent says. Anyway, 45 minutes our parade of three boats that were now waiting paraded into the lock.  It was windy and our locking skills a bit rusty so catching the bollard wasn't pretty nor efficiently or calmly accomplished in front of our audience but we did get it done. We spoke with the other boats on the radio and we all now shared the same concern.  Can we make it to Bashi creek to anchor before nightfall?  Now behind we decided to run 10 knots rather than our usual 8.  At 2:30 we were approaching Barrons Landing, a large indentation in the river that is used as an anchorage. It is set back enough to keep 2-3 boats out of harms way when the tows come by. We chose to anchor here rather than risk arriving at Bashi at dusk and finding it full of boats that had left before us.  Anchoring went somewhat smoothly. Soon after we anchored a tow passed, their wake rocked us but we did not move, which meant our anchors were set which is definately a good thing. We settled in and did a little fishing off the bow.  About an hour later another boat joined us. a beautiful coaster cruiser named Irony.  Now you may remember we have a dog with us. What does she do when we anchor and can't get her to shore?  Tom bought a large piece of sod, cut it in two and put each piece on a plastic tub cover. Thank goodness, she chooses to use them!!

The first of my catch up posts - A night on the Demopolis Fuel Dock

We returned to Demopolis Yacht Basin on November 5th following our little shake down cruise on the Black Warrior.  We tied up at the gas dock, as it is easier to get going in the morning once the lockmaster gives us the Ok to come through.  We still had a few minor items to take care before we could relax for the evening, that is if you call two frozen heads minor!  I guess you could say Tom was up to his eye balls in *#%&* or another way to put it; he was full of it.  Anyway, can't really anchor out without a potty so it had to be done.  We also came back from our shake down cruise minus one fishing pole.  The only bait we had was corn, a can of oysters I found in the cabinet, and stinky cheese bait, but something liked it because the loosely secured pole is now following some fish along the bottom of the river.  How many fish did we catch you ask?  That would be nadda, nothing, zero, but that means we don't have to clean any either! Tom successfully repaired one of the heads so off to theWall we went to visit with everyone one last time before leaving Demopolis. An evening of mixed emotions, excited about our new adventure, sad to leave good friends we made.