Touchdown!

At Gulfport marina, the sunset was gorgeous
as the cold front finally came through

After waiting 2 extra days for a slow-moving cold front to come through Gulfport, we set sail west to our winter home of New Orleans.  So now I ask the same question that I asked when we were departing Gulfport 4 years ago:  “Would you rather be stuck in morning rush-hour traffic on the Huey Long Bridge in New Orleans, or departing Gulfport harbor on your boat into a brightly-rising sun, being escorted by dolphins all around, and entertained by brown pelicans diving for their morning snack?”  This is an I.Q. test!

It was a good final day trip to our winter marina at South Shore Harbor on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, with the sun warming the sea breeze.  The wind was a bit more than forecast, E15-20, but it was all on our stern.  We hit the outgoing ebb tide trying to get into the Rigolets, so that slowed us a bit.

The shrimpers were working hard to
keep up with all the shrimp we're gonna eat!

And then we ran into all the crab traps!  Welcome to Louisiana!  And yes, they were in the middle of the channel, as usual.  Even after we went through the Highway 11 bridge (with the same lady bridge tender for the past many years…  “What’s the name of your vessel?”  “Fruition.”  “Say what?!?  How d’yall spell dat?”) we still played dodge ‘em with the crab traps. 

We found our marina & Admiral Sue made another excellent landing, backing the boat into the slip.  I’ll have to admit, the Admiral has become an excellent helmsman (should I say Helmswoman?) this year.  She is much more confident in her abilities & is usually confident that the boat will actually go in the direction she is trying to make it!

So we’ve come to the end of another cruising season.  We traveled about 4200 miles this season, most at only 10 mph.  Fuel prices were less than we had budgeted this year, so our kids may yet get some inheritance.  We learned a deep respect for other boaters who have completed the Loop, after we survived Lake Michigan as well as the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers.  And after 6-1/2 months of travelling, we’re kinda ready to just sit at a marina for a while.

But we’ll be planning next year’s intended travel to Key West and the northern Bahamas.  We hope to travel with friends for part of the year, so we’ll start cussing & discussing with them next week.  Postings to this blog will become less frequent for the winter months as we find more ways to spend money on the boat.  “Fruition” is merely resting for a bit before her CATs fire up again with a resonating growl.

The Gulf Coast

As the water is let out of the lock, a white egret
sits on the lock gate looking for a free meal

We made the 450 miles from the Tennessee River down to Mobile Bay in 8 days, a day longer than the last time we took this route.  The biggest difference was the delays at all the locks to await towboats (which take priority over pleasure boats in locking through).

Another quiet anchorage at the river edge,
just "outside the reds"

The northern part of the Waterway has several marinas strategically placed but since we had stayed at most of them on our last 2 trips along here, we wanted to anchor most nights.  In the lower part of the Tenn-Tom, there are no marinas for the last 216 miles, so a boat must anchor for several nights along the way.  We ended up anchoring for all 7 nights on our way south, the first time we’ve been out anchoring for so long.  We did, however, make a quick pit stop in Demopolis for fuel, water, and a pumpout, and then headed to a nearby anchorage.

The Tenn-Tom water levels were all at normal pool, since all the rain water from prior weeks had already flowed over the dams into Mobile Bay.  It made our trip much more enjoyable and the anchorages accessible.



Our friendly towboat leapfrogged us again
while we're at anchor

There seemed to be quite a bit of commercial towboats this trip, more so than previous trips.  These guys run 24 hours per day to their destination, while pleasure boats only cruise during daylight hours.  Along about our 3^rd day of travel, we passed a towboat doing about 7 mph (we can zip along at 10 mph).  That night, while we were at anchor, that same tow passed us.  Then the next day, we passed him again, only to have him pass us that night.  We actually leapfrogged that tow 4 consecutive days.

The river still hasn't made up its mind which way to flow

After seeing all the big towboats along the river,
this little guy just north of Mobile was cute

As we continued down the Mobile River into the city of Mobile, the amount of commercial traffic increased considerably.  We passed all different types of activity – towboats, ocean-going cargo ships, Navy ship construction, etc.  Took some interesting photos.  We entered Mobile Bay, which can be quite rough under the wrong conditions, but was much calmer than we had expected.  After 5 months of cruising in fresh water, we were back in salt water again.  Brown pelicans diving for a fish, and dolphins swimming towards the boat became a common sight.

In Mobile, a drydock held this square-rigger.  Didn't find out
the name.

A new class of Navy ship, built by Austal in Mobile,
with all the stealth technology

Here's a view of the new tri-maran that you won't often see!

The Navy likes to sail catamarans too!

In Mobile Bay, an ocean-going tug passes by.
Hardly recognized it.

 

After staying in a marina just south of Mobile, we gambled on a marine weather forecast in Mississippi Sound (part of the Gulf of Mexico) & left the next day for Gulfport.  The waves were only 3’, but it was enough to cause a roly-poly ride for 8 hours.  At this point, we’re only 1 travel day away from our destination in New Orleans, but first we have to wait 2 days for the thunderstorms and cold front to come through.  So we’ll wait a bit longer to complete our cruising for this year.

And by the time we get the boat to New Orleans, we’ll turn around 2 days later to rent a car to drive back to Chattanooga for our Thanksgiving family reunion.  We gotta keep moving to stay ahead of our mistakes!

Our friends took this photo of us in a lock, sporting
our crusty "moustache"

Meandering down the Tenn-Tom

 

If there’s one section of the waterways that we should know by now, it would be the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway.  We first cruised this northbound from Mobile to the Tennessee River way back in 2009 when the rivers were in flood stage (and we found out what NOT to do).  Then we saw how bare the trees could get when we traveled south from Chattanooga to New Orleans in December 2011.  So now, we’re on our 3^rd trip down the waterway, stopping at some familiar spots and avoiding others.

The first lock on the Tenn-Tom has an 84' lift (or drop).
It seems like we're in the bowels of the earth!

Our travelling companion inside the lock

When the lower lock gates open, daylight comes in.
Sometimes we're surprised to see a tow boat and barges waiting outside the gates!

Our anchorage one night just off the river channel,
with the ubiquitous towboats passing by

Another anchorage at sunset, in a quiet cove

We departed the marina near the intersection of Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama on Nov 8 with another boat named “YOLO” (You Only Live Once).  He was a retired Army guy, so we let him travel with us so he wouldn’t get lost.  We enjoyed having them along, since we have cruised most of our 6000+ mile Loop by ourselves.  Since we had been to most of the marinas up & down the river, we decided this time to try to anchor most of the way.  Since it takes about 7-8 days to get to Mobile, we will be that long between setting foot on solid ground.  We’re on Day 5 now & for the most part it’s been a cold 55 degrees & we have seen the sun only 4 hours since we left.  We’ve been in winter jackets & gloves most of the time.

North of Demopolis AL, we pass under the I-20/I-59
bridge, which we had driven over about 1000 times
as we went from New Orleans to Chattanooga

Our biggest challenge has been going through the locks in a reasonable time.  There are 12 locks total to pass through (all of them let us down towards sea level) & we’ve had to wait for towboats & their barges at nearly all of them.  Right now this morning, we’re waiting for 1-1/2 hours at our next lock).  There were some times when the lock operator says to get to his gates within 20 minutes & we might get through before the tow arrives.  So we race (as much as a trawler can race) to the lock, arrive 5 minutes too late, and then wait for 1-2 hours.  Then we have to find another anchorage for that night because of the delay.  Ah well, the joys of boating!  Good thing we’re salt-encrusted experienced boaters possessing a wealth of knowledge!



All along the 450 mile waterway to Mobile,
the river banks are so different

Tree roots searching for that soil which has been
washed away during high water

We have about 3-4 more days of travel before we hit Mobile.  Most of our anchorages are remote without phone or wifi connections, so this blog may not be updated for a while yet.  I’m starting to look at weather in Mobile Bay & Mississippi Sound towards New Orleans, & it doesn’t look too nice.  Since we’re heading back into salt water, I’ll have to get back out my tide tables & re-learn all that.  Who says you can’t teach old dogs new tricks!?

With all these river bends, turns & twists, it's no wonder
that it takes 7-8 days to get down to Mobile!

Miscellaneous

(Did I spell that big word correctly?)

We made our trip to Chattanooga by car, and Sue’s mother is doing pretty well.  We drove back to Southport NC to retrieve our personal car & rediscovered that it is a heck of a long way there and back.  Our car will live at John & Susan’s house until we return to Chattanooga in a couple weeks for our Thanksgiving family reunion.

Our trip across Tennessee was at the height of color of the autumn leaves.  Driving over the mountains just full of the browns, yellows, reds and greens of the leaves was breathtaking.  I guess this is one good thing about being delayed in our boat travels.

A week or so ago, the remnants of a hurricane which came through Mexico, passed through here and went north.  The winds kicked up on the Great Lakes so I decided to see what’s happening on Lake Michigan.  With gale-force winds of 45 kts, the waves were 14-16 feet, with occasional 20 foot!  Can you think of any other reason NOT to be in Lake Michigan?!?

We came back to the boat a couple days ago to find a familiar boat on the next dock.  Kenny and Kathy aboard M/V “No Zip Code” had just returned from cruising to Chattanooga & were getting ready to head south down the Tenn-Tom.  We had last seen them in May of this year, when we docked next to them at both Cape May NJ and then again in Staten Island NY.  That’s a common event for all the Loopers during the year, meeting again and again somewhere farther down the road (or waterway).

We finally found a slip in New Orleans to stay for the winter, and it was the last one available in the marina.  Another marina we had tried to get into had no space available.  For some reason, there are a lot more boats around there, compared to 3 years ago when we were last there.  We’ll be staying on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain at South Shore Harbor Marina, a marina where we had stayed in early 2012.

So now we’re waiting for the cold front to come through tonight, and for the thunderstorms to cease, before we cast off our lines to head south.  We’ll need to watch river levels carefully, since the Tenn-Tom can get into flood very easily (we were caught in flood waters the first time we came up the Tenn-Tom).  Even if water levels don’t rise much, the dams will be spilling lots of water, which can lead to shoaling and shallow water in common anchorages.  I guess that if this were easy, most anyone could do it!  But travelling this waterway requires a crusty old sea dog with nerves of steel and salt water in his veins.  As soon as I find someone like this, I’ll let him drive my boat!