Sunday, November 7, 2004 -- The Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway to Mobile, Alabama and salt water We are aboard "Reverie" (on jack stands) at Turner Marine Supply just south of Mobile. We made it down the Rivers -- and what a grand two months it has been! We started from Hammond, Indiana on September 5 and arrived in Mobile Bay on November 4 having logged 1286 river miles. This latest 450 miles of the journey, referred to as the "Tenn-Tom", began on October 24 after we returned to the boat from a week off in Texas. It had been cold and rainy when we left for Texas, and they had a lot of rain and storms while we were away. We drove back in the rain and expected that fall had arrived in the middle south. The weather stayed nice for nearly all the rest of the trip with rain and a cold front finally catching up with us at Mobile. This waterway system, designed for barge traffic, begins at Pickwick Lake at the junction of Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. We saw a good deal of barge traffic with more the further south we got. The fall color was much more prevalent in Mississippi than it is in Alabama. The days were getting shorter and there were a number of mornings where we left at dawn to have maximum daylight. On two days we left in the dark with a number of other pleasure boaters in order to reach busy locks so we could lock through as a group. The Tenn-Tom has four sections consisting of the "divide cut" from the Tennessee River to the Tombigbee River, a canal section alongside the upper Tombigbee, and then the Tombigbee River to Demopolis, Alabama. At the junction of the Black Warrior River near Demopolis, the Lower Tombigbee River becomes wider and has a different feel for the last 216 miles to Mobile. The River has many curves, some of which are genuine hairpins, making the mileage much greater for us than for the Canada geese and pelicans going the same direction! Of particular interest to us were the 12 locks and a number of bridges with 52-foot clearance, as our mast is 51.5 feet and water levels do change.
				Next
						Home
		PIctures