I was out on deck this morning getting ready for a 7:30 departure. It was about 6:50 and I noticed 2 boats leave. I talked to Pete as we were going to travel with Humbug to Mobile. I then called the lock and asked about the lock status. He said they we getting
ready to take a group of pleasure boaters down. I told him we were at Kingfisher Bay getting ready to depart and asked if he would hold the lock for us.
Well we went into high gear and were on the water in less than 10 minutes. The lock was 3 miles away and we were part of a 4 boat flotilla headed to the lock. It ended up with 8 boats in the lock and I was sure that a few of them were trying to get an early jump to get to Bobby’s Fish Camp for the night.
The lock master was very particular in his operation and what you did. He assigned the floating bollards to the boats as they entered and made sure to warn everyone that no wake was allowed in the lock. He asked every boat for it registration number or Coast Guard Number. One boat tried to get a jump on the other boats when we were exiting the lock and he came on the radio and told the boater to wait to exit as there was no passing in the lock. He then told each boat when to leave the lock.
The sun was out and the temperature warmed considerably to about 70. We started he day at about 40 so the warmer temps were really nice, especially considering we were going to anchor out tonight. The forecast were for temps to be about 10 degrees warmer tonight.
We had a variety of scenery today with a lot of sand banks but there were also some stone bluffs. Nothing like the Epes Bluffs we had seen a few days ago above Demopolis. We did pass a trawler called Osprey that Pete and Carolyn has talked with before and they had gone thru the lock at 6:00 and had a bet on when we would pass them. The captain won.
We arrived at the anchorage Bashi Creek. A lot is written on this anchorage, both good and bad. The good is that it is easy to get into, the water is not too deep and it is pet friendly. There is a boat ramp and it goes back off the river quite a ways. The real problem is it is narrow and you need to use a stern anchor in addition to the bow anchor. Although it goes in quite a way, the trees hang over the channel and it is
really narrow. There is a boat launch area and while we were anchoring one of the locals drove up and waved to us.
The launch area was pretty nice and Candy liked being able to walk around without a leash on. I did put the leash on when it was dark but the other times, no leash.
We had a nice cocktail hour on Humbug and a dinner cooked by Pete and Carolyn. While they were underway today Carolyn had baked a blueberry pie.
In the morning we had a tow stop on the river and they changed crews at the launch area with the help of a small tender from the tow. We do not know how many days the crew stays on board but we know they change crews.