When we got up Monday morning at Aqua Harbor, it was 27 degrees and really foggy. We waited about an hour to fire up the engines to continue our journey. The picture above is after the fog started to clear and shows the trees and color that surround this lake at this time of the year.
Once we started down the Tombigbee waterway, which is a long canal/waterway with 12 locks that stretches out for over 400 miles, it became a new adventure in boating. The canal portion is about 150 yards wide where it has been cut through the hills (much like they did in Panama years ago) and straight as an arrow. This is the perfect route for a boat with an autopilot (which we don't have). Other than the industrial buildings that dot the river bank, there is little development that has taken place.
The first lock on the canal is the Witten, which at 84' is one of the largest in the U.S. The rest of the locks vary in height from 30' or less, dropping the canal from over 400' above sea level in a series of 12 locks. The locks are very easy - they use floating bollards as you see in the picture above. Just tie up a single line to the bollard and use that to keep your boat in place close to the lock wall until the gates open. The trick is to lasso the bollard when you approach it along the wall. Jeff has a great solution which is a line inserted through a piece of plastic hose that he uses to grab on with - something he developed when he and his family did the great loop two years ago.
We spent the night at Midway Marina that is about 40 miles south of the entrance to the canal. This is a small marina (relatively speaking), but there were six boats from Minnesota, and three from Stillwater. I think this is a secret winter hiding place for our neighbors. One of the Minnesota ladies who has been here for over a year made the comment that there are only two kinds of radio stations down here - country/western, and "God." And she is right!
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