January 14th. and 15th. Sunday and Monday

Good-bye Tennessee – Hello Mississippi! Savannah, TN looked pretty neat from the water. I could see some antebellum homes on the hillside. One in particular looked like Tara (as in Scarlet O’Hara). We dropped the hook just a hair south of there. Pickwick lock and Pickwick Lake are for tomorrow morning. We stopped early, which was quite a nice change. While the Capt. worked on his Blog in the galley, Pat, Victor, Lionel and I went to the top deck and had a drink while watching the sunset. What a nice spot. It was actually warm enough to be out without a jacket.

First thing Sunday we passed Shiloh Forest National Park, which was home to the Mound People back in the 1200’s and also the site of a Civil War Battle. I think that would be must see on another trip here. We then conquered Pickwick Lock and entered Pickwick Lake, which is the terminus of the Tennessee River for us. The lake is beautiful with lots of little creeks, the cruising guide says it is a great place to gunk-hole and I could see why. We only ran about 8 miles of the lake before we made our exit to the Divide Cut.

The Divide is a man made waterway to make a passageway from the Tennessee River to the Tombigbee. It was actually suggested to be done back in the 1700’ to save time (by about 600 miles). It finally was approved, completed and open for boating traffic in 1985. Quite an accomplishment. It sort of reminded me of the St. Lucie/Caloosahatchee Canals.

Mike (our very first River Angel) called yesterday just to see how it was going. What a terrific guy. We really enjoyed talking with him (although I really think he called to ask the Captain to explain his Anchor incident) Ray, one of our other River Angels also called after we left his area to see how it was going, and Capt. Shawn another River Angel has been in contact thru the blog. How nice is that?

We anchored last night in a cove at Bay Springs, MS. Gorgeous! Lionel did a bit of fishing (no catching, though) from the front deck. It was an early stop - Our next lock was the monster lock with an 84 ft. drop, with four or five more locks within about 20-30 miles. Didn’t want to be caught in between.

Again, though overcast it was a real pretty night. We had hors d'oeuvres and a couple drinks while watching a non-existent sunset. There were five baby ducks in the cove. It was interesting to see how the all went under the water together and popped up together. How Cute!

Woke up this morning to a rainy, foggy day. Much cooler. I think the promised rain and cold weather finally caught up with us. The Whitten (84ft) lock was awesome. I find it amazing how the Corps of Engineers (or anyone for that matter) could make something like that actually work. It was quite easy to lock though – no turbulence as all.

We are now in the Tenn-Tom waterway headed for Mobile, Al. It is a waterway that runs fairly straight. Actually the Army Corps of Engineers made a straighter sailing line of the (what they call) the Old Tombigbee. The Tenn-Tom has a levy on one side, but the other is (or appears to be) natural shoreline. Dense woods, creeks and coves. I even saw a Beaver Dam in one of the creeks. The land is pretty flat here, only an occasional hill. No more palisades – I miss the beauty of them, but this is very pretty as well. An occasional house appears behind the dense growth of trees every now and then. We’ve seen flocks of geese, cormorants and loads of blue heron. Had no idea we’d see that many heron this far north. We have seen them since the beginning of our trip. Even saw a couple bald eagles today.

Lionel was the point person for most of the locks today. It was rainy and cold out. Generally a miserable day. However, Bob was looking out for his younger brother and made sure he dressed for the weather. At one lock, I came around from the poop deck with my camera to take a picture of the lock and here Lionel was looking just like the guy on the fish sticks box. He had on a yellow slicker, yellow rain hat and a life vest over it all. Struck me funny – boy did he look cute. He said Bob thought it was funny too! Of course, I got a couple pictures – Bob tells me he did too – it was just too good to resist. Now if I hadn’t killed the digital I could have sent them. Oh Well!

We had a pretty exciting anchoring experience today – I’ll let the Capt. fill you in on the details. Lionel insists after tonight that we start looking for a place to anchor by 3PM.

All is well – looking forward to more exiting adventures tomorrow!