023: Last Lock and a Sad Anniversary

We left the Okatuppa Creek anchorage at 6:30 a.m. to catch our final lock through for a long time:  The Coffeeville Lock and Dam.   I believe it was the 29^th lock since we left Hammond, Indiana.  In celebration, here is a picture from that last lock:

 

Now the next time I run aground, and my excuse is "It was Garmin's fault," you have to realize that Garmin chart plotters are not as accurate as Garmin golf watches.   I took this picture from the chart plotter while I was tied up to the left side of the lock wall.  Basically where the triangle with the ! is.  I was not over to the right, and I didn't hit the lock wall.   Another reason to make sure you look at your depth sounder and keep your eyes outside the boat:

After we cleared the lock, we were officially into “tidal waters.” 

The Tombigbee River in this area has a lot of bends and turns, so you can get pretty “up close and personal” with the tows:

 

Sol Maria passing by a tow:

Another close pass: 

 Sometimes you can catch a tow getting loaded:

https://youtu.be/Mcsm3Lst64A

As I mentioned in the post before, two boats anchored in Okatuppa Creek blocked the creek so that we had our “ass end” sticking out into the river a bit.  The one who offered to move the night before contacted us on the radio as to where we were going to anchor for the night so that he could leave us enough room.  Nice gesture, but a moot point as we were going to go as far as we could, which wound up being a seventy-six nautical mile day.   A good fifteen miles past where he anchored.  We were pushing hard to make Thanksgiving Day’s travel all that much shorter.  We wound up anchoring in the Tensas River as the sun was setting.  It was a great anchorage and as usual we took up our positions on either side of Sol Maria. 

Matt of KatMat accidently turned off their freezer, so Kathy had to cook up a bunch of meat which we turned into chili, taco meet, and turkey burgers.    Some of the gang decided to continue the Phases card game from a few nights earlier.  I reflected that it was the 60^th Anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination and probably my earliest memory:  I remember my mother crying at the kitchen sink.  I asked her why, and she replied, “Somebody killed President Kennedy.”    The President didn’t mean much to me at three and half years old, but my mother crying did.  I can still picture it.  (Growing up we had two portraits of non-family members in our house:  President Kennedy and Pope John XXIII.)  There was some table talk about conspiracy theories, but I was tired and went to bed early.   Tomorrow was a big day; we’d be off the rivers and fully into salt water.

  

Dave