Wednesday - November 17, 2010

Lat 31 24 36 Long 87 54 52; fuel 139 gal; Eng 538.36

Did not get much sleep last night as we were anchored in the channel, granted off to one side but still worried about the tows moving up and down the river. We were in a sheltered area such that both tows going upstream and downstream would have to go outside of us since we were protected by arms of the shore both ahead and behind us. One of the things I learned being awake at 12, was that the tows advised other tows going in the opposite direction of any problems or things they should be aware of. Thus I heard them advise each other of our presence at the location we were anchored. Finally, I went to sleep.

We were traveling with the other boats – Next Endeavour, Quest and Moor $tuff. Moor Stuff needed some fuel and stopped into the last fuel stop Before Mobile – Bobby’s Fish Camp shich was about 119 miles from Mobile. Unfortunately it was not open even though it was reported to open every day of the year – must have been on vacation. Fortunately, Moor $tuff had sufficient fuel to reach Mobile otherwise we were all going to pool whatever gasoline we had to help him.

Shortly after Bobby’s Fish Camp we went through the last lock on the river system. I am going to have to count the number of locks we have gone through since Chicago but I suspect it is in excess of 30. It was great knowing nor more locks until we hit the East coast somewhere around Virginia.

We stopped at Mile 79 which is the only description I can give it and found a similar anchorage as we were in last night. Pretty protected from the tows. Since I had little sleep last night, I went to bed at 6:30 and woke up at 6:30 in the morning, probably because I know the tows tell each other of our presence.

There is more bird life along this stretch of the river and we keep looking for alligators but have not seen any. The couple, I bought my charts from wrote down that they had sighted alligators by this time.