We made it to Demopolis, Alabama!

Yesterday (Thursday), we left our anchorage at 7 am with two other boats. This section of the waterway was a bit more interesting.  The temperature had dropped to 45 degrees overnight and there was a slight fog over the water when we departed.

 

Which got worse

 

 

And worse.

 

 

Fortunately, since the waterway is narrow, we could see the trees on the banks so it was fairly easy to stay within the channel. Also, the depth is pretty consistent from bank to bank.

 

It didn't take long to clear up and we made it fairly quickly through our final lock of the trip. We came across a large dredging operation. Dredging is the act of removing silt and other material from the bottom of bodies of water. As sand and silt washes downstream, sedimentation gradually fill channels. This has to be pumped out so the commercial tows have enough water depth.

 

 

A specialized piece of equipment called a dredge creates a vacuum that sucks up and pumps out the unwanted sediment and debris.

 

 

 The sediment travels through pipes and is deposited on nearby land.

 

 

Further along, we went by the White Cliffs of Epes. This group of historic cliffs stretch for over one mile. They were formed many years ago from layers of  limestone embedded with chalk (called Selma Chalk Formations).

 

 

 

Around 1:30, we arrived at Kingfisher marina in Demopolis where we fueled up before docking ($2.66/gal). The fuel dock is on the right with marina entrance to the left in the pic below.

 

Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, they put us in an uncovered slip. Sun is very hard on the boat so we want to keep it covered whenever possible. We had planned to go down in late November on the way to Houston but may need to make an earlier trip to move the boat to a covered slip.

 

Alan picked up the rental car and we went out to dinner at the Bistro restaurant with Wendy and Dave from "Hey Coach". We enjoyed spending time with them this past week. They are heading to Destin, Florida to spend the winter.

 

 

Friday, October 18 - Heading Home

I am writing the blog in the car as we head home on Friday. We left at 5 am this morning. Needless to say there wasn't much traffic that morning. Well, except for a fairly large deer that ran out in front of us.

 

 

So a little damage to the rental car and hopefully not too much to the deer (she left the scene of the accident).

 

So that's the skinny on our trip from Aurora, Indiana to Demopolis, Alabama. I'll restart the blog when we set out on our next adventure on the waterways. Thanks for coming along with us.