Days 254-256 - Last days on the rivers!

Tranquillity left at around 7 on a very cold morning as they were going further than Tortuga and us, choosing to anchor in the river to get to the Gulf faster. We have a short day ahead of us as we are only going 3 hours down river to Bobby’s Fish Camp. It is a well established tradition for Loopers to go here. Bobby is gone now, but his wife carries on the service. It is a very small dock that fits 3 average sized Loopers. Any more and you must raft together. This is very common during the heaviest Looper cruising time. As we are near the end of the Looper “bunch” we have only Tortuga and ourselves on the dock.

This does change as two more faster boats arrive from Demopolis. We manage to squeeze both boats on the dock as one is quite small and the other, although over 50 feet, only uses about 20 feet of dock with the rest of him hanging off the end. We arrive at lunch time so opt to join Tortuga at the restaurant. The Camp has several fishing cabins and a boat ramp for the avid fishermen of the area. This is hunting season now so the restaurant is full of hunters in their camo gear. They specialize in seafood - especially catfish. Bob and I both opt for the shrimp as we are not crazy about catfish. Ruth on Tortuga had the seafood platter which included some quite tasty catfish she let us sample.

The restaurant is quite fun to observe all the decoration on the walls.

We have entered alligator country!

Alligator Gar

The “restroom” is a shed that has been plumbed with a toilet, sink, and shower and no way to secure the door! We opted to use the shower on the boat. We can now say we have stayed at Bobby’s!

The last lock of our journey is just down river from Bobby’s and someone in our group calls first thing Monday morning. The message was quickly passed along that the lock would be undergoing maintenence and if wanted to lock through we needed to get there ASAP. It was 32 degrees and the dock an our decks were slippery to walk on, so very cautiously we all prepared to get underway as fast as safely possible. Thankfully no one ended up in the drink! It was very foggy on the river so we all had our radar on as we krept toward the lock.

Syren - a part time Looper from Santa Cruz, California (they both still work, so fly back and forth on their time off to do more of the Loop). They are last in the lock as we can barely see them arrive.

Tortuga is ahead of us and the fog is not so dense.

As the lock opens, the fog appears to run “up” the lock wall. It’s hard to believe we will not see any more locks!!!

The two fast boats quickly pull out ahead of us as we motor along behind Tortuga. The fog is lifting leaving a mist that still makes it difficult to see a boat ahead - even if you know it’s there!

The fog clears and we enjoy the scenery once more.

The trees here show signs of high, muddy water.

It is so bitterly cold that Bob is bundled up in 3 jackets and a blanket around his legs.

As we once again enter tidal waters we also see sandy beaches and banks!

We also start to see new birds. This is a Grey Heron.

We also see wing dams again, these are to slow down the silting in of the channel. These dams appear to be brand new. They don’t even show up on our charts.

Not many houses today but this is a neat hunters cabin. The hunter got on his 4 wheeler right after I took this picture.

As we enter our anchorage for the night at Alabama River Cutoff, we decide to try a stern anchor for the first time.  

We succeeded but Tortuga ran into difficulties and ended with their stern anchor line wrapped around their propeller shaft.  We lent them Bob's goggles but the line was too tight for him to get it off.  They called TowBoatUS and they will send out a diver tomorrow.

We decided to wait with Tortuga for the diver to come out this morning.  We took the dinghy over to play Chicken Foot while we waited. The diver arrived at 10:30 and took 30 minutes to free the line (even using a hammer and chisel!).  Yay! And during the day's cruise, there appeared to be no damage from the line around the shaft.

Everything works properly and we are on our way.  The rivers are so windy down here!

Still lots of barges around, making rounding the curves extra tricky.  Luckily Tortuga has AIS - a system that lets them see the commercial traffic ahead.  The barge then lets us know if it is safe to pass or if we should wait until they get around the bend first.  Most of the time there is enough room to pass, but occasionally we waited a few minutes for them.  The tow captains are quite helpful and nice.

It's a beautiful day on the river, following Tortuga.

We pull into our last anchorage on the river.  It is off the main river in what looks like a quiet tributary.  Little did we know that local fishermen fly up and down this creek.  We received several powerful wakes from these small boats - even it the pitch dark!!

The landscape has changed yet again as we see more Mangrove type trees.

We saw palm trees again!

And lots of Spanish moss hanging from the trees.  We have been warned not to handle this "moss" as it is full of bugs.  I read that people learned very quickly NOT to stuff their mattresses with this for that very reason!

A fishing or hunting camp set up near our anchorage.  A sign on the tree says "Private Property".

An abandoned camp.  Looks like it used to be pretty nice.

As we leave our last anchorage on the rivers we look forward to more adventures to come - on to Mobile for Thanksgiving!

Docked at Bobbys' Fish Camp - 11/19/17 with Tortuga, Syren, and Holiday VII.  Shrimp dinner with Tortuga.

Anchored at Alabama River Cutoff - 11/20/19 with Tortuga, taught Al and Ruth how to play Chicken Foot while we waited for the diver

Anchored at Big Bayou Canot - 11/21/19 with Tortuga - last night on the rivers!