Alabama: Columbus, MS to Sumter Landing Recreation Anchorage

Day 133

NM Today: 55

NM Total: 2806

Locks Today: 2

Locks Total: 99

Today we were up at 6:00 and on our way before 7:00.  Given our strong tendency to want to stay up late and then sleep in, this is an amazing accomplishment for the two of us.  We are trying to match our morning behavior to that of the sun, so that we optimize our daylight hours.  Still it is hard to change old ingrained habits.

We stayed at Columbus Yacht Basin last night docked at the fuel dock with plant vegetation floating all around us.  When we left this morning, we left a trail through the water where our boat pushed the floating growth out of our way.  We navigated two locks today.  The first one, John C. Stennis Lock and Dam, had accumulated a large amount of the floating vegetation right in the lock, so when we locked through we had it floating all around us.

Floating Vegetation in Lock

When we came out the other side, we were happy that Drifters plowed a trail for us to follow where she had already pushed the vegetation to either side of the channel. 

Vegetation After Lock

Fortunately, we eventually left the vegetation behind us, and the waterway became clear of growth in the main channel area. The floating vegetation is Water Hyacinth and is a very invasive plant that is a nuisance on the rivers.  It can jam the river - an acre of water hyacinth weighs up to 200 tons.

In our travels today we saw a couple of industrial sites.  I asked Clark to take a picture of one work site in particular where a crane was loading a dump truck through a funnel-type device.  Once full, the truck drove away and another pulled up to get the next load.  This scene so much reminded me of one of my son Chris’s toys as a child that I wanted a picture.  I liked playing with that toy construction set as much as (or more than) he did.  Instead of metal for recycling as we saw today, Chris’s set had little black balls to load and carry away.  I wonder if he remembers it too.

Truck-loading Work Site

Miles and miles of the same old thing on the waterway and then Clark sees and captures the most interesting, unexpected objects in his pictures.  Who would think that a phone booth would appear out of nowhere?  I wonder if it works.

Phone Booth in the Middle of Nowhere

 Although Clark did not get a picture of the old Aliceville Hyuck Felt Plant, we sure smelled it as we passed by.  The paper-making felt plant went out of business a number of years ago, and the building sat vacant for a long time until in 2011 a wood pellet fuel plant opened for business in that spot in an initiative to produce alternate fuel sources.  I am not sure what they were doing to manufacture wood pellets, but as we passed by I actually thought the engine compartment might be on fire, and I felt and then very carefully lifted the floor boards to get a better sniff.  I later learned from Clark that the smell came from outside the boat, and thankfully we left the smell behind after we passed by the site and continued on our way.

The Tom Bevill Visitor Center is located at the second lock we passed through today.  The Montgomery Snag Boat is located here in dry dock.  Built in 1926 and used as a “workhorse” boat until 1982, she was retired from service by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and is now a museum as one of only two remaining snag boats in the U.S.  The Montgomery was a steam-powered, sternwheel-propelled vessel used to remove “snags”, stumps, and other obstructions from southern waterways.  She was driven by coal-generated steam before World War II and diesel afterwards.  She was used to clear the waters of the Tombigbee and Black Warrior Waterways (where we are now traveling) until 1959 and was named a National Historic Landmark in 1989. 

Montgomery SnagBoat

Montgomery SnagBoat

While reading about the Montgomery, I learned that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took over maintenance of the navigable rivers in the U.S. in the year 1900.  Before that individual states tried to keep the waters clear.  The Army Corps of Engineers maintains and operates all the locks we have passed through on the U.S. river system.  They are strict about wearing life jackets and adhering to the rules for safety.  One part of the procedure for locking through that I find somewhat humorous is the warning siren that sounds when the gates close and the water starts to, in our case, drop.  The siren sounds like an air-raid siren and instead of manning my station on the boat, I want to dive for cover from an enemy attack.

As we traversed the lock, Clark took some pictures of the dam and spillway.  The bright red signs telling boaters to stay back 800 feet from the dam can be seen from a long distance away from the locks.

Dam Spillway 

Today we had four boats roughly traveling together down the waterway – Drifters, Yachta Dreamin’, Sea Moss, and Nuclear Fishin’, and we briefly saw a Gold Looper, Bucket List, as they “flew by” at 29 mph in a rush to get to Demopolis tonight  – a far cry from our 9 mph average speed.   As we approached the end of our travels for the night, we debated with Drifters and Yachta Dreamin’ the merits of stopping at Sumter Landing Recreation Area for the night as we had planned or continue on through the next lock and anchor just beyond at the Tombigbee Ox Bow anchorage. 

The pros and cons of each scenario were weighed carefully as the decision was not an easy one.  Passing through one more lock and anchoring on the far side sounded like the better idea until we learned from the lockmaster that two barges, a dredge and two other pleasure boats already occupied that space.  Although the Active Captain application indicated the anchorage is large, it certainly gave us pause to hear so many large vessels were already there for the night.  The other con we learned from Active Captain is that on occasion anchors get set so well they cannot be retrieved and the line must be cut. 

These two negative factors weighed against a potential long wait in the morning for a lock through swayed Clark towards anchoring before the lock.  Drifters and Yachta Dreamin’, on the other hand, wanted to get to Demopolis tomorrow as early as possible so they opted for anchoring after the lock.  When we arrived at Sumter, we found the looper boat Red Eagle already here.  After we got our anchor down, they came over in their dinghy to introduce themselves, swap boat cards, and visit for a while. 

As we chatted with the owners of Red Eagle, Nuclear Fishin’ pulled into the anchorage for the night.  Shortly after they dropped their anchor, they swam over to say hello.  We have met them before and it was great to reconnect, but I could not believe they swam across the anchorage to see us.  There is absolutely no way I would have gone swimming tonight for two very important reasons – 1) the water was only 70 degrees and although I will swim in that when the weather is in the high 80s or 90s, I will not swim in it when the air temperature is close to the 70 degrees of the water, and 2) this is alligator country and someone spotted one not far from here.  Sorry but I pass on swimming, or even kayaking, with alligators nearby!

Susan and John from
Nuclear Fishin’ Came to Visit
Beer in hand!

After our guests parted, I decided we would have an early dinner tonight.  I started preparing dinner when it was still light, and it starts getting dark at 5:00 now.  As I prepared dinner Clark took care of some boat chores and then performed the nightly ritual of channel scanning on the television just to see what we could find.  We did find local news and weather, but the digital signal kept freezing which is beyond annoying when a program gets interesting.  After that we turned it off.  I pulled out the laptop for the blog, and Clark pulled out his sadly neglected guitar. 

We plan to be on the VHF checking lock status and ready to leave shortly after 6:30 tomorrow morning if the lock is available and not full of tows.  Seems like I perpetually feel groggy these days.  Tonight better be an early night so I can catch up on some missing sleep.