Mississippi: Aqua Yacht to Midway Marina (Fulton)

Day 131
NM Today: 48
NM Total: 2699 (3106 statute miles)
Locks Today: 3
Locks Total: 93

The alarm rang at 6:00 this morning which Clark justified as being reasonable by thinking of it as equivalent to 7:00 before we changed our clocks.  It still felt like 6:00 a.m. to me!  We were underway by 7:00 with approximately 50 miles to cover today plus three locks.  Traveling with three other boats motivated the early rise from bed.  Today we formed a caravan with Mazel Tug, Sum Escape, Grand Baron, and LeeLoo.

We passed through a 24 mile long Divide Cut today.  The channel including the rocky edges is 280 feet wide.  The cruise guide says that when this section was completed it was as pretty as a strip mine.  Over the years Mother Nature has worked wonders transforming the scenery with grass, trees, and shrubs.

Tenn-Tom Divide Cut with
Train passing over the Railroad Bridge

The Divide Cut is 100% man made.  All of the 150 million cubic yards of land were dug out and hauled away to make the canal.  The need to connect the Tennessee River to the Tombigbee River was first identified by a French explorer in 1792.  The project to build the canal was authorized by Congress in 1946, and construction started finally in 1971 and  completed in 1985 almost 200 years after the idea of a canal here was first conceived.  An interesting fact from the Fred Myers cruise guide -- "More dirt was moved to build the Tenn-Tom than was moved to build the Panama Canal.  At no time in world history had man moved so much to get what he wanted."  The cost of completing the project came to two billion dollars.

The town of Holcut was in the path of the canal, and consequently, the town of Holcut is no more. On the canal, the only evidence the town ever existed is an orange and white sign marking the spot where Holcut once stood.

Marker for the Defunct Town of Holcut
moved so that the canal could be completed

Further along the Cut, after passing miles of just the riprap (stone embankment), we passed by a site owned by the Scott Paper Company.

Scott Paper Company Work Site

Once we exited the Divide Cut opened out into a lake where we came to prettier landscape with "flaming foliage" on the lake's edge.

Lake Landscape on the Tenn-Tom

We traversed three locks today.  Once we entered the first lock, the lock masters communicated with each other, and the next and the next were each prepared for our arrival.  As we dropped the 85 feet in the first / Whitten Lock we got wet from the drizzling rain that continued to fall.  Clark got even wetter than I did as water spewed out of the cracks in the walls of the lock as the water level dropped. Clark tried to stop the lock wall from spraying him and the boat by putting his boat hook over the hole.  I joked that he was like that little Dutch Boy who tried to hold back a dam with his finger.

Mazel Tug Ready to Lock Through

After 50 miles and three locks we arrived at Midway Marina near Fulton, Mississippi for the night. Since we docked around 2:30, we had time for a bike ride into town for a look around.  Yes, it actually stopped raining / drizzling just after 1:00 as we passed through the last lock for the day!  With the sun brought warmth (lots of it) and I changed to shorts and a t-shirt for the bike ride.  We found a very nice bike trail to ride for a portion of the way into town.

Fulton, Mississippi

Downtown Fulton, Mississippi

As we passed through town on our bicycles, I made Clark stop at an open tire repair shop to get air in our bike tires.  The person working there could not believe our bike tires take about 90 psi of air pressure.  The bike felt so much better after the tires were pumped up.  The hills were killing me before we got the additional air.

After a quick look around town, we had to skedaddle to get back to the boat before dark.  I turned on the flashing red light attached to the back of my bike helmet to help the traffic see us as evening approached. We made it back to the marina in time for sunset.

Sunset at Fulton, MS near Midway Marina

Reflections in Pond at Midway Marina