Tug Calypso's Great Loop Adventure: Happy to be back in the land of Publix!

Mark has always talked about my "grocery store funks" when we lived in places with sub-standard grocery stores, but he was ecstatic today as we shopped at our first Publix since Lady's Island, SC last spring. We are in Fairhope, AL on Mobile Bay after finishing our cruise down the Black Warrior-Tombigbee Waterway yesterday. We started this week anchoring Sunday night between Columbus, MS and Demopolis, AL. It was a snug, but pretty anchorage, and with the cooler temperatures we were able to eat dinner in the cockpit for the first time in a long time. Both of our locking experiences between Columbus and Demopolis were smooth ones. We decided to spend two nights in Demopolis at their new marina - basically we just relaxed and it was a great place in which to do that. We knew that the next few days were going to be long and hard and they were.

We called the Demopolis lock Wed. morning when we were ready to leave the marina and there was a tow just approaching the lock. The lockmaster told us just to wait and he would call us when he was ready for us. That cost us almost an hour on a day when we had almost 100 miles to travel to reach our destination for the night - Bobby's Fish Camp. There are no good anchorages on that 100 mile stretch of river. We did make it to Bobby's with about an hour of daylight to spare and enjoyed a quiet evening there. As we had the previous morning, we called the lock (2 miles away) before we left the dock and he said he'd be ready for us in about 20 minutes. Well, we motored down to the lock only to have a different person tell us there was a tow locking up and then one would be locking down and that it would be a while before he could get to us. So we motored up and down the river for an hour or so before the lockmaster announced that we could lock down with the tow. The frustrating thing is that you can't complain to the lockmasters since you are totally at their mercy. Fortunately, this was our last lock!! Anyway, we did eventually make it through and reached our anchorage for the night by 3:30. It was a very snug little spot that required the use of bow and stern anchors to keep us from swinging into the shore. We were hoping to see an alligator as sightings are apparently common in this spot, but none appeared. I did hear a scary sounding creature sometime during the night, but wasn't sure exactly what it was.

Friday was our last day (yeah!) on the river system. While we did see a lot of interesting sights on the rivers, we felt that it was tough traveling - partly due to the drought. Anchorages were few and far between and marinas tended to be rustic. We are glad to be back on the coast. While we are getting closer to Punta Gorda, we still have the not insignificant challenge of getting across Florida's Big Bend. I think we have decided to take the coastal route instead of crossing the Gulf directly . It will take longer, but just feels safer to us. Looking forward to a stop at LuLu's in Gulf Shores tomorrow - perhaps her brother, Jimmy,will stop by while we're there.