1/24/2020

It seems the cold temperatures of the last week have begun to mitigate.  I guess moving south into L.A. doesn’t hurt either.  I’m liking the warmer weather, though it’s still too cold for shorts.  Maybe when we get to Florida.

We departed Demopolis in the morning after coordinating with the lock there.  It is only a couple miles from the marina to the lock, and we were through the locking by 8:30.  Good thing because we had nearly 100 miles to go this day.

The scenery was really more of the same as the last few days except as we moved further south we are beginning to see warmer climate plants.  Spanish moss in the trees (see the photo below), and some cold tolerant palms.  I’m liking the change.

Along the way today we passed an eagle sitting on a log in the river.  We were within 50 feet of him, and he didn’t fly away.  There must have been something there that interested him.  After we passed he got up and flew past us, and I think our wake disturbed him enough to cause him to move.

After a long day we turned up a creek into the Choctaw National Wildlife Refuge.  Photos of the anchorage are below.  We heard rifle shots in the distance from deer hunters, but none close to us.  This is a quiet and peaceful spot.

Tomorrow we will continue further into L.A.

1/21-22/2020

Over these two days we continued down the Tombigbee River from Columbus, MS to Demopolis, AL.  This stretch of the river has few towns, and is fairly remote.  In spite of the increasing debris in the river it is still a scenic trip.

We see many things along the rivers that cause us to wonder what motivated someone to do such a thing.  The photo below shows one such item.  I presume this was the result of someone’s whimsy—if so it succeeded in giving us a laugh.

This stretch of the river seems to have predominantly bottomlands adjacent to the river bed.  These must be flooded when the water level rises, and it isn’t hard to imagine the flooded timber.  While the dams that are part of the waterway have reduced the likelihood of flooding it still happens occasionally.  The photo below shows one view of the forest along the river.

The only remarkable geologic feature we passed was called the white cliffs of Epes.  Epes is a town in Alabama, not visible from the river, and these cliffs are said to be a local attraction.  While it is interesting I found it a little hard to get excited about this one.

We anchored the first night in an oxbow (side creek from the river) called Cook’s Bend.  This was a spectacularly quiet spot, only interrupted by an occasional rifle shot.  Deer hunting is still in play here, and we saw a couple hunters with rifles along the riverbank.  Deer season extends to Feb 15, a late season unheard of for those of us from the Northwoods.

Tonight we are in a marina in Demopolis where we will spend two nights to rest, wait out a weather front that will pass through, and replenish our fresh fruits and vegetables.  We will get underway again on Friday morning to continue down the Tombigbee towards Mobile.

1/20/20

This morning we awoke to chilly weather, low 20’s and lots of wind.  I know this isn’t cold by Midwest standards but it is difficult when you aren’t well equipped with warm clothes for these conditions and are in a poorly insulated boat.  To make matters worse our saloon (living room) heater/air conditioner quit working this morning.  We have a small space heater that we use when we’re out of the water, and that does a minimally adequate job, but it was still a shock to us.

We started out again from Midway Marina and continued down the Tombigbee.  Today we went through four locks and covered 60 miles.  Along the way we passed four tows (large river tugs pushing barges) heading north, and one heading south.  Nothing like the traffic we experienced along the Mississippi last fall.

This part of the trip emerges from the manmade divide cut from yesterday and continues into the river proper.  I think the river was widened and dredged when the waterway was built.  Along the sides of the river we often see flooded trees and stumps, remnants of the pre-waterway times.  One view of these is shown below.  These are like minefields for boaters who aren’t paying attention, and they can puncture a hull or wreck running gear with only a moment’s inattention.

As we moved further south we saw the surrounding forest change from deciduous to evergreen trees.  After looking at grey, lifeless trees it lifted our spirits to see some green again.  A couple views of these are shown below.

The last lock we transited today was Aberdeen, located about 15 river miles north of Columbus, MS.  About a year ago there was a major flood in this area, and the river deposited significant amounts of silt just below the Aberdeen lock.  The Army Corps of Engineers estimated it as over 400,000 cubic yards of silt which filled the waterway for almost two miles.  This closed the waterway for over three months while the Corps dredged the material and moved it elsewhere.  Thankfully we had over 16 feet of water as we went through this area today.  We also saw a couple spots where the dredge spoils had been dumped which are pictured below.

These photos don’t show the magnitude of the discarded spoils.  In some areas we saw mounds of silt 20 feet high that stretched beyond what we could see.  That amount of material isn’t insignificant.

We are stopped tonight in Columbus Marina just outside the town of the same name.  There is an Air Force training base here.  The next two days we will continue braving the cold weather as we move to Demopolis, AL.  We will probably be anchored tomorrow night, so there may not be a blog posting.

1/19/20

After 2-1/2 months in a yard and marina we got underway again this morning.  It felt good to pull the lines aboard and back away from the dock in the rising sun.  Our adventure continues.

We departed the great marina and yard at Aqua Yacht Harbor and started down the Tombigbee waterway towards Mobile, AL.  The first twenty miles or so is a manmade cut through the divide between the Tennessee and Tombigbee watersheds, known as the divide cut.  The two photos below show the general view in this region, where the waterway is straight and has high levees on both sides.

Along the way we passed Goat Island, a small islet across from a small state park campground.  I had heard a tornado had passed through here, and sure enough there was a large oak tree that had toppled onto the concrete block bathrooms, demolishing the structure.  This happened in mid-December while we were staying on the boat in the yard.  We were thankful it missed us as tipping the boat over with us in it would not have been fun.

This day we traveled 50 miles and transited three locks.  The first of these, the James Whitten Lock, is the highest lift on the Tombigbee at 85 feet.  The photos below show the lock both before we were locked down, and at the end of the drop.  I never cease to be amazed by these simple machines that do so much work.

The Whitten lock was the site of a large oil spill this past summer.  A barge carrying crude oil was accidentally punctured inside the lock.  About 132,000 gallons of oil was spilled inside the lock, effectively closing it and the entire waterway for about four weeks.  In a sense it was lucky it happened here as the spilled oil was contained inside the lock with the chamber doors closed, avoiding a massive spill polluting the river.  The remaining oil in the barge was first pumped out (it held over 400,000 gallons), then the oil floating in the lock was removed, the barges and tugs were cleaned and removed from the lock, and finally the lock had to be completely drained and cleaned before it could be put back in operation.  That was a huge undertaking.  As we were transiting down in the lock I noticed slight residue on some of the structure, more like grime than oil that could have been further cleaned.  I got a photo of some of it which is below.

We are docked tonight at Midway Marina in Fulton.  Tomorrow we will start early to continue down the river.

11/5/19-1/18/20

In early November we decided to spend some time at Aqua Yacht Harbor marina in northeast Mississippi.  This enabled, so we thought, some work to be done on the boat and for visits to Marilou’s family over Thanksgiving.  It did this, but we did not expect to be there as long as it ended up.

We knew we had a persistent rainwater leak in the foredeck that yielded water damage in the forward head.  In spite of my many attempts at repair, I couldn’t seem to find the cause and effect a solution.  So we decided to get professional help before further permanent damage resulted.  The guys from the yard found several potential causes of the water intrusion and fixed all of them.  This appears to have finally fixed the problem.

While we were at the yard I also needed to replace the house batteries and wanted to have a fiberglass repair completed.  I replaced the batteries with golf cart batters, some of which are shown in the phto below.  The old batteries were worn out and in doing this I managed to increase the storage capacity for electrical power when we are anchored.  That’s a really good upgrade.

I asked the yard to repair some fiberglass damage, and they decided they wanted to haul the boat out of the water to allow some of their tools to be used.  The boat is shown in the first photo being lifted out of the water, and the repair is shown in process in the second photo.  The gray paint is primer drying over the repaired fiberglass.

Since the boat would be out of the water I also decided to have bottom paint done and replace the zincs.  Bottom paint is needed every 3-4 years, and since it would be needed in the next 6 months or so it was time.  Zincs must be replaced every 2-3 years.  These are sacrificial anodes made from pure zinc that waste away in the water and protect other components from corrosion.

The photo below show the workers applying paint after sanding the bottom.  The second photo above shows the running gear with the spot for the zinc anode masked with blue tape until after painting was finished.  We use a specialty ablative paint with a high copper content.  The copper prevents marine growth such as small shellfish from attaching to the hull, and the ablative aspect means the paint sloughs off if something manages to attach.

The only drawback to this effort was high quality paint like this is seldom used in this region.  With the freshwater boats here they don’t need this sort of protection.  Because it is unusual it took over three weeks for the yard to get the paint, thus the source of much of our delay.

When the bottom paint was finally done it was almost Christmas, so we decided to stay put for more family visits.  After Christmas we had some medical appointments and I discovered one of the main engine injection pumps was leaking.  This meant a pump rebuild and more delay.

Finally we are ready to get underway.  We plan tomorrow to go to Fulton, a town in Mississippi just east of Tupelo.  There has been lots of rain recently, and we have heard about 10 boats are waiting at Demopolis for flooding to recede.  We think we will make our way as far as we can, and see how things develop.  Thus we bid farewell to the many great people in this area that have befriended us, especially to Charlie and Robyn McVey the local harbor hosts, and we look forward to more adventures.

10/30-11/5/2019

After visiting several places on the Little Tennessee River we started back down the 400 or so miles to Pickwick Lake and the turnoff to the Tombigbee River.  We got to revisit several neat places we stopped at on the way upriver, and also visited several new spots.  We still had a great trip.  The weather was generally lousy, and we had seen much of this area previously, so I won’t post new photos of the scenery.

This post will focus on our visit to Dayton, Tennessee.  Most people aren’t aware of the history in this place, but many may have heard of the things that happened here.

In 1925 the Tennessee legislature passed a law sponsored by John Washington Butler prohibiting public school teachers to deny the Biblical account of creation.  This law made it illegal to teach the theory of evolution even though the state-mandated science textbook contained a chapter on this theory.  The ACLU desired to challenge the law and advertised throughout Tennessee for a teacher to be a defendant in such a case.  As a publicity stunt for the town of Dayton a local businessman, George Rappleyea, convened a meeting in Robinson’s Drug Store with the school superintendent and a local lawyer to find a local teacher to act as the defendant in this case.  They convinced the high school football coach and substitute teacher, John Scopes, to admit he had taught evolution even though he wasn’t sure he had actually done so.  That fact wasn’t really important.  The situation rapidly spiraled beyond the limits of local control.

In July, 1925 the case was brought to trial.  National media descended on Dayton, a town of about 2,000 people, to cover the trial.  The best known media personality at the time was H.L. Mencken, a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, and he covered the trial in person as well as paying some of the defense’s expenses.  National media had agendas in those days, just as they do today.  The prosecution and defense legal headliners were William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow respectively.  Bryan was a two-time nominee of the Democratic Party for President, and Darrow was known as the most famous defense attorney in the country having previously represented the defendants in the Leopold and Loeb murder trial.  This trial became known as the Scopes Monkey Trial because of the idea that man had evolved from primates, and because hucksters brought gorillas and chimpanzees to town, adding to the publicity and circus atmosphere.

The trial was held in the Rhea County Courthouse, with the courtroom shown in the first and second photos below.  This is a large room at the top of the building, and is still in use as a courtroom today.  On the day we visited court was not in session, so we were able to visit the courtroom.  In 1925 air conditioning was not available, and when the July heat became stifling, and with the crush of more than 3,000 people in the courtroom, the trial proceedings were moved out onto the lawn.  The third photo below shows where this part of the trial took place.

Of note, on the seventh day of the trial, the defense called William Jennings Bryan to testify as an expert on the Bible.  This was, by far, the most interesting part of the trial, and there are several online references that discuss this cross-examination in detail.

In the end the defense asked the jury to convict Scopes so the case could continue in the appellate courts.  The jury complied, and the judge imposed a $100 fine.  The conviction and fine were later overturned on a technicality by the Supreme Court of Tennessee.  Bryan died suddenly five days after the trial’s conclusion.

We visited the Scopes Trial Museum in the basement of the courthouse.  This held several interesting items shown below including the sitting chair from Scopes’ boarding house room, the table from Robinson’s Drug Store where Rappleyea held his meeting, the mandated science textbook of the period, and the court records from the trial.  These are all shown below.

One might think this case paved the way for evolution to be taught in public schools, but in fact that was uncommon before the late 1960’s.  This trial failed to bring that to fruition.  The Butler Act remained on the books until it’s repeal in 1967, but was never again enforced.  Scopes suffered the awful effects of extreme publicity, and spent the rest of his life trying to hide from the public.

I found the role of Mencken to be the most interesting.  He came to Dayton mocking the town’s inhabitants as “yokels” and “morons”, and referred to Bryan as a “buffoon” and to his speeches as “theologic bilge”.  He did enjoy certain aspects of Dayton, writing “The town, I confess, greatly surprised me.  I expected to find a squalid Southern village, with darkies snoozing on the horse-blocks, pigs rooting under the houses and the inhabitants full of hookworm and malaria.  What I found was a country town full of charm and even beauty—a somewhat smallish but nevertheless very attractive Westminster or Balair.”  To me this seems too close to the political situation of today with big city elitist candidates referring to half the populace as “deplorables” and “irredeemables”, and then blaming their nonelection on outside influences.  Small wonder it works that way.

We are anchored tonight in a small cove at mile 220 on the RDB of the Tennessee River known as Caney Hollow.  Tomorrow we will move to a marina near Iuka, Mississippi which is well known for quality maintenance work.  We will stay there a month to have a home visit for the Thanksgiving holiday, deer hunting, and boat maintenance.  I will not post the blog again until just before we depart in early December to travel down the Tombigbee River to Mobile.

10/29/2019

We awoke this morning again to fog.  It didn’t feel real humid, but the air temperature was low enough that the fog formed.  It took until mid-morning before this burned off.

We rode our bikes over to the Fort Loudon State Park, Visitor Center, and reconstructed fort.  This was a well documented area with numerous Indian towns and a British presence.  The fort was built in 1756 to assert influence in the region and to support the pro-British Cherokees against the pro-French Creek.  The Cherokees participated in the French and Indian War (as it is known in the US), and while returning they stole settler’s horses to replace those killed in the war.  The settlers retaliated and killed some of the Cherokee warriors, who in turn killed an equal number of settlers.  This tit for tat continued until a Cherokee negotiating party was imprisoned at Fort Prince George in northwestern South Carolina.  After the Fort Prince George garrison commander was killed by Cherokee in a ruse the British killed the hostages.  This led to a Cherokee siege at Fort Loudon after which the British were forced to surrender.  As they moving back to British territory they were attacked and mostly wiped out.  The Cherokee occupied and then abandoned Fort Loudon.  They ransacked the fort including removing the 12 cannons.  Two have been found in the remains of the local Indian towns and one is on display at the visitor center.  I found this extremely interesting.  Photos of the reconstructed fort are below.

After returning to the boat we moved further up the Little Tennessee River.  We had a spectacular view of the Great Smoky Mountains as can be seen in the photos below.  Unfortunately this is as close as we can get to them.

We are anchored tonight in a spot called Toqua Creek.  Before the inundation from the Tellico Dam, and before the Indian removals during the Trail of Tears experience, this was the site of a major Indian town of the same name.  It was likely visited by Hernando De Soto in 1540, and was noted in his journals as the town of Tali.  The fall colors are in full display in this very quiet cove.

We will start back down the Little Tennessee and Tennessee Rivers tomorrow.  The next two days are predicted to be another rain event, so we might stop at a marina and wait for better weather.

10/28/2019

We awoke this morning to fog.  At times we could see a quarter mile, and at others less than 50 feet.  We weren’t interested in moving in these conditions, so we sat until late morning waiting for the fog to lift.  It finally did around 10:30.

We continued up the Tennessee River to the Fort Loudon Lock.  This was the last lock built by the TVA, completed in 1979, with the final water impoundment created by the Tellico Dam across the river of the same name.  A cut was also built through to the Tennessee so the Fort Loudon lock serves both rivers.

Lake Tellico, and the dam by the same name, were built around the same time Congress passed the Endangered Species Act.  The dam was about 99% complete when construction was stopped because of the possible impact to a small endangered fish known as the snail darter.  This delayed completion for some time until the dam was specifically exempted by an act of Congress.  Snail darters were transplanted to the Hiwasee River (which we passed yesterday), and by all accounts they are doing well.  They are no longer endangered, and the dam was finished and is impounding the river we are now floating on.

According to locals we met here the hidden agenda of the dam completion and snail darter controversy was a land grab.  Twice the necessary land was condemned and is now being used for very expensive housing.  We passed much of these expensive homes today.  We also saw the remains of old farmsteads sticking out of the water as can be seen below.

Before we arrived at the lock today we felt like we were moving through a gray cloud with the overcast skies and hazy conditions.  While we were in the lock the sun came out.  It was as though the muted colors suddenly became vibrant in the clear sunshine, and it became a delightful day to be cruising.  The fall colors are very pronounced here, even though they are early in their cycle.  We also were treated to a distant view of the Great Smoky Mountains which we hope to see better tomorrow.  Views of the colors and mountains are shown below.

We are tied tonight at a free dock at the Sequoyah Birthplace Memorial.  Sequoyah was a Cherokee born several miles from here who developed a syllabary for the Cherokee language, effectively a means to write in the native tongue.  He referred to English writing as ‘talking leaves’, and greatly desired to effect this for the Cherokee language.  He initially used 86 symbols which have been reduced to 78 unique symbols.  He is the namesake of the California sequoia tree, several counties and towns in the US, and is of course a hero of the Cherokees.  This location is owned and operated by the Eastern Band of Cherokee, one of the three Cherokee tribes in the US.  This band resisted the forced removal in the 1830s under the Indian Removal Act, and remained in this area which were their ancestral lands.

Tomorrow we plan to visit the remains of the historical Fort Loudon a couple miles from here before moving on.

10/25-27/2019

We departed Chattanooga in the rain on Friday morning, and moved upriver through the Chickamauga Lock and into Chickamauga Lake.  The rain is from a tropical storm that moved ashore and is drenching this part of the country.

We stopped the first night of this part of the trip in Dayton, TN.  I’ll write more about the fascinating history of this little town when we come back down the river.  We stayed at a small resort marina that was up a very narrow creek shown below.  The navigable channel is about 30 feet wide, which gives a pucker factor when you don’t trust the navigation charts you are using.  It was raining so much while we were there that I thought about changing my name to Noah.

We continued on the next day stopping at a marina at Big Spring, TN the first night, and are anchored tonight behind an island outside of Loudon, TN.  This is a quiet spot next to some industrial facilities, but they are not running on a Sunday night.  The marina at Big Spring was a treat as it is operated by a family with their seven children actively involved in the operation.  They are a great family.

The trees in this part of the country have begun to change, and are showing some color as you can see below.  These seem a little muted because of the drought in this region during the past summer.  The rains the last couple days are making up for that.  I really like this area.

We will go on tomorrow through Ft Loudon Lock and into Tellico Lake.

10/18-24/2019

We planned to spend about a week in Chattanooga to have a break, and to allow Tim and Susan to visit relatives in Atlanta.  Unfortunately a relative became very ill and they were unable to return to the boat.  We hope they will return soon, though Susan has to sort out her passport before we go to the Bahamas.

Before Tim and Susan departed we were able to visit a local distillery.  Most of Tennessee was dry (no hard alcohol) until recently, and the Chattanooga Distillery was able to push through a law enabling them to begin distilling whiskey.  It was an interesting tour, and the product tastings were also a highlight.  A photo of the column still used in the distillery is shown below.  We also visited the chocolate shop next door which was of no interest to me.

After they departed Marilou and I were able to visit the Chickamauga Civil War battlefield south of Chattanooga.  This was a bloody battle that occurred in September, 1863 when about 125,000 soldiers fought to attempt destruction of each other’s armies.  It was a three day battle with almost 35,000 casualties.  On the third day of the battle the Union commander, William Rosecrans, made a tactical error and shifted some troops out of the line to shore up what he thought was a gap in their front.  The troop movement actually opened a gap in the line just at the point where the Confederates under Gen Longstreet were attacking.  The penetration from that assault drove the Union forces back into the safety of Chattanooga where they were trapped by a siege.  The photos below show the high point at the north end of the battlefield which was not routed by the Confederate forces, but was held by Gen. George Thomas.

We also drove up to Missionary Ridge, the site of a battle in November, 1863 where the new Union commander, Gen Ulysses Grant, attacked up the steep ridge and drove the Confederate forces south.  This secured the Union supply lines, and enabled the spring offensive that led to the capture and burning of Atlanta, and then became Sherman’s March to the Sea.  It is a very steep ridge and filled today with very expensive homes.  There was no place to stop the car for a photo, so I have nothing to show for the blog.

While we were at the battlefield visitor center we discovered they host a significant firearm collection from a Mr. Fuller who donated it for display at the center.  He had over 2000 antique firearms, a handful of which are shown below.  These date from pre-Revolutionary War to about 1890.  I was amazed at the depth of the collection, and saw some firearms that I had only read about.  These included matchlock and flintlock rifles, a Volcanic rifle, Spencer repeating rifles, a Winchester 1866, and so many other interesting articles I couldn’t begin to describe them all here.  A couple photos of the displays are shown below.

Chattanooga is a smaller city, but has an active arts district.  We were in dire need of a pumpout, and didn’t want to come back to the difficult docks we were on, so we moved to a different marina closer to the center of town.  The photo below was taken by friends from a pedestrian bridge over the river, and it shows the cruising boats on the dock there.  Our boat is second from the left.

We will depart in the morning to continue up the Tennessee River.  We planned to go to Knoxville, but since Tim and Susan won’t be with us we are thinking we might go up the Little Tennessee instead.