Trip to Florida Day 4, 5 and 6

 In my last entry, we were anchored at mile 78 of the Tombigbee river. We had a secure spot and had our friend David across the river from us.

We had a night with interrupted sleep, but awoke to a foggy river. David wanted to make miles, so he headed off into the fog. We later heard on the radio that his motor failed at mile 26. He had to be towed to Mobile. We waited and thought about our plan. We decided that we were getting tired and would like to take a day off. We looked at our options. One of the anchorages that we have used on every one of the three previous trips up or down the river was only 15 miles away at mile 63. There was also a very good anchorage at mile 53. We were thinking that we wanted to stop at mile 16 after that to wait for good weather to cross Mobile Bay.

By around 7:30 am, it looked clear enough to go. It was still a bit tough as we moved along and Kim went to the bow to keep a look out. We use our “marriage savers” to communicate, and I find it very helpful. By 9:00 the day was bright and sunny with little wind. Another beautiful day on the river. We had to make a number of tight curves, but there was only one tow that we had to pass and that went smoothly. We passed mile 63 and decided to keep going to 53.

I looked at the forecast and there was a mild northern coming in the next day with 10 to 15 knot winds out of the north. That sounded like another reason to hold up for a day. We pulled into the Alabama river cut-off at mile 53 and dropped the anchor. The anchorage runs NW to SE. I decided to buy some insurance and not only drop a stern anchor, but got the dinghy down and rowed to the bank and wrapped a long line around a tree.

Looking off our stern in the Alabama River cutoff anchorage at mile 53.

Our view off the bow.

We stayed very secure for two nights and got some much needed rest. We were way out of the river and could only see the passing tows. We had another sailboat join us the first night, but we were alone for the second.

A Tow passing our perfectly calm anchorage. The wind that was forecast, never came.

It was now day 6, Saturday November 20, and we were ready to head on down the river. We looked at our options and normally stay at mile 16.6, but there is a good anchorage at 9.9. Many boats use the Big Bayou Canot at 9.9. There is a lift railroad bridge at 14 that has to be up for us to move down the river. We decided to get that bridge behind us and head on down to 9.9.

The captain at the helm. I spent a lot of hours there, but Kim certainly did her part.

A passing tow

I think the cypress trees are beautiful. This is another indication we are getting close to the coast. 

Lots of cypress knees.

The anchorage at 9.9 is a very famous spot for a very bad reason. It is the site of the worst Amtrak disaster in the history of the rail service. On a foggy night on September 22, 1993 a tow with barges missed the turn and entered the Big Bayou Canot. It then hit the rail bridge on the far end of the anchorage. Shortly thereafter an Amtrak passenger train derailed and fell into the bayou. 47 people died in the accident. If any boats had been in the anchorage, it would not have been good. The good news is that now they have much more sophisticated electronic navigation with GPS making this a much safer river.

We arrived to find one other boat at anchor is a very wide area well off of the river. We dropped our hook and for the first time on this trip did not drop a stern anchor. The current will change in this area due to the rise and fall of the tides in Mobile bay. We started pointing one direction and then by morning  we all had swung around and we pointing in the complete opposite direction. We are certainly getting close to the coast and salt water. Three other boats joined us for the night making a total of 5. There is plenty of room and we all enjoyed a quiet and restful night.

In my next entry I will write about the Mobile Bay crossing and sailing. Come back to see how that goes and I will talk about our plan to get to south Florida from there. At some point we have to cross the Gulf of Mexico. How much will we bite off at one time?

Thanks for reading.