Mile 233 to Mile 145

These days are all beginning to look the same, aren't they? Get up, have breakfast, wait for the fog to clear...or not...and get ready to pull anchor...all about 7am. Long days cruising to get to where we need to go. There are no marinas nearby or available, so we all have to anchor out. Even the anchorages are in short supply some days and some of those anchorages have silted at the entry and we have cleaned the props at least once, we think. The mud bottoms are the only good thing to come of much of it. At least our anchor holds, in it.

The depth finder is showing a typical drop in depth, perhaps on an outside corner of the river. We might start the corner in 14 feet, and suddenly, wide on the turn, we are at 47ft. I like that of course:)

The rivers are brown and not very attractive really, so we have to keep our eyes on the scenery. I get the feeling that what I am showing, in terms of photos, makes the rivers look very uninviting.

One of our paper charts shows where the Black Warrior River joins the Tombigbee River.

..and we come to Demopolis. For some reason I thought Demopolis might be a bit more exciting than this, lol. These tugs are tied up to the fuel dock on a bend in the river. The Demopolis Marina is out of the photo on the left hand side, and we have been instructed to wait for the lock master to tell us when we can enter the lock. There are two of us...well, a third joined us later...so, more on that later.

We had upped the revs to get down the river ahead of a tow that would need locking through. We decided to use a bit more diesel to get far enough ahead so that we could lock through ahead of him.
Once we got near enough to the lock, we could hear the chatter on the radio, and it appeared there was a tow coming UP the lock, and we anticipated going down with the water. No such luck...grrrrrrr..Waz got a bit upset about the matter...but what can we do? There was a backlog of tows at the bottom of the lock, and one to go down. The lockmaster was not using this resource well...the lock, that is. In between the one that came up, he sent the lock back down empty! ...idiot!! we were ready and waiting and could have gone down. Bah! I sat and read a book while Waz stewed, with each tow that came up, and then the tow we had speeded away from came through and locked down ahead of us. Legally, the lock master has to let us into the lock every third time...pleasure craft, that is. he didn't! Trouble is, if you tell him how to do his job, he is likely to make you wait another 6 hrs! We have heard that has happened!

Below is opposite where we chose to drop the anchor and 'hang out' while we waited for instructions to go to the lock.
Interestingly, a trawler came out of the marina, and was on the radio with the lock master. He obviously didn't understand the instructions, but was told in no uncertain terms to go back to the marina and wait to be told when to join us at the lock.

Eventually, 90 mins later, we were instructed to make our way to the lock. We had been joined by a yacht with a French Canadian Couple aboard...their English was almost non-existent...and she was the one doing all the talking. She told me she didn't understand most of what was being said, so I translated for her in my best  no nonsense....ENGLISH! I couldn't for the life of me remember any French language when I needed it most! lol.

So, we instructed them to follow us to the lock...then remembered the boat that returned to the marina, and asked them, on the radio, if they had heard the lock master's instructions. They hadn't, but were happy to follow us down there and tie up. Well, theses two boats stayed with us for the next three days. This boat, Galene, was new to the owner (2 weeks) and he was busy finding his way with it.

We are parked in 17 ft of water, just off the town boat ramp. Only one small fishing boat launched while we were there, fortunately.

Once we got the go ahead from the lockmaster, we were off down the river as fast as we could get to the lock. We passed this building that had been built out onto the white rock. It looked like a public building but we don't know what!...didn't stop to ask!

Almost next door was this obviously historic homestead.

and a short way down river was this lovely new home...again, on the cliff.

The colors are stupendous, aren't they? Warren didn't know what the chemical in the rock might be that induces these trees to put out such spectacular color, over any other place or soil/clay etc.

The local 'Dead Center....and a mausoleum.

Looking down a side channel...such lovely colors:)

 Going towards the lock, the current was fierce. It wasn't until we were almost at the lock that we discovered why....

 There was no control of any kind on the water tumbling over the dam wall. Just a vast amount of fast water, and the weep holes in the sides of the lock were rushing water in the same direction, pulling the boat towards them. It was a bit hair raising, to be honest. The view from the lock is spectacular. The sheer volume of water rushing over the dam is incredible.

Those are shags, sitting on the rock in the middle of the rushing water.

 These Egrets and the crows are opportunists...they seem to know exactly when to fly into the inside of the lock as the water is going out, to make the most of the available morsels in nooks and crannies. fascinating to watch!

 Fascinating rock formations...and some man made too...concrete, but for the most part, the rock is all natural.

Glad to be out of yet another lock, and perhaps wishing that this wasn't the 3rd to last....on our journey. There were homes down the river, and more lovely tree color.

As always, the rocks are fascinating, and the geology of this river has been  worth keeping tabs on. There is a grey rock in the middle of the red earth. It is crumbly, though.

And this has so much iron in the soil. The rock is solid in places (grey stuff) and crumbly in others.

Every now and then the air would get really smelly, and we didn't always guess right, as to what industry was around the corner. We didn't get this one right...wood pulp! But we should have known, having seen so many trucks with tree trunks aboard, crossing the various bridges. We also knew that Alabama has a large timber industry, and that Mobile ships vast quantities of logs out of the port there.

There is quite a story attached to this bridge (known as the Rooster Bridge)

On April 28, 1979, a ferry boat named the Cahaba intended to cross the Rooster Bridge on the Tombigbee River in Alabama.

However when the bridge did not raise for the boat, the Cahaba resorted to alternative methods.

This is a recount of the story.

"I was working at Warrior & Gulf Navigation at the time as a pilot, and was actually downstream 40-50 miles from the Rooster Bridge when the incident occurred.

River conditions were extremely bad that spring; one of the highest rises on the Tombigbee. Current was so swift around the bridges that we were "double-tripping" four barge tows (two at a time).

At this particular bridge, (the Rooster, so named because it was paid for in part by the sale of a certain breed of rooster that was highly prized; Woodrow Wilson and Clemenceau of France are listed as buyers), we practiced what we call “dropping 'em through" the east span. We pointed the barges under the east span of the bridge, where the current was less severe, cutting them loose from the boat, then running the boat through the lift span, and catching them back below the bridge.
This was Capt. Jimmy Wilkerson’s intent; this was why the first picture shows him so close to the east span. He had his two deckhands and Pilot Earl Barnhardt out on the tow to remove all rigging, and throw the winch wires off. Unfortunately, for some reason, they had neglected to take the starboard tow-knee wire off, and this was what pulled him into the bridge structure.

You can see that the starboard tow-knee catches under the steel of the bridge; the wire was attached to the timberhead of the stern barge, and it pulled the boat into a starboard list. When the tow-knee struck the bridge, the wire broke, and the top of the knee came up and hung in the bridge steel.
At that point, the raging current took over, and laid the Cahaba, starboard side to, against the bridge. Once the port lower deck went awash, there was no chance for recovery. Capt. Wilkerson, in effect, took a 37-foot tall towboat, and put it through a 11-foot span.

The photos were taken by a reporter from the “Linden (Ala.) Democrat,” a nearby small-town newspaper. This person was en route to Meridian, Miss., that morning and happened to arrive at the bridge, along with several other witnesses, while the main span was lifted to let the Cahaba pass. He had no idea what he was about to witness; he did, however, have the foresight to keep snapping as the event unfolded.

When Capt. Wilkerson saw he was not going to recover the vessel, he yelled into his loudspeaker, “All right, y'all, this ain't no fire drill. Get off the damn bridge!” Once the boat laid over and went under the bridge, those watching thought for sure it was sunk, and all aboard gone with it. They were all relieved to see the Cahaba right itself, with Capt. Wilkerson still at the controls.
One of the two Detroit 16-149s was still running; the port one had flooded out. Capt. Wilkerson said, at one point, he was straddled across the port wheelhouse door, when the front window popped out, and the wheelhouse filled with water.
The Mv. Tallapoosa was just downstream from the bridge when the incident occurred; Capt. Gary Grammer got word from the Mv. Cathy Parker, waiting above the bridge for her turn, that something had happened to the Cahaba.
Capt. Grammer tied off his tow, and raced upstream as best he could to assist. The Tallapoosa caught the Cahaba a ways below the bridge, and shoved her out into a flooded corn field. The barges were then caught, and the three crew members on them rescued.

What made the Cahaba miraculously recover and right itself?

Main reason: the vessel had just topped off with fuel at Demopolis, Ala., just 13 miles north of where the accident happened. Therefore, the fuel tank was full. There was no shifting of weight as the vessel laid over.
It was somewhat akin to those punching bags from years gone by; when you knocked them down they just righted themselves again. Had she only been half full of fuel, she probably would have never come back upright.

Sveral years later, the Rooster Bridge was replaced with a high rise a few miles north, and the original bridge was taken out, much to the relief of all of us who navigated the Tombigbee.”

Please note - story accompanying pictures written by:

Dean White
Marine Superintendent
Mv. DELTA MARINER  

  http://ssqq.com/archive/riverboat.htm  click on the link to see the photos that go with this story. It is fascinating!  There is another story about a tow , this time colliding with a rail bridge. CLick on the link to read that story. We went under the new Canot bridge, on the way south.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Big_Bayou_Canot_train_wreck  I hope you can get the link to work. It is a story worth reading.
We all like to think the tow captains know what they are doing, but we hear so many stories of disasters, that each tow we meet, we treat with the utmost respect and give them as much room as they need, on the waterways. It is getting late, and as with all long days, we reach a point where we just want to get to our anchorage and stop and kick back for a time. Mostly that is only long enough for a cup of coffee, before I need to get dinner and Waz needs to get into the engine room and do what he does down there...you can ask him, some day!
The winding river was fine for the most part, but it got thin before it got wider, and thin isn't necessarily a good thing...especially as there were a number of tows that had to be passed on bends. As I have just said, we either throttled up or down, according to whether we needed to pass in a hurry, or to wait for them to position themselves so we could pass.

Late afternoon...my favorite time of the day to take photos. The lovely golden winter light, I guess.

..and the cloud formations with the beginnings of the sunset color in them. That looks like one of the anchorages, right there, but it looks wayyyy too small...oh! It IS the anchorage...hmmm.... By this time the French folks had been left waayyy behind and they wouldn't catch up with us today, but Galene was still with us, and Gene, the captain was very happy to go into this little anchorage ahead of us. We had temporarily put down anchor in the main river, which Waz wasn't too happy about staying in. Too many opportunities for tows to run us over! yep..not joking!
Gene went into the cut off ahead of us, and up about 200 feet. He called out the depths as he went, so we had an idea of what to expect next. He made it successfully...and he drew 4ft in draft, so we knew we would make it in there with 6 inches more draft. It was a close call, though. The entry was to be approached from the south (right), and we had about 6ft under us as we entered. Shoaling and silting is common at entries. The river broadened at the mouth and that is where we were staying.

Here we are looking her in the mouth, as it were. It doesn't look too bad, from here, and it turns a corner to the right into the trees. We assumed we would be the last boat in, and straddled the entry, just off the Tombigbee River. We did put out a stern anchor, just in case, though.

We spent a very pleasant night, and though there were a couple of small boats zooming down the little river to our starb'd side, we could have been out in the wilderness anywhere.

We are pointing into the Tombigbee to set the anchor. Waz has given me directions to follow, and I am doing my best to turn the boat...well, AFTER I have taken the photo:)

Two nights to go till we get to Mobile....yayay!