We saw an alligator!

What, you expected a picture of it? Well, sorry, it slipped into the water before I could get my camera. But we really did see a 5-6 foot alligator on the bank of the Tombigbee River here in Alabama, about 80 miles north of where we are now on the Gulf Coast. Rick was doing "bow duty" (sightseeing from the bow) and he spotted it slowly plodding toward the water. I got out the binoculars and watched as he took his final several steps into the water. So cool! No more swimming for us!

This picture is from Columbus, MS, the last time we stayed in a marina before tonight. We are now in Mobile, back in salt water, but luckily we've seen no signs of the oil spill.

When I last posted, we were in the marina in Columbus on our first of two days there. It was a good thing we stayed the second day because that was the day the terrible winds and rain swept across the Midwest and did so much damage. We were at the southern end of that front and also had periods of intense winds and rain. When it cleared in the afternoon, we used the courtesy car and went sightseeing.

Columbus has about 200 antebellum homes because it was never touched during the Civil War. This was just one of the many spectacular estates we saw.

In front of the Columbus Court House was a Civil War statue. On the top was this soldier holding his rifle. A local man clued us in as to what the statue becomes when you view it from the side..... (see next photo)

....a Klansman. Oh my gosh. I suppose their official explanation is that it's just a coincidence. I doubt it.

The scenery along the entire Tombigbee River has been naturally beautiful - just tall trees or cliffs or sandy beaches, with hardly any industry and only an occasional dwelling. It is a very curvy and winding river too, so it gives you the sense that you're on a wild waterway compared to the major rivers we'd been on before. The houses are "country", certainly not the estates that have been more typical along the entire Great Loops waterways up til now.

Here's a home, but what made it interesting was the phone booth sitting there. They must have a teenager who lacks a cellphone but still wants his phone privacy!

This is the US Snagboat Montgomery, at the Tom Bevill Visitor Center in Alabama. We anchored and took the dinghy to the dock next to the Center for a visit. This old paddlewheeler is on display, having been built in 1926 and in service until 1982. It has a crane on the front that lifted trees and other debris from the rivers to keep them clear for river traffic. The center was full of interesting displays on the Tenn-Tom Waterway and the days of steam paddlewheelers.

One two-mile section of the river had these dramatic chalk cliffs.

Here's another section of cliffs, and this picture is neat because of the reflection in the glassy morning water. Several spots along the river had stunning cliffs like this. So beautiful! We had the river virtually to ourselves for the past five days. A few barges would pass us each day, but we would almost never see another boat, other than small fishing boats, until we reached our anchorage.

The anchorages are few and far between along the Tenn-Tom, with only a few marinas. The last marina was at Demopolis, but it has been full because when the oil spill happened, boats from the Gulf were taken up there and have stayed.

The safe anchorages were only about every 35 miles, so those of us on the move these past four days have tended to aim for the same ones each night (although there was some leap-frogging too because boats cruise at different speeds). They were LONG days of non-stop cruising; four 9-hour days and one 10-hr day. As we would finally arrive at our intended anchorages, we had to sweat out whether we'd get a spot because they are small and hold only a few boats. Luckily we always did, but there's no room to swing on your anchor, so we had to set a second anchor out behind the boat.

This picture shows one narrow anchorage, where we had this boat in front of us (who anchored with us four times) and another behind us. It ALSO shows the fog we had that morning. What a harrowing experience THAT turned out to be. The fog looked like it was lifting, and this boat in the picture left, so we did too. As I entered the main river, it became pea soup and I could not see anything. I used the Garmin to stay mid-river, I traveled only at idle speed, I sounded the horn every two minutes, and had my radar on. It stayed like this for about 20 minutes or more, and finally the fog was gone. The next picture shows what we left behind.

See how thick that fog was that we just emerged from? I hope that won't happen again. I would never have gone out if I'd known it was going to get this thick.

Here we are entering our FINAL lock of the entire Great Loop. It was the 101st lock and the 104th time we locked through (once I went thru the same lock 3 times, and once twice). This was 116 miles north of the ocean here at Mobile Bay, so once we descended, we had tides again for the first time since my first lock on the Hudson River at Troy. I remember how nervous I was at that first lock, and how routine they had become by now.

The farther south we went, the more the banks of the river looked like bayous and swamps. This picture was as we neared Mobile, and to me it really looked swampy. The number of cranes and Great Blue Herons and other birds increased too.

Here we are today approaching civilization again, Mobile. It is our first big city since St. Louis, and our first city at all since Columbus, MS.

All of the river through Mobile was industrial, with factories, refineries, and ports for ocean-going ships. This picture shows the final ocean liner before leaving the river and entering Mobile Bay, which is essentially the Gulf of Mexico. We followed a marked channel south for about 10 miles and then followed a secondary marked channel to the west into Dog River to our marina. As we were getting fuel, a couple came up and proudly announced they had completed the Great Loop only 8 days ago!

Tomorrow we'll enter the Intracoastal Waterway a few more miles south, and head east to Pensacola, FL. Breaking Away will be docked at a marina there for 2 1/2 months while I take my "winter break" with Janet. I'll be visiting So. Calif for a week in Dec to visit Rich Hess, Katie, Sarah and Anthony and Bonnie, Beth (well, Rick too I guess, hahaha), Bruce Perry, and other friends. (By the way, right now the Jan 15 to Feb 13 spot on the boat trip is wanting of a first mate(s). Anyone who would like to join me for all or part of that segment, down the FL Gulf Coast to Key West and up the Atlantic side to around Miami, is WELCOME to call me. Please do!(805) 624-2062.)

By the way, I've put 522 hours on Breaking Away since the start of the trip on May 4. I've had 22 visitors/guests (not counting the Bon Voyage drop-in on May 2). I've added 1,332 gallons of diesel fuel. I've run aground twice. I mentioned the 101 locks. I should have counted the beers!