Alabama River Cutoff Anchorage

(Monday, Nov. 8 - Dist: 68.5 mi; Avg Speed: 10.4 mph; TTT: 7:00 hrs; Last Lock)

 

There was a fog delay before we could leave Bobby's.  It was not far to the Coffeeville Lock but we had to wait none the less.  Coffeeville is the last lock on the trip from Chicago to Mobile.  We will not see any again until we hit the Erie Canal in New York.  It really has not been that problematic, as I mentioned before.

Below the lock we reached sea level.  The landscape is changing again this time to some sandy beaches and a lot of shoaling.  The channel did get very narrow in some spots.  We also encountered another of the numerous coal fired generating stations.  We got some pretty good shots of this one including how they off load the coal from the barges.  Alabama and the mid west in general sure use a lot of coal.  In a later entry you will see the huge coal port where it is shipped elsewhere as well.

We also ran across an interesting barge that had some huge equipment / parts on deck.  We asked the Captain and the only thing he was told is that they are vessels destined for the nuclear power plant further up river.  I forget the name of the town. 

I asked because NASA builds components of the space program way up in Tennessee or Ohio and ships them via barge to Cape Kennedy.  Granted these parts were going the wrong way, but I was still curious.

Another interesting site was this custom built boat that we ran across a couple of times.  This guy made it up in Minnesota, I believe, and was taking it down to Florida to the Miami Boat Show.  Interesting looking boat for sure.

Here is a dyke that the Army Corp of Engineers installed in an effort to direct the river to maintain a channel.  Notice on our chart plotter how the river winds back and forth. 

One can almost guarantee that if you are going to meet a tow then it was going to be at one of these hairpin turns where there is no room for a tow and a pleasure craft.  More than once, I backed off to idle speed in order to try to meet the tow in a straighter or wider section of the river.

The Alabama River Cutoff was another nice anchorage but in a fairly narrow waterway.  We did get 5 boats in there for the evening.

 In this part of the country the locals do need to take advantage of any cliffs and hills; this one is named "Lovers' Leap".



Lover's Leap

 I forget where cocktails where this evening.