Gainesville, AL (Tombigbee Oxbow Anchorage) to Demopolis, MS

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December 14, 2022: Our trip to Demopolis gets off to a very tough start.

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(continued from Columbus, MS to Gainesville, AL (Tombigbee Oxbow Anchorage))

I slept like crap. I was worried about the anchor slipping. I was worried about our neighbor’s anchor slipping. I was worried about the weather. In the middle of the night, I started looking at weather radar on my iPad. I could see a huge line of storms on its way. There were embedded flood and thunderstorm and tornado warnings at various places and times. Finally, just after 5 AM, the storm was upon us and it started to rain. Hard.

And that’s when I started thinking about the dam just upstream from us on the oxbow. What would happen if they opened floodgates?

I got up and made my coffee. Outside, it was raining hard. There was some thunder and lightning. I saw that I was already at the limit of the anchor alarm I’d set. The boat was now abeam the boat ramp.

While I was fiddling around, pulling up the stern anchor, Alyse spotted a boat coming up the oxbow in the dim pre-dawn light. It came up a little way, turned around, and left. In hindsight, we think it might have been the Army Corps of Engineers, which runs the dams, checking to see if there were boats up the oxbow.

I told Alyse that we’d need to leave as soon as it got light enough to see better. I told her I suspected they were going to open the dam’s floodgates and that the current would pick up. And that’s probably when I realized that they’d already done that. The current was definitely stronger and the anchor was definitely dragging.

Up ahead of us on the oxbow, the other boat was already pulling anchor and heading out. They passed us at a quick pace, setting my boat rocking in their wake.

It was time to go.

A New Anchor Debacle

I gave Alyse the spare rain jacket I had. Mine was already on and wet from pulling in the stern anchor. I started the engine, using the Parallel switch to get enough power for the start. I made sure everything was good to go, got my pups up on the helm seat next to me, and told Alyse to pull in the anchor.

Keep in mind that this was the first time we’d used the anchor since the guy in Pappa Whiskey had “fixed” the windlass. The windlass now worked like a charm. For a while, anyway. After less than a minute, Alyse turned around and called back to me that it was stuck.

“Try the down button and then the up button,” I called out the window in the driving rain, assuming it was the same problem we’d been having.

She tried. “It won’t go!” she yelled back.

Fuck.

I told her to come inside and I went out. What I found was that the rode had jumped off the roller at the bow of the boat. It was going over the side of the roller and the windlass wouldn’t work. The current pushing the boat downstream was keeping the line taut.

I lay down on the bow of the boat, feeling the rain soaking into my jeans, and tried to get the rope back over the roller. Because of the angle and the position, I could only use one hand. And I just didn’t have the strength to pull it up. I tried using the down button to give me slack, but the current pushing the boat downstream ate it right up. I’d need forward motion on the boat to give me slack.

This was not going to be easy. Alyse would have to drive the boat exactly as I needed her to, using the bow thruster as necessary to straighten the angle of the boat. I went back inside, aware that the boat, now past the boat ramp, was slipping on its anchor in the current. I explained what she had to do and came up with hand signals I could use to guide her. Then I went back outside and lay down on the bow again.

Did I mention that it was pouring rain?

What followed was about 15 to 20 minutes of trial and error as she tried to give me slack and get the boat in the position I needed and I tried to get the line over the roller with one hand. I cannot begin to share how difficult and frustrating this was for me. The anchor weighs 22 pounds and has 50 feet of heavy chain. The boat weighs 12,000 pounds. The current was at least 3 miles per hour. Alyse couldn’t see the line and her motoring skills were limited. I could see the line but had trouble communicating what she needed to do to get me the slack and position I needed.

Finally, by some miracle, I got the line back over the roller. I rolled onto my back on the bow and let the rain hit me in the face for a moment of relief. Then I got the windlass working again — there was nothing wrong with that anymore — and pulled all the line into the anchor locker. When the anchor banged into place, I ran down the gunwales and hurried back into the boat.

Alyse had already abandoned the seat for me. The boat was drifting backwards with the current. I threw the boat into forward gear, worked the steering wheel to turn it around, and began motoring out of the oxbow.

I was soaking wet. Honestly the last time I’d been that wet with clothes on was when someone had thrown me into a swimming pool.

And I was pissed. I was pissed that the anchor still wasn’t working reliably. I was pissed that it had taken so long to fix the new problem and I had no idea what caused it. I was pissed that although I had a smart, world-traveling companion on board, I’d still had to struggle so hard to resolve the issue. And I was pissed that I was soaking wet. And that the leak over the galley was still leaking.

I started stripping off clothing as I drove, peeling off my jeans and socks and rain jacket until I was standing there in front of the wheel in a damp t-shirt and my panties. We were in the river now and everything was under control. I took a deep breath and asked Alyse to grab my pajama pants, which were hanging on a hook in my sleeping area. I pulled them on and continued downriver in silence.

The Cruise

I steered us along the river’s winding course, feeling better as I dried off and as the rain eased up. It was still a gray day, but by that time I was used to it. Gray without rain or fog was a nice day in my book. Funny how standards change.

In the meantime, the water was definitely running higher and faster and there was definitely more debris in it. It was mostly logs and branches that were easy to spot and steer around. The river twisted and turned with hardly any straight parts. We went every direction: south, east, north, and west and everything in between. It was almost as if the engineers had given up on trying to make a quick, straight path south and left boaters to just deal with it.

By the time we reached the famous White Cliffs of Epes, it was about 9:40 AM, with no rain and bright gray skies. I took a few photos. There was a very short passage about this spot in the Skipper Bob book I was consulting for our trip from Chicago to Mobile, but Alyse Googled it and was soon reading me more about it. Part of the Selma Chalk formation, they were deposited the same time as the much more famous White Cliffs of Dover in England. From that point forward, I’d notice more than a few white rock formations along the river as we headed south.

I took three photos of the white cliffs as we passed and I like this one the best. They were all terrible, honestly. Some places just cannot be photographed without a good aerial view.

It may not have been rainy, but it was windy. The surface of the water changed depending on which direction its twists and turns were taking us. Sometimes, when the wind came from one side or the other, the water would be almost glassy smooth. Other times, when the wind was blowing from behind us or in front of us, it would be choppy. It never got too rough or uncomfortable, though.

Amazingly, there were no lakes or locks. Just the river with trees and the occasional house alongside. We just kept motoring all day. I can’t recall passing anyone, least of all another pleasure boater.

I don’t want to get political here. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

Arriving at Demopolis

According to Nebo, we arrived at Demopolis a little after 1 PM. I didn’t even make a note of it. I think I was pretty fed up that day.

Here’s our Nebo log for December 14, 2022. Download a PDF log file with more info. Track Do It Now on Nebo.

I drove up to the fuel dock to get some fuel and settle my bill for the night. I also took my pups for the potty break they so desperately needed.

We planned on spending just one night in Demopolis. It was December 14 and we needed to be in Mobile by December 19 at the latest. I’d plotted out a route that would have us anchoring out one night, staying at or near Bobby’s Fish Camp the following night, and then anchoring out again before reaching a marina on the Dog River south of Mobile. That would have us there on December 18, with one whole day of wiggle room in case we got stuck somewhere.

I was lucky enough to get a spot in the covered dock area. More weather was on the way and I was tired of trying to keep the teak dry under the leak in the galley. The dockmaster, Anna Marie, was there to meet us. She took control of the docking and soon had my lines cross tied from cleats along the dock. It was not the way I would have done it, but it was holding the boat in place so I let it go.

Our slip was right next to a custom house boat and the owner wasted no time coming out to introduce herself. Not long afterward, we were taking a tour of her place and listening to her tell us how much she wished she could get it to New Orleans. She and her companion (husband?) apparently lacked the driving skills to make the trip and the captain who’d brought it down from Kentucky Lake for them swore he’d never drive it again.

We spent the afternoon doing laundry and showering and just trying to unwind.

The weather hit before 5 PM. Soon we were in the thick of it, complete with tornado warnings that everyone pretty much ignored. I was with Alyse at a “captains’ meeting” in the lounge/laundry room, which was apparently held nightly to discuss the route and overnight options between Demopolis and Mobile.

Captain Steve, who lived on his boat with his wife at Demopolis this time of year, claimed that by dawn the water level would be over the edge of the basin containing the marina — a water level rise of at least six feet — and that it would be dangerous to go any farther until the water level dropped back down.

“How long would that take?” I asked, remembering my schedule.

“About five days,” he replied confidently. “It should be safe to go by next Tuesday or Wednesday.”

It was Wednesday. He was talking about a week delay. Alyse’s flight was Monday. This was not the news I wanted to hear.

We went back to the boat in terrible spirits. I had arranged to take the courtesy car for two hours that evening and needed to meet up with Anna Marie to get the keys. She showed up in front of my boat — despite the fact that the boat she lived in was parked right next to mine, opposite the houseboat — and proceeded to give me a lengthy, well-rehearsed speech about the car and the doors and the windows and how some buttons didn’t work and all kinds of crap I didn’t need to know to take a quick drive into town. When I interrupted her to try to keep things short, she told me she needed to finish before I asked any questions. Then she went on, finishing up with some complex instruction that required me to go to a specific gas station, give them $2, and get a receipt before coming back and parking in the same spot I’d found the car. She stopped and looked at me. “Any questions?”

“Yes,” I said. “Do you want me to put gas in the car, too? Or just pay the $2 and get the receipt?”

I wasn’t being a smartass — really! I honestly wanted to know. Nowhere in her instructions had it said anything about putting gas in the car. Just paying $2 and getting a receipt. I thought that maybe they had some sort of account at the gas station and I needed to help them fund it.

She got really pissed off. “Yes, of course you’re going to get gas. Why else would you pay them?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But you gave me such detailed instructions and you never actually said to pump gas.”

I suspect she now includes that in her way-too-long briefing about the car.

I got the keys and went back to the boat. It was still raining. I dreaded dealing with the car and its possibly nonfunctional buttons and the $2 worth of gas to go into town that night when I wouldn’t be able to see anything or do much. Basically, just dealing with Anna Marie had put me in a foul mood. If we were stuck there in Demopolis, we’d go another day, maybe when the weather was better. I related all this to Alyse.

She agreed. I texted Anna Marie, walked back out to the dock in front of my boat, waited for her to come to me, and gave the keys back. “Maybe tomorrow,” I said, wondering if she’d go through her whole recital again.

A New, Daring Plan

Later that evening, I met up with Spencer and Jill in Chasing This. They were parked in the spot on the other side of the dock from us. If you’ve been reading this blog, you may remember that we met them in Columbus.

Spencer told me that they were leaving in the morning with the folks in GypSea. They didn’t think it was going to be so bad and they didn’t want to wait.

I suddenly wondered whether I was being too cautious by deciding to wait. These guys didn’t think there was a problem — maybe there wasn’t. I thought about it for a while, thinking hard about how pissed off Alyse would be if she missed her flight and how I might be stuck in Mobile for a week or more waiting for her to get another one out of town. I realized that I just wanted to be done with this part of the trip. I wanted Alyse on her way. I wanted to relax by myself and mentally regroup. And I wanted to be out of the cold, rainy, and all-too-often foggy weather.

I told him that I was going to wait and see. If the water got as high as Captain Steve said it would, I’d wait. Otherwise, I’d go with them. What time did they plan to leave?

“Early,” he told me. “GypSea is calling the lock at 5:30 AM. If it looks good, we’ll be leaving by 6.”

“I’ll talk to you before then,” I told him.

Then I related all this to Alyse, took my pups for a walk in the rain, and settled down for the night.