We left Columbus Marina this morning at 7:00, 45°.  It is dark, rainy, cold and windy.  It reminds me of the movie Deliverance.  I can almost hear the banjos.  Look, there is snow in the river

Snow on Buoy

Just kidding, it really foam.  We see that quite a bit on this river, especially on the downward run after the damn.  On this stretch of river we saw quite a few trees with three yellow marks on the

Marked Trees

I am assuming they must be marked to be cut down???  I also saw this tree that housed a bunch of birds

Crap load of birds

If feeling like Deliverance wasn’t bad enough, now I feel like the movie The Birds.  I better cover my eyes!  Ahhhhhhhh!

We noticed that it seemed some of the higher banks were covered with cement.  We assume it is to stop erosion.  Kind of weird.

Cement on Bank

There is still a lot of floating debris in this still muddy river.  As we travel down, our only damn today, the Tom Beville, was not a pleasant experience.  I would go so far at to say it really sucked! The bollard we tied to had no little horns sticking out which made it easier for the rope to stay in place while you were holding on.

Bollard with no horns

Bollard with horns

See how the bollard with horns has something to keep the rope from slipping off?  Well the bollard in this damn was like the first picture but the little lip wasn’t as big as the one pictured.  The bollard was also lower than the side of our boat (some of them are higher which is easier to keep the rope tied to).  It was rainy and the rope started to slip off the bollard after the Lockmaster started to let the water out.  OMG!  I was yelling for Gary, pounding on the door, telling him that the rope was slipping off the bollard.  I looked and he wasn’t at the controls.  REALLY!  What a time to have to go to the bathroom!  Finally he got back and was able to keep the boat in position to keep the rope from slipping off.  I was none to happy.  Cold, wet and grumpy, not a good way for your only crew to be.  Luckily for the Captain I don’t stay mad for long (contrary to popular belief at K&L :))

Tonight we are anchoring out at a place called Supter Recreation Area at the 270th mile marker.  We arrived early, around 2:00.  It was really shallow coming in, our depth alarm went off a few times and it showed a depth of 3.9 on the Garmin.  We are hoping the water doesn’t drop too much during the night. Once we made it in and got anchored, it was pretty nice.  There was a ramp there and a park, so there were a few lights we could keep sight on during the night to make sure we weren’t floating around too much.  A rather windy storm popped up around 10:30, the anchor held and all was well.  It always takes me a while to get back to sleep after something like that.  Hopefully we’ll have a better day tomorrow.