We were up at 6 this morning hoping to get an early start.  We were close enough to the lock that we could call them and find out if there were any barges going thru.  Unfortunately there were 2 but the nice Lock Master said he call us when the barges were thru his lock, so we stood by on channel 14 waiting for him to hail us.  About 8:30 he gave us the go ahead to come to the lock.

Lock, no wickets

Another pic of damn

As you can see by these pictures, this lock has no wickets or nothing really to stop you if you lost your engine and were close to the wrong side of the damn.  Whoa Nelly!  That would not be fun and would be a hell of a ride.

We thought we might have to shorten our trip today as we got such a late start but there is quite a current here.  We are traveling at 11.4 knots, that is 12.65 MPH at our usual 13 RPM.  We have both engines going today to give us a little boost to get us to Bobby’s Fish Camp, our next marina destination.

We could tell we were getting closer to tropical weather because we kept seeing more and more of these palm bushes in the forests.

Palm Plants

We were traveling at quite a good clip, we passed 2 south bound tows and 3 north bound tows.  Unfortunately we passed two of those north bound tows right at a sharp curve.  That is quite the experience.  Naturally I was driving again and as I round one of the corners, Gary noticed the barge first and jumped up.  He called the Tow Captain, found out if he wanted us on his “ones” or his “twos”, told me where to drive as he gave it some gas.  I just steered the boat, Gary did the hard stuff.  For both of the turns we ended up going on the tow’s “ones” so we were on the inside of the curve with not much room between the barge and the shore.  Luckily it was deep and we didn’t have to worry about hitting bottom, just floating logs.  We made it past both of them without much trouble. Gets your heart rate up though, that is for sure.

We did see this fun water slide at someone’s house.  Looks like someone was having a party

Water Slide

We made it to Bobby’s Fish Camp by 4:30.  $76.50 per night, there is now electric on the dock :). That was quite an experience getting into the dock with the current as strong as it was.   Luckily there was another boat there and the guy and his wife came out to grab our lines.  The current was really swift there.  I never could have done it without their help.

Canadian Boat

This is the boat they were driving.  Their story is he is still working.  They are making the loop.  They come down and travel on the boat for a few weeks then they go back and he goes back to work for a month or so.  They were also at Aqua while we were there. Apparently they hit something and had to have their shafts repaired then they left their boat at Aqua for a while while they went back to Canada.  There was another boat tied to the dock here.  It was a catamaran.  If you don’t know what that is, here is a picture

Catamarane

Granted, his boat was not this nice but……apparently he had a really bad motorcycle accident, had 5 surgeries on his knee (he even pulled up his pant leg and showed us), and got “blood money” so he could retire and buy this boat.  He had never owned a boat before. He had been at Bobby’s since the week of Christmas because he has two outboard and he hit something and he was waiting for the part.  The part had to come all the way from England.  He had just got it installed the day we arrived and he was going to try to head up north.  He was going to have a hell of a time bucking those currents.  See how people just tell you their life story practically?  Again, we have met such interesting people :).

Bobby’s Fish Camp is pretty much just a dock.

Our boat at Bobby’s

They do have a few cabins and room for a few RV’s.  They also have a restaurant that is open Thursday thru Sunday and they apparently have the best catfish dinner around.  We arrived on Wednesday, so we’ll never know :(.  During the night,

Tow at night

there were 3 tows that pushed their barges up to the bank and waited.  There was a lock right around the corner.  Why were they waiting?  Was the lock broken?  Was it shut down for the night?  We tried to listed on the marine band to see if there was any chatter about what was going on but I waited too long.  No news.  Well, I hope they are gone by tomorrow morning or it will be a long wait while they get thru the lock.