We left the anchorage bright and early at 6:30, it was 58° on the 27^th.   Very nice day again, but it must have been a pretty boring ride as I took no pictures :).   We did go thru Coffeeville lock that day.  They were supposed to lift us 34 feet and they only lifted us 4.  I guess the water is up a little, huh?

We arrived at Bobby’s fish camp about 4:30.  Bobby’s is literally just a big dock on the bank.  But it is the only show in town so beggars can’t be choosers.  Bobby’s offers a fantastic cat fish dinner that they serve Thursday thru Sunday.  But darn if we didn’t miss it again :(.  We never seem to get there when they are cooking their cat fish.  There is still the trip down south in the fall, maybe we’ll get lucky then.  Well anyway, when we got to Bobby’s 120 foot dock, there was a sail boat parked about 1/3 of the way up the dock.  Our traveling partners pulled in front of the sail boat and tied up.  The only place for us to tie up is behind the sailboat.  Unfortunately our ass end is going to be hanging in the wind and I won’t be able to get off to tie up.  Good thing the Captain is a good driver because he had to fight the current and sneak in very close to the sail boat without hitting the guys that were working on it.  “Thank you” Admiral’s Choice for helping us tie up.  I don’t know what we would have done.  After we are all tied up,the only way we could get off the boat was to exit our port side, we’ll have to use our 6 foot step ladder.  (The Touch of Class is so well stocked 🙂 ).

The sail boat in front of us was having motor trouble and had a couple of guys working on the outboard motor right as we pulled up.  We were so close to the sail boat, the guys had to watch their heads when they stood up so they didn’t smack their heads on our bow pulpit.  Whoops, sorry guys :).

We spent a quiet night on the dock and the Captain of Admiral’s Choice came over for a few snacks and a drink so we could get to know each other a little better.  The next morning the folks from Admiral’s Choice gave us a lift with our lines in the morning, thank goodness!  We had sun in the morning  of the 28th as we set out.  We had a big ride that day,  97.5 miles.  With the current we had to drive at 1600 RPM’s using both engines in order to maintain our 7.4 knots to get to our destination that day of Demopolis, or Kingfisher Marina, around 4.  We need to take on more fuel at Demopolis.  Demopolis fuels all the tug boats in the area so we know their fuel is very fresh and they usually have a good price.

As we traveler our new friends on Admiral’s Choice passed us and took this really nice picture of us.

The Touch of Class, all ready for the locks

You don’t get pictures of your boat underway very often so we were glad they were able to text it to us.  We drove carefully and watched for debris.  Luckily there wasn’t too much we had to worry about in that department.  We did make it to Demopolis by 4 and were able to fueled up, $2.70 a gallon.  Wow!  That is the cheapest by far!  Oh boy, filler up :)!

After we were done fueling, we went around the corner to Kingfisher Marina to tie up for the night.  The lines were barely tied when I was off the boat for a nice hot shower and laundry detail.  They have a very nice bathhouse/laundry facility here.  While we stayed there, we met these couple of older guys who bought this boat just to take it down to Mobile.

Cheese Heads heading South

Apparently they have done this a few times in the past.  They buy a boat, take it south and then sell it.  They were Packer fans.  Once they saw we were from Minnesota they thought there was going to be some trash talking going on on the dock, but I told them not to worry.  No Viking fans on this boat, we were fans of nothing sports related.  They couldn’t believe their ears!  I guess we are quite an anomaly 🙂

On the 29^th we left Demopolis at 6:45, it was 55°.  Again, another beautiful day.  We had 60 miles and 1 lock to go thru today.  Should be a snap :).  The Admiral took the first turn at the wheel

Admiral driving

We did pass this house that had a bunch of stuff on the side

What kind of siding is that?

You guys should be glad I have a zoom on my camera so I can get you these good shots LOL

Antlers

Antlers….the guy must be a good hunter.  Anyone in Minnesota want to try this motif on their house?

We got to our anchorage about 4:00, we like to leave early and arrive early.  That way if we run into any trouble with the locks, we still make it to our destination before it gets dark.  This anchorage is one we refer to as the cow anchorage.  The official name is Windham Landing.  We really like it here.  Plenty of room to swing.  This time not only could we hear the cows but we could see them.  We also heard what sounded like someone crop dusting in a plane, ya know the noise they make nnnnnnooooooowwwwww as they fly down close to the field.  But then we heard two of them at the same time.  Maybe they were practicing for barn burnings :). We never did get to see any of the planes :(.

The next morning on the 30^th we left the anchorage at 6:15.  It was 50 degrees this morning and a little foggy  but not enough to delay us.  As we were driving along I saw this dark circle in the water, I navigated the boat around the dark object and looked closely at it when I drove by to see what it was.  Oh man!  It wasn’t anything but the shadow from the balls on the overhead wires.  What a dope.  Oh well, better to be safe than sorry!

We did ran into some snow on the river though

Snow? In April?

Hee, hee.  And I could tell we had crossed over from Alabama to Mississippi when I saw this on the shore of a peninsula

Bar B Q and folding chairs

And not a boat in sight.  Well we made it to Columbus Marina by 2:00, a 49 mile ride, with no problems.  A trip to the grocery store is in order and then a nap!