BLACK WARRIOR-TOMBIGBEE WATERWAY

 We left Demopolis, in the fog, early on the morning of November 4th along with two other non-looper boats. One being a "boat jockey crew". A hired crew to move someone's boat from one location to another. These guys don't mess around. Time is money. They were moving!

We all went through the Demopolis Lock ( 40').

The fog lifted in the first hour and the day was beautiful. This stretch of the trip is notorious for being in the backwoods. There are no marinas. Most people head to a marina at the mouth of Mobile Bay. After reading bad reviews, we decided to do two long days anchoring out, get up early and take the shortcut across the bay and enter the intercoastal - weather permitting. Mobile Bay is shallow and can get rough.

But that required a fuel stop. The only fuel in this section is a place called Bobby's Fish Camp. Bobby's is notorious on the loop. It is a series of trailers and one dock. Bobby allows you to stay at his dock overnite - for a fee. No water, no electricity. If anyone else stops, they raft off you. But Bobby does have fuel!

You pump it yourself - it has no gauges - then you trudge up the hill to the one building to pay Bobby.

I could hear the banjos!

After leaving Bobby's we went through our final lock:

Coffeeville Lock ( 34')

FOR THOSE OF YOU KEEPING TRACK - THAT WAS THE 21ST LOCK SINCE WE STARTED OUR ADVENTURE!

Our anchorage for the evening was Lock #1 Cutoff - which turned out to be Doug's favorite so far. It was a VERY narrow entrance, the trees brushed the side of the boat going in.....and opened up to a beautiful little pool. Inside was an old deserted very small lock that is no longer used.

117 Miles from Demopolis to here.

We left Lock #1 Cutoff at 7:30 AM - cruised to 2:00 when we arrived at our anchorage for the night - 

Big Bayou Canot - total 84 miles 

Again, we were spacing ourselves for the run across Mobile Bay - we could not make it today in daylight - and as Mobile Bay is very busy, did not want to do it at night.



Entrance into Lock#1 Cutoff


Pays to have a second bottle

Chops on the grill

screen shot of the curvy Tombigbee from our charts




The "boat jockey crew" took this nice picture of us

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