5 Nov 17

I got up at 05:30 to check out the tactical situation on the chart plotter: no AIS targets (i.e., tows) were in sight, so we got the anchor up at 06:00 and took off in a pretty heavy fog. Along with “Caribbean Soul”, we felt our way through the fog to the Heflin Lock, which was waiting for us. We were through the lock by 07:00 and were on our way. The fog started to lift about 08:00, and we picked up speed. About 09:15, as we were coming up to the Highway 11 road bridge, the RDB became a cliff about 40 feet tall, comprising Demopolis chalk, as white as the white cliffs of Dover, although not quite as vertical; fascinating. Just after noon, we passed an upbound trawler that was so pretty I called her up to find out more about her; “ICW Trawler” is an all-aluminum boat custom-designed and built by Charlie Morgan - 44’ LOA, 14’ beam, with an air-draft of about 14’. Good boat for doing the Loop. We pulled into Demopolis Yacht Basin at 13:00, fueled up, pumped out and were tied up in the slip by 13:30.  After we settled in, the Admirals went for a walk and I changed the oil, oil filter and fuel filter on the main engine; John supervised. We had dinner aboard and celebrated the Admiral’s 65th birthday on board “Islandia”, who was here at the dock when we pulled in; an excellent reunion. Small world department: John and Bob had almost certainly raced against each other in Kingston, ON back when they were young; they had a number of mutual acquaintances and boat racing stories to share.

32-31.883’N, 088-50.483’W; Log 46.1, Sum (2017) = 3215.1 N-m

6 Nov 17

Bob and Diane pulled out of the marina at about 07:00 and we waved goodbye from the forepeak port. They were back about 10 minutes later; a tow had appeared heading downriver, and as they had to wait for him to lock through before they could go, they came back to the dock to wait. So, we shared another cup of coffee with them before once again saying “so long”. After breakfast, I picked up a rental car and we all went off in search of sights to see. We spent a bit of time roaming around Demopolis, which has an interesting history, but is presently fallen on hard times, like many small towns in America. However, the library is nice and we found a nice cafe, Stacy’s, on the town square for lunch. The two antebellum homes in town, along with the historical museum, were all closed on Monday, so we could not see any of them. After lunch, we drove down to Choctaw National Wildlife Refuge to search for alligators, but when we got there, we could not find a single one, so we drove on back to the yacht basin. On the way down to Choctaw, we saw a sign pointing to Bashi Creek, which is a likely anchorage for us, so we made a quick detour to check it out; funnily enough, “Islandia” stopped there for the night later in the day. We had a fairly quiet last evening with John and Laurie and did a bit of long-range planning for our 2018 and 2019 campaigns. Happy hour and dinner aboard and early(ish) to bed.

7 Nov 17

We all slept in until about 08:00, then finally got moving. We were on the road by 10:00 to drive John and Laurie to Birmingham to catch their flights home to Vancouver. After we dropped them off at the airport at noon, we drove straight up to Columbus Marina to collect two pieces of mail that arrived after we departed on Friday morning. During the drive back to Demopolis, I called Turner Marine in Mobile to advise of our planned arrival on Saturday, 11 Nov. They are ready and waiting for us. Turns out it less expensive to keep the boat in the water than to park it We did not get back to Demopolis YB until 17:30, then had to return the rental car. Dinner was a subdued affair, after which we had showers and did a bit of laundry. Early to bed in anticipation of a long day tomorrow.