October 13, 2015
The boat in the slip next to us had been there for about a
month, and the owner arrived yesterday to get the boat ready to leave on Sunday
for somewhere south. He was a youthful
80 year-old who cruised intermittently with his wife and occasional guests,
keeping his boat at various locations – Chesapeake Bay, Pensacola -- wherever
his fancy struck, I guess. His boat is a
beautiful 2013 58 ft Fleming, hull #1, that he has waxed twice a year so that
all he has to do to clean it was to spray it off. He was already up when we were getting ready
to leave, and since he had AIS, he told us that there was a northbound tow in
the lock chamber, and another tow near the lock on the upper side.
 |
| Demopolis Lock - Penny Pinchin' in front of us |
Demopolis lock was only about 3 miles away, so we didn’t
want to leave the marina too early if all we were going to do was wait at the
lock. We called the lock and the
lockmaster told us that it would take 20-30 minutes to lock the tow up, so we
should start heading his way. We radioed
the information to the other boats which were also wanting to lock down, and
within a few minutes, there were 5 boats headed to the lock. By the time we arrived at the lock, the
northbound tow was coming out of the chamber, so we all passed it on the “1
whistle”. We waited a short while as a
Corp of Engineers work barge entered the lock to “take on groceries”. Once it was clear, we all got in, secured,
and on our way down 40 ft.
 |
| Demopolis Lock - Always Home (rear) and Lauren Grace (front) |
When we left the lock, we arranged ourselves according to
speed of travel. Penny Pinchin’ was a
express cruiser, so went first and was soon out of sight. The rest of us were trawler-style or
semi-displacement boats, so we travel at slower speeds. Lauren Grace went second since she cruised at
about 10 mph. Hallelujah and Always Home
went next since they cruised at about 9.5 mph.
We brought up the rear since we like to cruise at 8.5-9 mph (1000-1100
rpm) – we think it is where our engines sound the best. A definite advantage to having other boats
ahead of you is that they can alert you to hazards in the water and oncoming
tows.
 |
| Hallelujah and Always Home, our travel companions for the day |
It was another beautiful day for cruising.
We enjoyed the sights along the river and
arrived at our destination, Bashi Creek, MM 145.2, around 4:15 p.m.
 |
Crane pounding a breakwall in place
|
 |
| Rock lined the river in many places |
 |
| Mother Nature's canvas |
 |
| Homemade slip n slide |
Lauren Grace had gone by but radioed back to
tell the rest of us that there were no boats there yet.
Hallelujah went in first, because they were
only going a short distance the next day, so they would not be in any hurry to
leave in the morning.
They suggested
that we and Always Home raft together bow to stern so that we each would only
have to put out one anchor.
Since the
entrance was wider than the rest of the creek, Always Home went in first,
turned around, and set her anchor close to the access ramp side.
We went in bow first past her about 60 ft,
dropped our anchor, and backed up to raft up.
Then we pulled in on our anchor a bit to shift us both more toward the
middle.
We had 8-10 ft going in and 7 ft
where we dropped the anchor.
Hallelujah
had been to Bashi Creek before and told us that there had been up to 8 boats
anchored there at one time!
 |
| Rafted with Always Home - Hallelujah anchored further back |
 |
| There was a boat access ramp just to the right here - perfect for Sasha |
Rob and I marveled that anyone had ever thought to try Bashi
Creek as an anchorage, because its appearance from the main channel of the
river is quite unassuming. Another
cruiser had suggested that we try anchoring just across from the entrance, but
we were concerned about being so close to the main channel even though we were
told that many others had done so.
Shortly after we got back from our shore visit at the boat access ramp
which is just inside the creek entrance, 2 tows passed each other right
there. If we had been anchored across
instead of in the creek, we would have been very, very nervous indeed! We watched the northbound tow churning the
water to power his slide around the curve, a very impressive sight, especially
from the safety of our anchorage.
No comments:
Post a Comment