Day 52
We left Alred Marina, in Guntersville, AL, on Monday morning, 11/02/20, at 10:45 am under perfectly clear blue skies. The wind was chilly and blustery, but we were well-protected and comfortable up in the enclosed flybridge. Today’s ride was short, but included a lock. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, when we go through locks, we put on our headsets and I put on my life-jacket. Then I go down to the deck while Steve sits up at the helm undercover of the flybridge at the helm. (Hmmm, what’s wrong with that picture…?) I hang all three fenders, bow, midship, and stern, then ready a line on the port side through the hawse-pipe (aka hole in the side of the boat for lines to pass through) that’s located aft of the doorway into the salon. Steve pulls the boat up next to the lock wall, trying to align that hawse-pipe with the moving ballast pin upon which I loop the line over to hold our boat in place next to the wall. Steve then hails the lockmaster with a short, “Legacy is secured” message. We then wait for the lockmaster to close the gates and start filling (or emptying) the lock chamber so we can go up (or down) river. I stand there keeping the line taught and watching the fenders to see if they’re getting squished between the boat’s hull and the lock wall, so Steve can run either the bow-thruster or the stern-thruster accordingly to release the fender. Sometimes, the moving ballast in the wall is positioned either really high up or really low down, so that I have to either reach up or squat down to get the line loop secured on the pin. This particular time, the pin was low down, so when the lock chamber was empty and the lockmaster began to open the gates for us to leave, I was attempting to grab the loop and be ready to pull it off the pin when the heart-stopping horn blew for me to do so. Though I adored them, my boat shoes (Sperry Lounge Aways, to be exact) were over a year old and I wore them every waking minute, so that the soles had worn down to perfectly smooth surfaces, which meant they were no longer optimal boat shoes, but I digress. On the port side of the boat, there is less width between the outside of the salon and the gunwale (aka outside wall of the walkway that keeps me from falling overboard into the water). That width is only about 10 inches, in fact, which means it’s really snug walking down this side of the boat. The water in the lock was causing Legacy to rock a little bit, which did not help with my pin line removal efforts. Just as I heard the loud blast, I reached down to pull the line off the loop, but my shoes were so slick that both of my feet slipped out from under me and I started to slowly fall over sideways, as I was pinned between the gunwale and the side of the salon. I tried to regain my footing but was unsuccessful. I couldn’t grab the rail to catch myself because I had to keep hold of the line. One good thing about the tightness of the port side is that it makes it nearly impossible to fall down onto the deck (or overboard) because the rail catches me right in the armpit as I’m going down, but this time I was standing sideways. Though I was out of his line of vision, Steve could hear me over the headsets making strange grunting noises and gasps as I went down in slow motion. Normally I get the line off of the pin with a quick and almost professional flourish, but this time was not the case. Steve kept asking me, “Are we free? Are we free?”, so he could put the engines in forward to exit the lock chamber. I imagined how funny I must’ve looked to others, in my slow, stiff, sideways topple and was giggling. I was so cramped in that small space, I couldn’t get up quickly, which meant we were still tied to the pin as other boats were leaving us behind in the lock chamber. Since Steve couldn’t see me from his helm seat above, he kept asking, “What are you doing?” and I was giggling too much to answer him. FINALLY, I was able to pull the line free and advise Steve we were released. My “fall” was so slow that I injured no part of my body, which was a good thing. I have no idea if anyone actually did see me do that, but I know if they did, they had a good laugh! This was the Guntersville lock, and it was spilling, which meant when we finally did get out of the lock chamber, we were met with more strong, downriver current. Because of this strong current, we reached Ditto Landing Marina earlier than planned. The harbor master put us farther back into the marina this time, so rocking was non-existent. 😊
Position: N 34° 34.603, W 86° 33.580
Distance traveled: 22 NM
Total distance traveled: 893.6 NM
Total marina nights: 41
Total nights at anchor: 11
Locks today: 1 Locks Total: 13