Day 64
After a refreshingly peaceful night, we left Aberdeen Marina as soon as possible on Saturday morning, 11/14/20, since we knew any drop in water-depths at all could conceivably ground us there. We crept our way back out of this maze with me on the bow watching channel markers and for any debris, since Steve kept his eyes glued to the depth gauge for the entire journey out. Again I watched large clouds of mud billow out from beneath the stern. We both breathed a huge sigh of relief when we successfully entered into water with depths above 2-feet!
On this stretch of the TennTom, we passed the iconic phone booth at mile marker 312. Of course we slowed our speed so I could get the obligatory picture to post on The Great Loop Facebook page. Steve then came up with a theory as to why someone would randomly plant an old phone booth right on the banks of the Tombigbee. Along many of the outside curves of the river, we could see evidence of the constant erosion occurring because of seasonal river-flooding. Because the phone booth has become so popular with Great Loopers over the years, just about everyone slows down to get a good picture. Might these regular slow-downs actually help to curb the erosion at this point in the river keeping this farmland more valuable? Just a thought…
Continuing farther down the river we encountered long stretches with no houses or apparent civilization at all, then we’d round a bend to find groups of modest riverfront homes.
After traversing the second lock of the day, the Stennis Lock, west of Columbus, MS, we continued on to the Pickensville anchorage. Many Loopers tie-up for the night at the Columbus Marina in Columbus, MS, but the marina has silted up so much through the years (with no requisite and expensive dredging), the water depths are too shallow for Legacy’s draft. Columbus is said to be a favored Looper stop, because of its quaint downtown area and historical significance, but because we were limited by the shallow depths, we opted to anchor-out beside the Pickensville, AL, Campground and recreation area. Using some extra line we found aboard and an empty plastic gallon milk bottle, Steve fashioned a “trip-line” to tie onto our anchor that would aid in getting the anchor up, should it become wedged underneath an old tree trunk or large branch for which the bottom of the TennTom is famous. Naturally, it’s Gilligan’s job to tie the trip line onto the anchor and feed the line down as the anchor lowers, without tumbling off the end of the bowsprit. Once the anchor reaches the bottom, the line and floating milk bottle extend up directly above the anchor , above the water’s surface. Should the anchor become hung, we’ll know exactly where it is, and the idea is for Steve to either pull up on the trip line using the boat-hook, or – if the anchor is out away from the boat – dropping the dinghy and motoring out to the trip-line to yank on it in an attempt to free the anchor from any snag below.
The wind had picked-up considerably by the time we dropped anchor, which made me nervous we might spend another night spinning on the hook, since this was a large, relatively unprotected anchorage. Fortunately, history did not repeat itself and I didn’t end up with another bad case of vertigo!
Position: N 33° 13.667, W 88° 16.864
Distance traveled: 44.8 NM
Total distance traveled: 1123.6 NM
Total marina nights: 52
Total nights at anchor: 12
Locks today: 2
Locks Total: 23