Day 68
After leaving the Kingfisher Marina, five boats went through the Demopolis Lock together, as planned the evening before: Honalee, Lucky Lucky, Legacy, Shift and Cool Change. It was early and COLD outside, so I wore my gigantic, navy blue puffy coat (which reminds me very much, when I’m wearing it, of the poor younger brother on The Christmas Story after his mother bundles him up so much for the winter weather, that he can barely move) while we traversed the lock and on later into the morning, when the sun finally heated things up. When we exited the lock, several boats that traveled much faster than Legacy took off first, but Lucky Lucky and Legacy ran together at pretty much the same pace all of that day.
One of the participants in the captain’s meeting that Steve attended the evening before mentioned he had seen an alligator on the river bank coming down river earlier that day. Steve and I kept our eyes peeled for gators all day long, but never saw a single one. The river banks had even started to flatten out and extend out into the river, creating what I referred to as perfect little “Gator Beaches”. With the cool crispness of the fall air and the bright sunshine beaming down, they appeared the optimum places for alligators to crawl out of the water and sun themselves.
We cruised a total of 92 miles on the 18th! With our early morning start, and little to no delays going through the lock, we made great time. In fact, when we arrived at our planned anchorage for that night, Bashi Creek, it was still way too early in the day to stop. Lucky Lucky was going on farther before stopping for the night, so we decided to follow their lead and cruise farther to the Okatuppa Anchorage, near Okatuppa, AL. Lucky Lucky had originally planned to tie-up further south at Bobby’s Fish Camp, but soon returned to Okatuppa with us, as Bobby’s was already full of smaller boats. Even though Bobby’s was once an icon on the Great Loop, terrible flooding over the past few years, along with the devastating effects of the COVID-19 restrictions, wound up closing down the restaurant at Bobby’s (the most famous part) forever. Loopers can still tie-up to their small dock, but there is no 50-amp power (what Legacy requires), plus it costs $1.50/foot/night to tie-up. If the first boaters agreed, it was possible for additional boats to raft-up along side the boats already tied-up, but the rafting-up boats would be charged the same $1.50/foot/night, which didn’t sound like the best deal to us, and is why we opted for the Okatuppa anchorage as an alternative. Obviously, Lucky Lucky agreed, because they dropped anchor about 100 yards north of us at Okatuppa for the night. Another boat named Filthy, that had traveled with us earlier that day, also decided to anchor in Okatuppa that night.
Position: N 31° 49.503, W 88° 10.329
Distance traveled: 79.9 NM
Total distance traveled: 1283.4 NM
Total marina nights: 54
Total nights at anchor: 14
Locks today: 1
Locks Total: 26