Down the Tenn-Tom: Less Than 400 miles to Mobile!

Yesterday morning, we woke up to another foggy day. After the fog burned off, we headed out. It was decided that I would lead the way down, since my boat is slower and my depth finder works. That way, my parents won't leave us behind, and they won't run aground trying to anchor without us. That's the theory, anyway. :) So we started down the Tenn-Tom. We had almost 25 miles in a row of this:

It wasn't bad. I was told it was really ugly, so this was a pleasant surprise. But it did get a little boring. That boat in the picture is my parents' Off Our Rocker; they trailed us the whole day. Trevor spent the day reorganizing a lot of things. He's so good at that stuff! Maybe I'll take pictures of the inside of the boat soon, so you can see how we crazy people live.
Just before the first lock, we anchored. As I said, Trevor and I took the lead on this because we have a working depth gauge. Well, I found a pretty decent-looking place on the chart. Side note: the Tenn-Tom charts are horrible! The waterway is relatively new, so everything hasn't settled yet. So all the charts are really vague on what's below the water. There is no indication of depth anywhere. So I picked a wide-open, but sheltered space that looked promising. We headed that way, staring at the depth. It was nice and deep, 24 feet, 20 feet, 18 feet. The suddenly, it jumped to 6 feet, 5 feet, 4 feet. "Turn! Now!" I said. The depth finder beeps to say "Hey, don't know if you noticed, but it's pretty shallow here." It's hopping between 3 and 4 feet. My boat draws 3'3" (we say 3 1/2 feet to keep it simple). So we're on the verge of running aground. Luckily, our sailboat turns on a dime, so disaster was averted. Needless to say, that scared us out of that anchorage. So we went across the lake and anchored over there, in 20 feet of water. Here we are anchored!

Pretty anchorage:

Closer pictures of our boats:



Last night we ate dinner with the folks. Introduced Dad to the joys of steamed green beans (he loved them!). And we took control of the dinghy. Ha! First successful pirate mission! Dinghy for us! Now Trevor has somewhere to go when he gets in trouble. Bonus! Oh, and here's a picture Mom took of us learning how to drive the dinghy. We're so happy!


Today, we went through 3 locks! We went about 25 miles. Not very far, but with 3 locks, that's pretty good. We locked through with the same boats every time. Unfortunately for Peregrine (boat on the left in the picture below), our sailboat was slow, but the lockmaster waited for us every time. It was the same every time: Peregrine tied up on the port side, my parents in front of us, and me and Trevor bringing up the rear. Here's the picture:


And now we're anchored again. We'll go through another lock or two tomorrow. Mom's cooking dinner. Trevor's riding around on the dingy (turning on the anchor light and getting my pillow were his excuses, but he just wanted to play). Not bad at all.