Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Weather delays, shallow anchorages and no marinas OH My!


Well here we sit, waiting for a weather window to open up, but things have gotten even more complicated in the last 24 hours. 

We are in Demopolis Al. located 225 miles or so from Mobile Bay,  from here to Mobile there is only one dock in which to tie up to,  NO marinas and only 2 places for a boat our size to drop an anchor, however, due to low pool (3 feet below low) last night we received a call from a group of boats that left the marina here.   The call came at 8 30PM, BrownEyedGirl and 3 others had just reached Bobby's Fish Camp 97 miles away, it took them 10 hours.  It was reported that the anchorages were too shallow for their boats to get into so they had no other choice but to go on another 20+ miles to Bobby's.  WOW, luckily there is only 1 lock but the weather was not the greatest yesterday with wind and rain on top of it all it must of been an extremely long day.. 
Today weather calls for rain, thunder and lightening, strong wind warnings severe at times with possible hail and tornado warnings!  OH MY!  I believe we will stay right where we are thank you.  However, when we do leave we are looking at a 97 miles, at least thanks to the report from BrownEyedGirl we can plan on it and pick up the pace as to NOT get stuck traveling in the dark, and I guess we will be blowing the carbon out of SweetPea.

Thanks for the heads up!

Today the 8 boats that are here will ponder over the situation, everyone can travel at different speeds some faster than others, there are 3 who are only able of about 8 mph max and the rest range from a max of 12 to 20mph. Since the 3 slower boats are true trawlers they MAY be able to use an anchorage because their props are protected.  Throw in a lock which takes 30 mins on a good day and whatever barges and no wake zones we come across, especially on some of the hairpins turns we will encounter, hmmm looks to be an interesting trip and some serious fuel burn.  Sure hope the lockmaster is good to us.