Today we plan on traveling about sixty miles and two locks. The first lock we encounter right outside of Columbus Marina is the John C. Stennis Lock and Dam. A caravan of about ten boats left this morning and we gathered at the entrance, again waiting for the go ahead from the lockmaster. The wait wasn’t long and we locked through. The caravan then proceeded to the next lock a few miles down river: Tom Bevill Lock and Dam. At this point everyone was going about the same speeds as the slowest (us) as it does them no good to get there too much faster because the lockmaster will wait for everyone to arrive before locking them through. After the second lock, the group separated. The fast boats went faster and the others fell into a line in order of speed. We were the last boat. We now have a current flowing with us, but we don’t feel the need to push the throttle and sacrifice fuel mileage. We can actually save fuel and still go about 6.5-7 knots. Our friends were only going a little faster than us as they also liked the fuel economy going a bit lighter on the throttle. This left four boats- Klondike, Trinity, Onward and Trolling Molar at the back of the pack
The rest of the afternoon was just traveling down the river enjoying the nature surrounding us; the wildlife above and below, on land and in the sea. We were getting close to our destination when I received a message from Onward that they were going to stop at an anchorage a little short of where we were planning on going. They informed us that they had been here before and there was plenty of room if we wanted to join. We considered the offer, because we were all going to go through more locks tomorrow together, but declined and kept going a little farther with Trinity and Molar- this also let us sleep a little longer. We pulled into the anchorage last as the others were there just before us. This is kind of good, as they can tell us depths as they enter. Sonja told us as we approached there was eight feet of depth at the entrance then a little more shallow, but we could stop and anchor in front of the boat ramp. Perfect! Easy access for getting Frank to shore.
We dropped anchor and explored the park we were in front of. There were restrooms and picnic tables, grills, fire pits and primitive camping available. The setting was cool, tucked into a little protected channel off of the river and we all fired up the generators to make dinner and warm up a bit. After awhile we researched tomorrows destination and confirmed our departure: 7am. Ughh. That’s an early start, but we didn’t want to cause a problem, so 7am it is.