We make it to Mobile

For the last week we have been running down the Tenn Tom and Lower Black Warrior waterways.  This has taken us through deep backwoods Mississippi and Alabama.  The nice thing is that the current was with us again and we were making good time, 7 plus knots and even up to 8.5 knots folr the last couple of days.

There were not a whole lot of Marina's to stay at and some of them were marginal.  We anchored out most nights including one night where we were in the outflow from the Heflin lock and logs and other debris was flowing by all night,  it rained several times and we kept hoping they were not going to open the dam up any further and flood us out.  In the morning we got up at down and got moving and made a good distance.  We anchored several nights outside the channel line but still in the current flow, this made it difficult to get Max to shore.  Since the entire TennTom has been seriously flooded the shore areas were very muddy.  One night we took him to the beach and both Liz and he got pretty muddy.  Liz said that she would not take him again until she was sure that the area wasn't muddy.  The next night we were anchored along the channel again  and it did not look so bad.  Liz took him to shore and everything seemed to be going fine but as they came back to the dinghy, he took off and ended up rolling in the mud so that he was completely covered, even his face.

The engine troubles seem to have subsided, and we have not had any breakdowns,  we are going to have the Marina here in Mobile do a once over just to make sure there isn't anything else about to rattle loose.

Running the engine 9 hours a day at high rpm for 6 weeks would stress any engine so I hope that now that thats over we won't have more problems.

I must say that I would not choose to do this kind of cruising for fun, it was really mostly a necessary evil to get us to the Gulf.  The trip just seemed to go on and on forever.  Traveling with the rig tied to the boat and without a fixed radio or dining table has been a pain.  The rig did not cause as much problem as I thought getting in and out of places, our 39 ft boat became a 55 ft boat.  We no longer had to worry about bridge clearances, but water depth still was an issue.  There was one night where we tried to get into 4 different anchorages, running aground at each, before finally tying up to a lock.

I will write more and post some pictures about this section of the trip soon but just wanted everybody to know that we had reached Mobile and were safe.