We departed Ditto Landing at 0730,
headed for Florence Harbor, Florence, Alabama. This is how the morning looked as we started out.
This day would be 78 miles, with
two locks, and a drive by at Joe Wheeler State Park Marina, where the Fall
Loopers Reunion was being held on the forth coming weekend. Our course to Florence was generally in an
East to West direction. One hour after
getting underway we had a 25-35 mph wind directly from the West. The wind had about 65 miles of water with
nothing in the way except for us. We
fought 2-4 foot head seas all day long. We tried to take pictures of the waves but
they did not come out very well. Luckily, none of were afflicted by sea
sickness. Shortly after noon we made a
drive through at Joe Wheeler State Park Marina and waved to our friends Matt
and Colleen. They called us on the radio
and wanted us to stop and visit for a while, but conditions were too rough to
dock and we still had two locks to get through.
(A not so fun fact, I talked to Colleen today, on 1 November. They live on the water in New Jersey, on the Toms River and their home and garage and vehicles were pretty well destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. Their other boat had been hauled out by the marina and was safe. Our thoughts are with them.) We were directed right into the Joe Wheeler Lock and dropped 48
feet. As they opened the lower lock
doors two foot seas immediately started rolling into the lock. There were 13 large pleasure boats waiting to
lock up river and they were scattered for 3 miles trying to keep out of each other’s
way and out of the way of a tug that was going to go through ahead of
them. The lock master told them they
could expect a 2 hour delay. That is a
long time to try to hold position in 25-25 mph winds. We still had 18 miles to go to the next
lock. Still fighting head seas, we
called our arrival to the next lock and were told that we had an hour and 45
minute wait, as they had just finished locking up the first cut of a multiple
cut tow. We went to the auxiliary lock
wall and tied off. Darkness was falling
as we finally got into the lock. This
one dropped us 93 feet.
A view back into the 93 foot lock.
The winds had
died down and we made good time, in complete darkness the remaining 4 miles to
Florence Harbor Marina.
The Harbormaster
had told me to be careful turning in off the river as she earlier had to
tow one boat off the sandbar. We made it
safely into our assigned slip and found out that: 1. there was no restaurant, and 2. No showers
accessible. In spite of the calm seas in
the marina we were still rocking and rolling.
