I am writing this sitting in Columbus MS for two days. We left Iuka two days ago and started down the Tenn-Tom Waterway. This is a mix of man-made and natural waterways that connect the Tennessee River to the Gulf of Mexico.

Beginning of the Tenn-Tom in a natural river.

The first man-made section. This section is just over 28 miles. We read that to dig the entire canal, they removed more earth than it took to dig the Panama Canal.

We left early in the morning to take advantage of the limited daylight. Sunup is around 6:15am and sunset is around 4:30pm. We like to be in by sunset as we enter all these harbors and anchorages we have never been into.

We have to go through 12 locks down the Tenn-Tom before we reach the Gulf. As of Columbus, we have been through 7 of them. That makes a total of 28 locks since Lake Michigan.

By the way, the first lock of the day leaked so badly that the boat got a little wash. Just wish it had been clean water!

First day we moved from Iuka MS to Fulton MS, approx. 56 miles. We moved with 8 boats for the day through 3 locks. We spent the night at Midway Marina, just off the main channel and very shallow getting in. Depth was 5’6″ in the channel but 9′ around the dock. We are running the boat low on fuel, so we draw as little water was as possible until Mobile. It makes about a 6″ difference in our draft.

We arrived just before dark as we had to wait for 2-1/2 hours on the last lock to open. They had a broken door and had a crane and crew there working on it until after 3PM. Only 5 miles after the lock to the marina, so we had no problem arriving before sunset. Had a great night at Midway with 25+ other Loopers. The next morning, we left with a total of 14 boats to head downstream and go through 4 more locks.

I want to thank Wes Litsey for organizing the group. He is a hired captain helping two owners transport a boat to Mobile. We ran with him for two days and he took control of the lock master’s for our group and made it as smooth as possible.

It is not easy to organize 14 boat captains!

Midway Marina

14 boats waiting as a northbound tug comes past us out of the lock.

Day two was from Fulton MS to Columbus MS. This was another 60-mile day. We had to wait to leave the marina due to barge traffic. This would mean we could run out of daylight! We pulled out at 7:30am in the rain and arrived at Columbus Marina at 3:45pm. The only way to make it in the daylight was to run hard for the last 20 miles. We followed Wes, and two other boats followed us. We ran the river at 25MPH for just short of an hour. The engines liked it for a change, but it was tough on my nerves watching for logs and shallow spots at that speed. Unfortunately, only 6 boats from our group had enough speed to make it to the marina in daylight. It is a very tough entrance into the marina pool and into the marina, so they advise not arriving in the dark. They actually have a guy on the radio coaching you into the marina the entire way from the main channel. The other boats had to find a hole to anchor in off the main channel.

We will spend today resting and setting the boat up for the next couple of days at anchor.

Hope you have a great rest of your week and more to follow when we get good internet service!