Columbus, MS
Columbus marina was only 16 miles from our anchorage at McKinley Creek but they did not open until noon so we had a nice leisurely morning at anchor. We had a two day planned stop here. The marina is a well loved stop by Loopers. It overlooks a large bay that is full of white pelicans. Now white pelicans are not all white. The ends of their wings are black but you only see that when they are in flight.
This area is one of their major breeding grounds. Columbus is a mid sized town with a small downtown area where there seemed to be as many opened business as there were closed. The renaissance bug has not hit this area yet. We did manage to find a brochure that self guided us on a walking tour of some great examples of Antebellum homes. Now I had to look up that word myself.
Antebellum means before the civil war. These homes were built by local wealthy planters and businessmen. Unfortunately the one mansion, the Waverly was not open while we were there. Sunday afternoon a local country boy invited me aboard his house boat for a beer. Turns out he is a tow captain and runs the local river. It was great to get his perspective of life on the river.
Well one beer wasn’t gonna be enough. He said, “Hey you like bourbon” I said, “well no I’m just a beer drinker.” He quickly replied, “ I got this great bottle of bourban that I’m just itchin to open, so I will teach you to like it.” Oh god, what do I do now? So I didn’t want to be rude so I took a small pour of it. Crazy enough it wasn’t too bad. I then called in my secret weapon, Sue. I knew she would drink it for me. Well he was not having that.
He said she was entitled to her own drink. Rats! Anyhow it was fun talking with him and his buddy who was a deckhand on a different river boat.
The first half of Monday was pretty much boat chores. Next Chapter got a thorough bath that included removing the river mustache on her bow. All cleaned up she looked good.
Sue and I then jumped on the bikes and took a long ride. Not the prettiest one we have done but we got some exercise in anyhow. We joined two other Looper couples and crammed into the loaner car and went to dinner at a nice place in town called Harveys. For a Monday night we were all surprised how busy it was. Bedtime was fairly early as we had a pretty big cruised planned for Tuesday.
In the morning when we headed out it was pretty crisp. There was a little residual fog hanging around the marina. Our plan was for a 58 mile day that included two locks. Basically we would be on the water all day to reach our anchorage at Lower Crooks South anchorage. Well the first lock went very smooth as it was right close to the marina.
Usually somebody organizes everybody else as to when we go thru as the locks don’t like to lock thru one or two boats at a time. We exited the chamber and headed down the river. As we turned a corner there it was, the dreaded river fog. There’s nothing like being on a narrow twisty river playing chicken with the tows in a fog bank to give your adrenal glands a good squeeze. Fortunately we had a little bit of visibility and came out of it after a couple of miles.
I also learned that an oxbow is a tight bend in a river. Many of these cutoffs and creeks were created by canals that cut the oxbows out as they created the Tombigbee. Our second lock things did not go as smoothly. When we arrived we had a short wait for a tow to exit and then we got the green light to enter the chamber. Once in we found out the lock wanted to wait on two other boats that were up river a couple miles.
Well an hour later the boats arrived we got locked down. We finally arrived at our anchorage so Tomijean and Next Chapter dropped the hook and rafted together. Another boat, Knot Dreaming joined us in the anchorage. We were situated right off a small bayous that was quite scenic.
Tomijean hosted docktails so I offered to launch the dinghy and Uberdink the crew from Knot Dreaming to the happy hour. Somehow the energy that night was infectious and we all had a lot of fun. So much so we really forgot about dinner. Safe to say nobody had trouble falling asleep that night.
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