Saturday, September 24, 2022-
Today we traveled to one of our favorite marinas, Florence Harbor in Florence, AL. The trip was uncomplicated and we arrived just as fishing boats were coming back into the harbor after a day's competition. Seems like every time we come to Florence Harbor there's a fishing tourney going on!
The transient dock looked packed and several dock hands were out trying to move boats that shouldn't have tied up there so paying transients could come in. We called the dock master as we were coming in and asked where we would stay for 2 days. He recognized our boat name, Maggie Jo, and was very close friends with the couple that we bought her from. He and his wife are still boaters, living up in Florence during the summer and going back to Florida in the winter. Anyway, he escorted us up to one of about 3 slips near the office and restaurant! We may just keep this boat name...and change Maggie's to Maggie Jo!! ;-)
Florence Harbor is about 3 miles below the Wilson Lock which we would need to go through to continue our trip home. Trouble was...Wilson had a wall collapse and are working to fix it. Meantime, the schedule for pleasure craft like ours is 6AM-7AM in the morning...and another time period later in the day. We were going to need to get up and travel in the dark to the lock in order to go upstream as planned on Monday morning! Well, if ya gotta, ya gotta!
Meanwhile we'd make good use of our time here. Saturday evening we ordered hamburgers on take-out from the restaurant. (Boy, were they busy that evening with all those visiting boaters/fishers!) We didn't realized they were double patty burgers...but we wasted not. We had half that night and half for lunch the next day. ;-) On Sunday we washed some clothes, then checked out the loaner car for lunch at a little Italian restaurant nearby and a shopping trip for groceries, etc.
Monday, September 26, 2022-
We did, indeed, get up at 5AM on that Monday morning and made our way up to the lock in the dark. Not fun! We had a companion boat, Moondance IV and we were the only ones going up stream that morning. Our destination was Decatur, AL, and a little marina there (Decatur Riverwalk Marina) that we've often used coming through. To get there we went through another lock...and again we got through with no waiting. We made such good time that morning that we got to Decatur around noon and decided we simply couldn't stop for the day...we had to go on! So...we cancelled reservations at Decatur and went on to Ditto Landing in Huntsville, AL.
Tuesday, September 27, 2022-
We are still on the same route with Moondance so we both agreed to leave at 7:30 this morning. We had one lock, Guntersville, to transit and were able to get through right before they were going to close for some routine maintenance. Whew! On we went, then, to another favorite marina, Goose Pond Colony, a resort area in Scottsboro, AL. The trip up the river had spells of wind that reminded us of Lake Michigan...but the ride was much smoother.
We filled up with diesel at a price of $4.59/gallon! Best price yet on this trip. Let's see, $4.59 x 100 gallons.....Yikes!! We'd wanted a hamburger from one of the restaurants near the marina but one doesn't open until 5 and the other was serving only cold sandwiches on Tues. and Thurs. Bologna anyone? Instead we baked a frozen pizza and will snack for supper.
We'd ordered dog food for Mags and picked that up. In doing so we learned that our next lock, Nickajack, is having power issues and may not be open for business tomorrow when we'd planned to move on up the river. Wayne called the lock and they are working on the problem now...think it will be fixed sometime tomorrow but not sure when. We're to call around 7 or 8 tomorrow morning for an update. Meanwhile, realizing that the lock is about 45 miles from Goose Pond, we decided to go on up near the lock (if not through) tomorrow and anchor below the lock if we can't get through. We have worked it out on paper to get "home" (Caney Creek Marina on Watts Bar Lake) this Friday!! Hook, nook or crook!
