COUNCE, TN to SMITHVILLE, MS Anchorage / Sunday, October 16 (day 269)

Admiral's Log:     7:20 am, 10/16/16
                         Air Temp:   62     Water Temp:   70
                        Winds:   2 mph
                       Speed:   9.2 mph

We will be getting up early for a few days so we can make the locks. So far it's worked pretty well (knock wood). The locks only open every 2 hours on the weekends, so timing was important. We were joined by Sweet T, Jill Kristy and Copper Penny. Today we entered the Divide Cut or the "Ditch" which is the start of the Tennessee Tom Bigbee Waterway or TennTom for short.

Grand Harbor Marina in Counce Tennessee. The office is in TN but the marina is in Mississippi.
  Red line is convergence of Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee state lines.

Entering the "Ditch"

More river volley ball?

We entered the Whitten Lock which is an 84 foot drop (all the locks will be descending from now on to Mobile Bay). It is the 4th highest in the nation and 3rd highest east of the Mississippi River. 

Rowe Boat in the Whitten Lock

The ball girl.

Jill Kristy at the top of Whitten Lock

After the 84 foot drop.

We had a total of 3 locks today; including the Whitten Lock, there was the Montgomery Lock with a 30 foot drop and the Fulton with a 25 foot drop, with a total drop of 169 feet for the day. We only went 73 miles but it took over 10 hours because of the wait time at the locks. We dropped anchor at almost 6pm across from Smithville Marina. We lost Sweet T and 2 other boats to Midway Marina a few miles back. 

Not a bad camping spot.

Noodle fishing! Hooks attached to catch catfish.

Wild turkeys along the river bank.

So many eagles, just love them!

The bugs were terrible!  So we zipped up and turned on the generator for some AC. I fixed a chicken stir fry for dinner and we went to be pretty early since we had another early morning planned.