Days 125 & 126 – anchorage at Sumter Landing to Kingfisher Bay Marina, Demopolis, AL - November 8-9, 2011

We enjoyed a beautiful night at our anchorage at Sumter Landing.  This is definitely a place we’d stop to anchor again, although we suspect it could be busy during the summer and perhaps the fall weekends as there is a boat ramp and small campground in the embayment.  However since we were there on a weekday in the fall it was very quiet.

The four boats anchored at Sumter Landing departed this morning at 7:30am after a call to the lockmaster at the Gainsville/Heflin Lock revealed that we could lock through between a downbound tow (who was just finishing his lock down) and an upbound tow that hadn’t arrive at the lock yet.  We had one additional vessel join us in the lock (see pictures below).  It is a small raft called Slanty Shanty that is traveling down the river toward Mobile.  We have passed them a couple of times in the past few days and heard portions of their story from other Loopers.  We talk about the adventure they are having, but I remind myself that what we are doing is an adventure as well; we just have more of the comforts of home.

We traveled past the white cliffs of Epes today.  They are amazing to see and I hope some of the photographs do them justice.  We also passed the halfway point of the Tenn-Tom Waterway – halfway between the Tennessee River where it starts and Mobile Bay where it ends.

We are planning to spend two nights here at the Kingfisher Bay Marina (next to and owned by the same people as the Demopolis Yacht Basin) in Demopolis, AL.  The weather tomorrow is forecasted to be rainy and cold – weather we try to avoid traveling in.

            Miles: 46.7      Bridges: 4        Locks: 1

the Slanty Shanty entering the Gainsville/Heflin Lock

some of the trees along the bank have an amazing root structure

a close-up of those awesome roots

The fabulous white cliffs we got to experience today