Holiday VII (The leader of the "Great Escape" from Demopolis) 
Pat's at her post at the last lock (for now)
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This morning dawned bright and beautiful with much lighter winds than the 15 -25mph that were forecast. At 6 a.m. our association still advised all of us to stay put where we were and not to try moving down the river. We could see that the river was rising, so we decided to take this warning seriously and to take this advice.
Pat began working at the computer and George went for an early morning walk to assuage his dim mood over not being able to finally leave Demopolis today. However, at 7 a.m. George suddenly returned to the boat, threw open the door and said to Pat: "Come on, we're leaving NOW!" Pat quickly finished her email, changed out of her nightgown and into her clothes, and within 30 minutes we had pulled away from the dock.
What had happened is that George had the good fortune of meeting Richard Walker aboard "Holiday VII" at the marina office while on his walk. Richard was a veteran of some 27 trips on the Tombigbee Waterway, came highly recommended by the marina staff and other veteran "Loopers" as an expert on the river, and said that TODAY was the day for us to leave before the situation got worse.
Richard, himself, was about to leave (operating his beautiful 54' Jefferson solo) within a half hour, knew the best anchorages along the way, and in fact would be glad to lead us and "Freedom" down-river! God had sent us our guardian angel!!!
We traveled 117 miles in 8 1/2 hours and through our last two locks on the waterway. It was hard to believe, but we had locked through 103 LOCKS so far on our trip! The current on the river was going our way at a rate of about 3 knots, and there was debris that we had to avoid, but it was not nearly as bad as it could have been on this very winding river.
Pat began working at the computer and George went for an early morning walk to assuage his dim mood over not being able to finally leave Demopolis today. However, at 7 a.m. George suddenly returned to the boat, threw open the door and said to Pat: "Come on, we're leaving NOW!" Pat quickly finished her email, changed out of her nightgown and into her clothes, and within 30 minutes we had pulled away from the dock.
What had happened is that George had the good fortune of meeting Richard Walker aboard "Holiday VII" at the marina office while on his walk. Richard was a veteran of some 27 trips on the Tombigbee Waterway, came highly recommended by the marina staff and other veteran "Loopers" as an expert on the river, and said that TODAY was the day for us to leave before the situation got worse.
Richard, himself, was about to leave (operating his beautiful 54' Jefferson solo) within a half hour, knew the best anchorages along the way, and in fact would be glad to lead us and "Freedom" down-river! God had sent us our guardian angel!!!
We traveled 117 miles in 8 1/2 hours and through our last two locks on the waterway. It was hard to believe, but we had locked through 103 LOCKS so far on our trip! The current on the river was going our way at a rate of about 3 knots, and there was debris that we had to avoid, but it was not nearly as bad as it could have been on this very winding river.
Richard led us into the Lock 1 Cut-off which was an almost hidden, but very large anchorage where we safely dropped our anchor with "Freedom" rafted up to us. Normally the entrance depth here was about 5 feet, however, today it was over 30 feet as a result of the flooding caused by Ida. We were very tired, but grateful for our benefactor, and the speedy, comfortable trip he made possible for us. WE WERE FREE!
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