We left around 7:30 am again with Geronimo behind us. Their boat was too deep (7 ‘ keel) to be able to get into the marina so they anchored and we haven’t met them yet. This is the back side of a lock. Until recently the walls inside of the locks were too tall to be able to see this. I thought it was kind of interesting.
It started out clear but around 8 am really thick fog set in. Fortunately we have radar to guide us. Geronimo doesn’t so they were following us pretty closely. At one point they asked us by radio to slow down a bit so they could catch up. It was really fortunate for us that they did because right after we slowed down we ran aground. The lock was right in front of us and based on radar (Dave couldn’t actually see ANYTHING) Dave thought he was supposed to go to the right of the wall but it turns out he should have gone left. Once you get out of the channel on the Tenn-Tom it gets shallow fast and we were in maybe 3 feet of water (we draw 5 ½). Because we had slowed down so much we actually got away from that unscathed. The fog lifted the second after we hit, we were able to back out and don’t appear to have any damage.
Then the fog cleared and we came upon a ton of debris for about 35 miles. This was really slow going, there are some huge logs in the debris that could really do some damage to the boat.
Then we had fog and debris, although less of both than before. This was at 2 pm! Geronimo pulled ahead of us in one of the locks, so they were leading for a while. When this set in they asked us to go in front of them, which we did. This fog was low so we could actually see pretty well from the upper deck. We arrived at the marina around 4:00, and after cleaning up we met Geronimo (aka Nanette and Bruno) at the bar next door for a drink. They just bought their boat in Michigan and are bringing it to their home in Pensacola Fla. Apparently they were traveling through ice up on Lake Michigan. I won’t complain about the cold again.
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