We remembered to “fall back,” for an extra hour of sleep, with an overnight low of 47, and had a beautiful day for cruising. Here we pass Savannah, Tennessee, and the antebellum mansion where General Grant slept. Savannah is the “Catfish Capital of the World!”
We passed under Pittsburgh Landing, site of the Shiloh National Military Cemetery.
After transiting Pickwick Lock, we anchored in Dry Creek, just off Pickwick Lake. The lake is a wide spot in the Tennessee River, with beautiful shoreline foliage.
After leaving Pickwick Lake, it’s a quick trip of 7 nautical miles to Aqua Yacht Harbor, near Iuka, Mississippi, just a stone’s throw from Tennessee. We stayed for two nights, to change oil in both engines and the generator (43 quarts in all, every time!), and make a trip for supplies in the harbor’s courtesy van. We also stayed to watch the election returns on their cable TV hookup, as the surrounding area has little to no broadcast available. The next morning, we departed early, and joined the Tennessee-Tombigbee (Tenn-Tom) Waterway, which connects the Tennessee and Tombigbee Rivers. Starting at the Mississippi-Tennessee border to the north and running through northeast Mississippi, the Tenn-Tom extends to west-central Alabama.
The waterway is industrial in many places, and convenient not only for pleasure boaters, but for commerce, as witnessed by this pulp operation. Running east of and parallel to the Mississippi River, the Tenn-Tom shortens the southward trip by 144 miles and provides a less-congested river route to the Gulf of Mexico.
The waterway contains ten locks and dams, all prominently marked with red danger signs. The concept for the Tenn-Tom originated as early as 1770, but because of estimated costs, the project wasn’t authorized until two hundred years later, in 1971. After 12 years under construction and costing nearly $2 billion, the waterway was opened for commerce in January 1985. The system is five times longer with 3½ times greater lift than the Panama Canal, making it the largest civil works project ever undertaken by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Locks on the waterway are 600 by 100 feet, just barely large enough to hold the Mr. David and his raft of barges, here exiting Amory Lock.
At the Tom Bevill Lock and Dam, we spotted the 1926-vintage U.S. Snagboat Montgomery, the last steam-powered sternwheeler to ply the inland waterways of the south. For nearly six decades, the 108 foot-long Montgomery labored to keep seven of the South’s major rivers navigable by removing “snags” or obstructions in the waterway. Now, she’s a shore-bound museum.
We had come up behind Jackets II, a good-looking Krogen Express 52. This is the first Looper boat we had seen since Chicago. After conversing on the radio, we decided we could both fit in the small harbor next to the lock for the night’s anchorage, and a ready-to-go spot for tomorrow’s crack of dawn locking.
As the sun’s last rays painted the beautiful foliage on the shore, we invited new friends Steven and Charlotte from Jackets II over for cocktails. They are from Jacksonville, Florida.
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