Pickensville Anchorage

Day 187 … Tues, Oct 24, 2017 … 28.4 miles; 3:40 hours; 1 Lock

It was great fun seeing Firestorm, Gypsies Palace, One Eye Dog, Shell Belle, Thisle and Unruly again last night. They, plus a couple Loopers new to us, came into the marina yesterday mid afternoon. Most are leaving this morning; but a good chance to catch up with everyone. All the dogs got a chance to play together too, it’s been a while.

Once underway, GP, OED & Firestorm will travel faster and further than us … we will lose touch with them again until we get to Orange Beach, AL. 7 more days and we should be there … weather dependent of course.

One group of boat left the marina for the first lock early, about 7 am. Our group of OED, GP & Firestorm entered the lock about 8:30am.

Once out of the lock, OED, GP & Firestorm headed off into the sun.

Our anchorage tonight is only 2 miles above the next lock. Our 3 buddy boats went on through that lock and anchored south of us. Soulstice, a PDQ power catamaran that had anchored (below our first lock) in an oxbow that winds along downtown Columbus (this route is not used by tugs), caught up to us not far out of the first lock this morning and followed our slow cruise to the anchorage.

There are actually 5 or 6 docks that access the park. Lots of space for Cally to walk and play. There is a beach at one end, but too chilly for us to let her swim … we’d have to wait outside with her for hours to dry enough to come inside.

On our way back from the first shore dooty run, we stopped by to chat with Don & Lesli. We also coordinated heading out to the lock together in the am.

The more boats, the faster you get locked through. Lock masters like to have as many pleasure boats as possible go through at the same time. They will wait for boats that are a couple miles out so they don’t have to raise and lower the water twice. We should be the only two in the area tomorrow morning. So, if no commercial traffic, we will be good to go. If commercial tows are up or down bound and near … we will be held to wait for them to pass through first.

 Rip picked another great anchorage for us … wonder what tomorrow’s anchorage will be like??