Whoda thunk? We like this anchoring thing. It was a bit of a rough night with anchor alarm and passing boats, but we woke up in the morning ready to go. The plan was to get to Bobby’s Fish Camp to fuel up after all the boats left that were tied up and rafted to its dock, then work our way down to our final lock of the river.

Owen hopped in the dinghy and untied us from the various trees in our anchorage. We pulled up a muddy and gross anchor and headed down the river a couple miles to Bobby’s. We called before we arrived and it sounded like we got someone out of bed. There was just one boat tied up, and we were grateful to Sniper’s Hide for helping us tie up our lines to the dilapidated dock. Really, Bob from Sniper’s Hide was essentially our dockhand. The guy from Bobby’s yelled down from the store and asked what kind of fuel we wanted and then yelled down again to tell us the pump was on. The diesel hose was just a little too short to reach us, so the three of us moved the first boat a few feet back so we could move our boat a few feet back in order for the hose to reach.

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We went up to pay, we saw that a new load of fuel was being delivered, and the price was about to go up. The worker said that this year every load of fuel has cost more than the load before.

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Owen called the Coffeeville lock from Bobby’s, and the lockmaster informed Owen it would be about an hour before we could get through. We chatted with our dockmate for a little while and with the guy in the store at Bobby’s until it was time to go.

We headed to the lock and were the only boat in it. The lockmaster said the lock was going to be closing for maintenance later in the day, and he asked if we knew if anyone was coming behind us. We knew our “dockhand” was going to be coming a little later, so the lockmaster said he was going to try to get in touch with him at Bobby’s Fish Camp so that he would know about the maintenance. We’ve heard sometimes that lockmasters can be annoyed by pleasure craft coming through, but that has not been our experience at all. They have been great with trying to get us all through.

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After that lock, we ran into more industrial traffic. We passed many tows in much curvier passageways. This is an area where it’s really important to stay within the channel (it’s ALWAYS important), but the buoys are almost all missing. The river is so narrow and curvy that tows have accidentally just taken them all out. We encountered a dredge that was clearing out a segment of the river. It must be a constant battle to keep that channel open for business with all the moving silt. The dredge needs a sloooooow passage, and we were warned many times that there was a dredge working downriver, and we should slow down for it. Between Loopers who had already cruised through, the Coffeeville Lockmaster, and a couple oncoming tows, we knew what to expect.

Eventually, we made it to our planned anchorage, which we shared with 8 other boats: the Tensaw River. We turned into the river, and there were already seven other boats there, all in a line. We made our way to the back of the line, did our figure eight investigation of the area, and dropped our anchor in about 15 feet of water. There was a slight current, but it allowed us to stay in place with just one anchor. No trees involved today!

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We slept quite peacefully, confident in our anchorage and with no traffic going by. Tomorrow: to Mobile!