Our Great Loop Adventure

On Saturday, October 19th we left the Florence Harbor with Perfect Day. We would buddy boat with them until we arrived at Grand Harbor because they had only one working engine. We spent Saturday and Sunday at Grand Harbor which is on the Yellow Creek. Yellow Creek is the beginning of the Divide Cut of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway (Tenn-Tom for short). The Tenn-Tom was built to connect the Tennessee and Tombigbee Rivers. Construction began in 1972 and was completed in 1984 at the cost of 2 billion dollars. The system is five times longer than the Panama Canal, 307 million cubic yards of dirt was removed, 2.2 million cubic yards of concrete was poured, and 33,000 tons of steel was used. There are 10 locks to breach the 412 ft. difference between the Tennessee River and Mobile Bay. On Monday Oct. 21st we entered the Divide Cut which is 27 miles long and only 280 feet wide. When this section was first built it looked like a strip mine, but mother nature has now provided trees and foliage to give a beautiful natural setting. The divide cut ends at Bay Springs Lake where we docked at Bay Springs Marina. We stayed Monday and Tuesday so we could have some routine engine maintenance done. On Wednesday we left at 8:00am to enter our first lock (Whitten) of the day. In the lock with us were Journey, Harmony, Priorities, and Miss GG. We formed a convoy and entered the second part of the Tenn-Tom called the Canal Section. This is series of five locks and dams which form five lakes. The purpose of this section was to minimize the environmental impact of the waterway. The group of loopers locked through all five locks and arrived at the Aberdeen Marina at 5:45pm just before dark. It was a long day. But we were all up bright and early to leave Aberdeen behind and locked through the Aberdeen Lock by 9:40. We are now in the last part of the waterway named the River Section. We had a short run to Columbus, Mississippi and we all arrived at the Columbus Marina at 12:30. In the late afternoon SaSea Sally arrived towing a pontoon boat which broke down. They towed it through two locks. There are good samaritans in the world. The loopers met at Summer Recess for docktails and eight of us went to Harvey's for a delicious well deserved dinner. We decided to stay in Columbus another day. We bid farewell to Journey and Harmony as they headed out early this morning. There is a steady stream of jets flying over us because the Columbus Air Force Base is a training center for jet pilots. We took advantage of the courtesy car to go into downtown Columbus. We started at the visitor center located in the childhood home of the American playwrigtht, Tennessee Williams. He was born in Columbus in 19ll. We then took a driving tour to see many of the many historic homes in Columbus. We also visited the campus of Columbus Mississippi University for women. This university is the first public university for women in America established in 1884. It is now a coeducational facility. Many of the buildings on this campus have historic designations. We ended our morning at a "coffee shop." I had a pumpkin spice latte. (Yummy!)