The Tenn-Tom Waterway

The Tenn-Tom (the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway) is a man-made canal connecting the Tennessee and Tombigbee Rivers. starting at Yellow River, only a few miles past the Pickwick Lock. It is 234 miles long (is over five times longer and has a total lift 3.5 times greater than the Panama Canal). This mammoth undertaking moved more earth than was moved in the construction of the Panama Canal, and is relatively unknown throughout the U.S. to the general public. Construction began in 1972 and was completed in December, 1984 at a cost of nearly $2 billion. The Tenn-Tom ends at Demopolis, where it joins the Tombigbee River at the southern end. From this point it is 217 miles to Mobile, AL.

Our first anchorage was just a few miles down the waterway behind Goat Island, aptly named. The goats are all male, (big long beards, horns and sporting very large genitalia!) that live on the island. The local boaters come by to feed them.

 

Off the next morning for our trip down the Tenn-Tom, no real current to speak of and the waterway is narrow and straight.

We've never seen this before, herons sitting on the marker buoys - usually they are feeding along the shoreline.

Our first lock down is a whopper: the Whitten Lock drops us 84 feet (that is as tall as an eight story building)! This is the highest lock we have encountered on the entire trip; in fact this is the third largest lift east of the Mississippi. Locking down seems to be much easier than going up - just drive in, pick a floating bollard about half way in the lock, throw a mid-ship line over the bollard and tie it off. We were the only ones in the lock that morning.

We radio the lock tender that we are secure, he closes the gates and whoosh, down we go at an incredible rate, but very smoothly. The bollard floats down as the water recedes and we just hang on.

The lock just dumped 46 million gallons of water into the Tenn-Tom, just for us!

There is a surprising amount of commercial activity along the waterway. This outfit grinds up trees for mulch and then loads the mulch into barges. Big operation.

Arrived mid-afternoon at Midway Marina, topped off the fuel tanks ($2.99 a gallon!) and then took their loaner car into town, Fulton, for some supplies. We also toured the Jamie Whitten Historic Museum (the lock was named after him, one of the longest serving Representatives in the US House, 53 years).

Off the next morning through more locks. At the first one we got swarmed by Mayflies which were hanging on the lock wall in the shade and decided to go for a ride with us. What a mess!

We are trying to make some time on the waterway and, in reality, there are few marinas or places to anchor. We went through five locks that day and dropped over 130'. We stopped early evening at a creek that wound up toward the town of Columbus and found an anchorage past some smaller boats. The name on this one was pretty cute: "Cirrhosis of the River".

At one of the locks there was a museum and this old boat on display. It is the last steam-powered, paddle-wheel driven "snagboat" in existence. For something like 60 years this boat worked the many waterways, cleaning up snags and logs. Unfortunately, there was no dock to tie up to or we have stopped.

And as we are motoring along what do we see on the bank? A telephone booth! Wonder if it works? The locals seem to have a sense of humor!

Made it to a nice anchorage just below the Heflin Lock in an "oxbow" (a sharp curve) that was fed by the dam. Nice quiet spot and the current kept us straight as an arrow. We were later joined by "Latitude Adjustment", a sailboat (without a mast) that is also headed for Mobile. We had first met them at Midway Marina.

We have had some spectacular sights such as these chalk cliffs which date back to the same time as the White Cliffs of Dover.

And the weather has been almost perfect, cool nights and warm days with just a little wind.

We had been traveling with "Latitude Adjustment" and another fast boat "Good Old Girl" off and on for the past several days and we all ended up at the same marina in Demopolis, the official end of the Tenn-Tom waterway.

We first stopped for some diesel at the fuel dock which services the river tugboats. We took on 62 gallons while the tug opposite us took on 21,000 gallons! Moved over to the marina, Kingfisher, very nice setup. We borrowed their loaner cars and all six of us went out for dinner at one of the local restaurants.

We all left at 7:00 to get through the Demopolis lock together, early morning mist from the dam.

and then "Good Old Girl" took off and left us far behind. We are slightly faster than the sailboat and eventually left them behind as well.

As we go through the locking process it is neat to see the herons and egrets take advantage of the locks. These guys wait until the doors close and then go after the fish that squirt through the gaps in the doors.

We anchored just off the channel in a bight that protected us from the barges, nice peaceful spot except for one barge at 4:30 AM that rolled us back and forth as the wake bounced back and forth between the sides of the channel.

That was one of the longest mileage days we have had in a long time, 91.8 miles and almost 11 hours of motoring. Up at 6:30 and off we go. Past Bobbie's Fish Camp - one of the places some folks think is "must stop" and others think it is a waste of time.

Another long day of motoring down the waterway with perfect weather.

Made 87.6 miles to an anchorage up the Tensaw River, very peaceful. The next morning we started to get into civilization. Coal fired power plants and more barge traffic.

We passed through our last lock and are now at sea level. We have gone through 109 locks on this trip (up & down) and were at our highest point above sea level at Balsam Lake on the Trent-Severn in Ontario, at 841 feet.

Now we are in salt water and welcome to Mobile! It's been a long time since we saw tall buildings, lots of docks with large transport and container ships.

And even naval vessels in dry docks.

We escape the downtown area and get out into the northern section of Mobile Bay with shrimping boats and, good heavens, waves!

A long 15 miles down the shipping lane and into a small channel into Dog River and the marina. We are tired. It started spitting rain as we went in the small channel and was raining buckets by the time we tied up at the dock. We got 8 inches of rain that night. Needless to say, we couldn't see the eclipse with the stormy weather.

We will spend several nights here because the weather forecast is poor and we need a bit of a break from the long days of motoring.