Location: Still in Aqua Yacht Harbor Marina, Iuka, Mississippi

We just learned that our muffler replacement cannot be completed until Monday. So we are stuck for now. We'll edit this positing with any new information as it develops.

Last night we did take the courtesy car to check out the local area. After driving only one mile from the Marina we saw a sign "Welcome to Tennessee" so we are getting closer. We saw what looked like a good BBQ Rib joint so we stopped and had dinner.

Today is Mary's birthday but it is unfortunately marked by the passing of our dear friend Barbara Crisman in Florida. Barbara was Mary's roommate for many years before we married. She was much more than a good friend, she was family, was deeply loved and will remain in our hearts forever.

View Larger MapLocation: 34 59 27.00 N, 88 14 51.00 W – Aqua Yacht Harbor Marina, Iuka, Mississippi, Tenn-Tom 448.7

Our passage today was 54 miles on a relatively cool day into stiff north winds. We left Midway Marina with a companion vessel owned by a couple who wintered at Midway. They are moving their home port to the Knoxville area and perhaps Fort Loudon Marina. They have been living aboard for many years and recently bought a condo in Cape Coral, FL at a bargain price. They intend to summer on their boat and winter in Florida. We had 3 locks to transit in the morning. The first two had lifts of 30 ft. The third lock was a whopper at 84 ft. We have 6 remaining locks on the Tennessee River and one of them, the Wilson lock, has an even greater lift than we just did today. We can’t wait!

Take a look at the photo inside the Fulton lock looking to our stern at the boat behind us. To provide perspective, that boat is a 40 Ft Present trawler. Those lock doors are absolutely huge. The photos just don’t do this gigantic hole in the water full justice.

Now for some statistics: As of today we have travelled 1067 miles since leaving Punta Gorda. We have run the main engines for 114 hours for an average speed of 9 miles per hour. We have consumed 951 gallons of diesel fuel producing a calculated fuel burn of 8.34 gph or 1.12 mpg.

The scenery was varied from the relatively narrow confines of the divide cut (where they dug more dirt than the Panama Canal) to the wide expanse of Bay Springs Lake. The terrain has changed from the flat land in the south to the beginnings of hills. See the photo taken in the divide cut with the hill in the distance.

Aqua Yacht Harbor Marina was on our original float plan and we made arrangements to receive our mail and replace the generator’s muffler. Both our mail and the new muffler arrived today. Some work on the muffler was done today and it should be completed tomorrow. Diesel at the marina was $2.59 /gal. and overnight tie-up is $1.25 /ft.

View Larger MapLocation: 34 17 50.00 N, 88 25 11.00 W Midway Marina, Fulton, Mississippi

We made a last minute decision to turn into the marina. We had planned to anchor but the anchorage was open and exposed and we had a 10 mph wind from the west. For a $1 /ft we opted for a secure tie-up. Actually the Marina is a nice setup. The dock master Pat met us on the tie-up dock, helped with the lines and electrical hookup. Another factor in the decision is that we have a leaking muffler on the generator. Part of the work done yesterday was to reduce the flow to a trickle but the muffler needs to be replaced, Tom found the input nipple on the muffler was wrapped with black electrical tape so the previous owner must have had a problem. It looked like the nipple could have been broken off and was jury-rigged by sliding in a piece of PVC and wrapping it with tape. It worked for the 10 years we have owned the boat but the muffler will be replaced tomorrow. Tom made arrangements for the replacement at the next marina.

The passage today was about 60 miles and we went through 4 locks with lifts of 27, 25, 30 and 25 ft. We had one small mishap in the Fulton lock. The combination of wind and swirling currents in the lock frustrated Tom’s attempts to get close enough to the bollard so Mary could lasso it. It did not go well and Tom wrinkled about a foot of the stainless rub rail at the starboard aft rail. It’s not a big deal but Tom was not happy. He can fix it so it’s not a problem.


We checked out the marina and Tom found his first rocking chair. He then moved from one rocking chair to the next as we roamed around the marina. It’s a nice setup. They have a very nice boaters lounge with most of the comforts of home. They have a bright clean laundry with 4 washers and 4 dryers. They also have a hot tub deck with two hot tubs for boaters. There is also a restaurant at the marina with fried catfish as their specialty. We’ve had our fill of catfish for now so we settled in for the night and had Mary’s chili over pasta.

Location: Still in Waverly, Marina, WestPoint, Mississippi

We decided to stay another day to do some work on the generator. The output voltage on the generator has been varying randomly in a range of about 30 volts. There are multiple possible reasons so we thought that we would track the problem down. Tom hates to work on the generator because it is enclosed in a sound shield that has to be dismantled before any work can be done. Tom did find and tightened the main ground connection and then proceeded to check and tighten all other connections. While working on that problem he noticed that a hose clamp on the raw water side of the heat exchanger was missing (found broken) and raw water was leaking into the bilge. He replaced the hose clamp and noticed an even larger leak at the generator's exhaust connection to the water lift muffler. Tom disconnected the exhaust hose, inspected the hose and the nipple on the muffler. The conclusion was that the hose was a little too large for the nipple so Tom wrapped tape around the nipple and then reattached the exhaust hose which fixed the leak. In all Tom spent 5hours in and out of the bilge and sprawled over the generator. It is all part of the joys of owning a boat. We'll be leaving the dock in the morning looking to complete another 50 - 60 miles.

This has been a nice out of the way marina. They have an outdoor bar and lounge area where they get a lot of local business. We spent some time at the bar talking with many of their regulars. The folks here are down to earth and very friendly. This was a good place to stop. If you're planning a trip to this area stop in and say hello to Cliff and Rita.

View Larger MapLocation: 33 34 39.50 N, 88 29 39.50 W – Waverly Marina, WestPoint, Mississippi

We reluctantly left our anchorage this morning for another 50 mile passage taking us in and out of Alabama and Mississippi. There were lots to see along the shoreline as we moved from forest to developed areas. The river does not wander north of Demopolis as much as it did to the south. The shoreline has more development ranging from shacks to beautiful homes. In some areas conventional homes are the norm while log homes appear in other areas. Water depths are not as deep as we saw in first half of the Tenn-Tom. Today we saw a lot of areas with 10 -15 ft of water. We’re use to thin water with our years on the Gulf side of Florida so we were quite comfortable. There river is well marked all along its path with daymarks along the shoreline and also conventional red nuns and green cans floating in the current.

Today we did the Bevill and Stennis locks. Both have a 27 ft. vertical lift and again the mechanics are the same as the previous locks. The lock-masters prefer that you call on 16 a couple of miles in advance so they can plan their operations. Their working channel is 14 and once you move to the working channel they want you to standby on 14 until you leave the lock. We have now gone through 5 locks and in each case the lock-masters were helpful and polite. They also try to coordinate multiple lock transits and it helps them to know if you intend to transit the next lock. The lock-masters apparently communicate between locks to help coordinate traffic.


When we passed the Bevill lock we saw the Snagboat Montgomery on display along the shoreline. The US Montgomery sternwheeler was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989. She was built in 1926 and worked the rivers until 1982. You can learn more by clicking on www.montgomery.sam.usace.army.mil/ When we were approaching the Stennis lock we saw this Corps of Engineers dredge at work. This is the first working dredge we’ve seen and we have traveled 338 miles since Mobile. In one of the wilderness areas we saw our first Bald Eagle. We were able to use the binoculars and we could see the bird had a fish in it’s talons and was heading for a perch in the trees. We tried to get some photos but we were not quick enough.

The Waverly Marina at mile 338.7 is out of the way and not visible from the river. There is a grain loading port in the river and the marina is behind the grain port on a cutoff. We chose this marina (instead of Columbus Marina) because of a lower fuel price. The price is $2.25 /gal. and the bonus was the overnight tie-up rate was $0.75 /ft. It is a simple marina as you can see from the Satellite photo with a turnaround basin where some live-aboard houseboats are located. Transients tie up along the entrance channel which also serves as the fuel dock. 30 and 50 amp power is available. For the $0.75 /ft. they also offer a courtesy car. We took the car and drove first to the Waverly Mansion. Unfortunately they were closed but you can learn more by clicking http://www.wpnet.org/waverley_mansion.htm We then drove into Columbus, Mississippi with a recommendation from Rita the Marina manager to find Rubin’s Catfish and Steak restaurant. We both ordered a 10 oz ribeye and two catfish filets. Dinner was good and it was well worth the 6 mile drive.

View Larger MapLocation: 33 02 46.00 N, 88 13 27.00 W Anchorage, Cochrane Cutoff

We left Demopolis aware of the forecast but uncertain of the weather. We stayed 3 nights in Demopolis Yacht basin in miserable weather that gave us time to rest, do a little routine maintenance and reflect on our past 22 days of travel. It was time to move on. We left about 7:30 AM heading to an anchorage about 54 miles further north. This section of the waterway has more variety along the shoreline.
There is still a lot of forest but we see more houses and other development. Running the river today was like running an obstacle course. The river was loaded with floating debris. Mother Nature was throwing a lot of wood at us and while we did our best to dodge the sticks and logs we couldn’t see them all. We did chop a few of the smaller ones but thankfully we missed the big ones.

There was more tow traffic today than we have seen in the past. The skippers are very friendly. When approaching a tow in either direction we call the skipper and ask what side they want us to pass. They will tell us one whistle or two whistles meaning to the right or to the left. They also prefer that we don’t pass on the turns because they may take up most of the river to get around the bend.


Every day we have a lock to go through. Today we went through the Heflin Lock for a 36 ft. vertical lift. All the locks use the same floating bollard system and today’s lift was without incident. Life jackets are required when in the locks. Notice Mary’s inflatable vest as she helps keep Persistence off the wall.

Our anchorage was just a couple of miles past the Lock. We had reports that the entrance to the anchorage may be silted in so we gingerly probed a few spots with the bow and put her in the mud on both attempts. We gave up and immediately came up with a plan B about 18 miles further north at mile 287.4. Cochrane Cutoff is one of the many remnants of the old river path. When they dug the waterway they “cutoff” many of the zigs and zags as the river turns to produce the bows as seen in the satellite photo. The entrance to the cutoff is 10 ft and quickly rises to 8 ft and then varies between 6 and 8 ft to our anchorage. There is a light current in the cutoff but that keeps us away from the river banks.
Mary likes this quiet spot and sat on the bow for quite a while. A visitor stopped by to visit with Mary. The butterfly stayed with Mary, flew around a little but would return to Mary to rest. As you can see from the photo we have a nice afternoon, some sun and blue sky and an absolutely beautiful place to spend the night.

Coordinate format for pasting into Google Earth.
Thanks to Ron Levis for his help with determining a compatible format that you can copy and paste into Google Earth. The format we will use going forward will be 32 31 36.00 N, 87 50 20.00 W Since we are now providing a satellite image for every location this cut and paste format may be redundant but it will provide another option to see where we are.