Gainesville AL to Demopolis AL

White Cliffs

Of Epes AL
Today started out like many other days in an Anchorage in a quiet place.   At least today the temperatures aren't starting out freezing.  I think our low was 49 last night.  We are regularly seeing days in the high 70s or low '80s now.   That is most excellent.... 

The White cliffs of Epes are a unique landmark that most people remember when doing the great loop.  The material is a chalkie gypsum type material.   Most of the time the cliffs are sand or gray rock down here but not in this specific area.  This rock is from a specific geological age and I'm guessing it must have had a lot of calcium in whatever decayed and was turned into this rock.  It is very much like what you see in a gypsum mine at home.  

Before I go any further I have to say something.  We have been traveling with a buddy boat for days and weeks since Hammond Indiana.  Dan and Robin on Horizon Bound have done the loop once and are on their second time around and they are fellow michiganders although I'm not sure they ever want to live in Michigan again.  :). 

You will often see their boat in my blog.  This is because it's difficult to take a picture of your own boat from inside your boat...  

Dan and Robin have been immensely helpful for us as we meandered through these rivers south.   We appreciate all they've done for us.   I don't appreciate that Robin beat me to death at Euchre.  (And Katie, yes Katie) 

Speaking of Robin, she was nice enough to forward some pictures of our boat going past the White cliffs so you can see a bit of perspective on how big they are.  

Our trip today was fairly short and we arrived in Demopolis Alabama.  This gave us a chance to fill up with water, diesel and get our pump out.  It also let us get groceries, do laundry and do some boat maintenance.  Today was my first on the road oil change.  It went mostly without huge issue..  I'm thankful of that because huge issues when you're on water can get really expensive really fast.  I think we're good and we have new oil and filters on our generator and both of our main engines.  Disposing of the oil, on the other hand, got a little bit complicated.  Apparently this marina doesn't take the oil so they sent me out onto the main channel with the dingy to go over where the tugboats do the oil changes.  I was very careful not to spill oil or get the containers on the dingy.  What I didn't realize was that everywhere I walked on the tugboat property there was oil on the ground.  It ended up in the dingy on the seats and just about everywhere before I realized it was going on.   Our dinghy is no longer perfect...  It was going to happen.... And most of it cleaned up okay except one seat cover..

Well today was a short trip it was very busy.  We had at one point four tugboats in 15 minutes to either pass coming or going.  Tugboats are wide and take up most of the channel.  In tight turns they take up all of the channel in today there were lots of tight turns.  We even had to do some sitting and waiting so that tugboats could get around the corner and out of our way before we could go through.  
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Tomorrow we will do our second to last lock on the river system.  It's just around the corner (a couple miles down).  There are a ton of boats here that want to go early so we will probably break a record for the number of boats in a lock at 6:00 a.m....  that is yet to be determined though...  

All in all a successful day.  I'm ready for rest..


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