Last of the river systems before the Gulf of Mexico

The last week and a few days we have been completing the last of the Black Warrior River between Dempolis and Mobile Bay.  We anchored for 9 nights straight.  Here are some of the memories and pictures of the last of the river systems.

 Again we post a picture of a tow with one barge.  As you can see only part of the barge has three full size cement trucks.  It is amazing what varying types of cargo is hauled on the river systems.

These are the pictures of the overflow from the Dam at the Coffeeville Lock.  It was a very foggy morning which was a first for this trip.  It was also our last lock for this leg of the journey.  We went through a total of 33 Locks so far.  The smallest in Chicago at 2 feet, the largest at Whitten which is 84 feet.

This was a daddy long legs spider that was sitting on the bollard at the Coffeeville Lock.  Remember the bollard is the moving post that we attach our lines to.  His antennas out if front were over 2 inches long.  The biggest daddy long legs either of us has seen.

These are two of the anchorages were stayed at.  There were few and far between places to anchor.  This were narrow cuts off the river and typically were about 40 to 45 feet wide.  Just enough room to turn our boat around.  We would drop two anchors, one at the front and one at the back (stern) of the boat.  Our friends would sometimes put the stern line on a tree instead of an anchor.  They were peaceful anchorages except for the owls at night.  Sometimes the screech owls were quite noisy, but only for short periods of time.

Here is my favorite guy at the anchorage, just checking to see if there were any fish.  No luck.

This is one of our dinghy rides which went back into one of the sloughs off the river.  Very isolated.

Here is one of my favorite types of wildlife.  Great sunny day to sit and get a little sun.   And then,-----------

Ready, set, and he jumped in the water as we had gotten too close.

These are the cypress trees with the spanish moss hanging on them.

Yikes, at the last anchorage as we approached we saw an alligator swimming along the shore.  No pictures as we thought it would be in Florida that we would encounter these guys.  However, my research tells me that they like the fresh water.   Hmmm, better be on the look out from now on.

The shoreline changes again as we are fairly close to Mobile Bay.  There is now some salt water and tides from the ocean.

These were a couple of the more industrial sites that started to appear as on the shore as we approached the Gulf of Mexico.

Here is the marsh along the river and yes, can you believe it?   That is a train going through it would appear the swampy area!

I kind of wonder if it ever floods this would definitely be a problem for the train.