Good Morning!!  We had a noisy night at our anchorage – crickets, cicadas, and birds kept us awake for seconds!  We didn’t feel or hear any other tows passing in front of us during the night.  A nice anchorage to be sure.

Leaving Bashi Creek

Early morning on the Black Warrior-Tombigbee Waterway

The mist turned to FOG briefly.

Wayne enthusiastically communicated for me to stop taking pictures and keep a look out for the Lorelie IV ahead of us and any tows.  Fine.  I put my camera down till …

Less than a hour later –

Reflections on the still river water

Bobby’s Fish Camp is actually the last place you can get fuel until you get to Mobile.  It isn’t a ‘marina’ but 150 feet of dock you can tie up to.   We kept on going southward.  Beautiful setting.

Bobby’s Fish Camp

As we approached our last lock going south on the rivers, you can see a Y with a nice little island in the middle.  Take the waterway to the right.  It doesn’t look it from here, but the left lane goes to the dam!  It just looks so calm.  Glad we have our chart plotter that lets us know which way to go!

Approaching Coffeeville Lock – going down 34 feet

A tow is coming out. We are ready to go in!

Tow going north out of the Coffeeville Lock

A small boat joined us in the lock.  They moved over to the huge ruler inside of the lock wall.  As we went down, they washed off the ruler.  How clever.

Cleaning the water level marker within the Coffeeville lock

All done!!

White heron on the floating bollard

Leaving Coffeeville Lock

We were on the lookout for live alligators ever since I heard they lived along the waterway.

Is there an alligator other there?

The fantastic crew of the Lorelei IV have keen eyes and quick reflexes to capture at least 2 alligators sunning themselves on the sandy beaches.  The trawler ahead of us, the Lorelei IV, stirred up the water and the alligator silently slid into the water.

Courtesy of the Lorelei IV

By the time we cruised by, this is all we saw…

Alligator already back under the water

Thank you to the crew of the Lorelie IV for providing us with photos of the alligator as they saw it.  Outstanding pictures!!  These are their pictures.

Alligator awakened by the waves

Great photographs of our friendly alligator moving back into the water.  Thank you Lorelei IV.  

Anchorage opposite the Sunflower Cutoff at MM 78.8

We kept a lookout for any strange water creatures along the sandy beach by our anchorage.  None seen.  We had plenty of water along this sandy beach.  The tows can see us as they round the bend north and south of us.

Looking for anything strange along the river bank…

At Sunflower Cutoff Anchorage – courtesy of Lorelei IV

Only two tows passed us during the night that we know of.  If there were more, they crept by slowly and didn’t interrupt our sleep.  Another calm and peaceful night.

Evening at the Sunflower Cutoff Anchorage