Pickwick Lake
SV Meshugga
Nicholas & Deidre Mace
Sun 8 Apr 2018 13:19
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> We’ve come to the end of the first section of our trip, the end of the Tenn-Tom Waterway at mile 450 of our 1300 miles to Chicago.
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> Tenn-Tom Trivia;
> Tenn-Tom is short for Tennessee-Tombigbee, two river systems joined by building a waterway and canal.
> It is one of only two man made structures which can be seen from an orbit of the Earth by the naked eye. One being the Great Wall of China, and the other the Tenn-Tom Divide Cut, the canal which joins the two rivers.
> The canal is 175 feet deep and 1000 feet wide and 5 times longer than the Panama Canal.
> It cost $2 billion and 12 years to build, and was completed in 1984.
> The average Lock holds 14 million gallons of water and takes about 8 minutes to fill or drain through 26 intake/drain structures. That’s about 2 million gallons a minute.
> To fill your bath at the same rate, would take 1/1000th of a second. That’s quite a Splash!
> There are alligators in the Tenn-Tom, and one was seen ‘Locking Through’ at Amory Lock. (No swimming for me...).
> Shark Teeth and Sea Shells are found on the banks of the rivers, as the whole area during the Cretaceous Period (pre Jurassic) was part of a shallow sea.
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> During our trip we saw that the lower reaches banks were non-existent with the water in between the trees, just as you see in Swamp movies. Slowly as we ascended through Locks, banks started and we now have tall 100 foot cliffs on the south side of lake Pickwick. Amazing scenery, mostly natural virgin forest. Tons of birds, mainly Buzzards and Fish Eagles. We traversed through ‘National Parks’ and once caught a glimpse of a deer which swam across the river behind us. We saw many squirrels, especially where houses had tamed the forest. Unfortunately our photos just don’t do justice to the wildlife and scenery we’ve been through, it was really beautiful and serene.
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> We have been through 12 Locks. The tallest being the Jamie Whitten Lock at 84 foot, and are Definitely no longer Lock Virgins.
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> Entering Jamie Whitten Lock
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> Up close and personal with the forward wall and upper doors of the Lock
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> Aft view to the Lock doors, where we entered.
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> The floating Bollards we tie to, ... to float up with.
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> Me in my ‘Locking Gear’. It’s mandatory to wear life jackets. Gloves just in case things go south. Nicholas stays on the Fly Bridge manning the Engine and Bow Thruster Controls to keep us from squashing up against and dragging up the wall.
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> The Tows have been extremely professional and courteous, and with our AIS it’s so easy for us to ‘see’ them and them ‘see’ us from miles away. The Tows generally push 8 barges, about 12 meters wide and 300 meters long, so going around corners on the Ox Bow bends is quite a challenge especially as we are 10 meters wide, so one of us has to stand off to allow space - usually we stand down as they are Commercial.
> Fun Fact: A Tow with 8 barges is equal to 480 truck loads, which would take up 20 miles of road way.
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> It has been Far colder than we expected with average daytime temperatures around 14 deg C. Most mornings are south of 10 deg, the worst a few days ago it was only 4 deg inside at 8am, with ice outside after an extremely cold night. Jeans, sweaters, jackets and beanies are now every day wear - so much for the Caribbean Island 🌴 Cruiser lifestyle of bikinis I had envisaged.
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> Ten to Eight in the morning. Barometer up from 998n to a whopping 1002 (sic) and temperature an amazing whole 4 Deg C INSID. LOL. It’s COLD.
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> Out and ready for out next day in USA Spring..
> Nicholas with a slab of ice from our boom.
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> However spring has started, and many trees are in blossom, but we’re definitely looking forward to warmer weather and summer.
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> Entering the Tennessee River, we should turn Left to head to Chicago, however we have 10 days in the bank, so we are heading Right about 40 miles up the Tennessee River to a small town called Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
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> Fill you in on that adventure in my next blog. ❤️