Our Adventures on Sea Dream: Getting Into River Cruising

FRIDAY: An early start was needed to make a good anchorage in Old Lock #1 near Jackson, Alabama, by nightfall. The tree lined river hides everything… houses, cars and people.... we see only the occasional fishing boat and tows. Only a road atlas shows that we’ve passed a few very small towns. We met up with six southbound strings of barges and we overtook one string northbound. The river is wide and on-coming tow captains tell us whether to meet them on one whistle (port to port) or two whistles (starboard to starboard) as they maneuver their barges around the bends. The AIS (Automated Identification System) signal we receive on the helm screen alerts us to their positions several miles before our encounters. Thank goodness for that!! The tug captains are invariably very nice, maybe even pleased to encounter cruising trawlers. Rivers can be lonely for them.

We arrived at Old Lock #1 at 6:30pm and once again Fred rafted Young America to SeaDream. Linda invited us over for a wonderful spaghetti dinner and we discussed the day’s adventures and our pending lock transit on Saturday. Mike and I are learning a lot from Fred and Linda’s experience.

Our night was very peaceful with no current and a full moon seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

Are Those Love Bugs?

SATURDAY: We started early today. This section of river has few anchorages and the lock and barge traffic demand extra time. Traveling from mile marker 100 to marker 145 at Bashi Creek and anchoring mid-afternoon made for a short day. The only other anchorages were along the river’s edge and unprotected. The tree-lined creek looks entirely too narrow for us but, surprisingly, we fit…. barely…. and the 9’ depth is fine. No one was there so Mike glided SeaDream in and we anchored in the middle then eased back from the anchor. Fred followed us in, turned around, dropped his anchor then backed toward us to tie stern-to-stern. Young America became our stern anchor! The boats looked like two Love Bugs mating in the tree-lined creek. The early stop allowed for a welcome nap. In the evening, Fred and Linda walked across the swim platforms for dinner and more story telling.

The anchorage is extremely secluded, with no phone connection or WiFi. Vegetation is so dense that, unless you looked directly in, from another boat, you’d never know we were there. A few little fishing boats came in to see our “mating” boats and soon turned around as the water turned shallow and the low trees blocked the way. Birds sang in the trees, a cool breeze blew, few bugs and no mosquitos appeared. The creek was only about 15 feet wider than SeaDream’s length so spinning her around to leave was “interesting” but went smoothly. This is the life!!

"Young America" and "SeaDream" anchored stern to stern on Bashi Creek, Alabama.

SUNDAY and MONDAY: Dodging barges and navigating locks has become a daily event. Most of the time we’re enjoying the beautiful scenery along the river and plotting our course. Tombigbee riverbanks are a mix of sand beaches and then a cliff of stone. We pass paper mills here and there and other big industrial places but mostly it is just woods and wilderness. The Demopolis Lock ahs a huge dam and spillway, creating an area called the “Washing Machine”. We entered the lock on the starboard side and laid our line around a floating bollard for the 34 foot rise to the river’s next level. Just a short trip around the bend was Demopolis marina. Mike docked us to take on 553 gallons of fuel and then we moved over to the beautiful new Kingfisher Bay floating docks. The feature pump outs at the slips , very nice laundry facilities and a fabulous pool. We finished the day aboard Young America for Linda’s wonderful shrimp dinner.

Memorial Day became a workday as we cleaned the boat, bought groceries and did laundry. Ugh! We did have a great tour of a large tug boat, though, that was getting fuel at the dock. What a treat! Mike spied twin 16 cylinder diesels with 3800 horsepower! Each! In the evening I grilled steaks and had everyone to our boat. Since we worked so hard on the holiday everyone wanted to stay one more day and rest.

Sandy shore on the banks of the Tombigbee.


Lines from SeaDream near mid-ship wound onto sliding bollard on lock wall.

Louis in Captain's chair on the tug.

Captain Shane Vessell on the tug Larry Tilley fueling at Demopolis dock.

TUESDAY: On our rest day, Linda M. and I went to town and saw the sights of which there are few but we did visit the old 1830’s “Bluff Hall” house mansion. It still had 75% of the original furniture and is a real jewel of a time capsule. Demopolis also has a wonderful public library.

In the evening, we all swam the pool until sunset, ending a wonderful “free” day. Demopolis is not a metropolis but sure is a nice place to rest! Tomorrow we start early, cruising further north.