Day 40: Monday, October 15, 2012

Underway: 8:20 am      Motor Off: 5:30 pm      Miles Traveled: 49     Stayed At: Anchor

Mile 449 to Mile 400: We pushed a little harder than we probably needed to today. We are heading down the divide cut today – a manmade channel on the first part of the Tenn-Tom. We started late because we needed ice and then had to make some phone calls while we still had service. Its hard to decide how far to go each day – especially when travel conditions are perfect. We have a lot of miles to go between here and Mobile. We can’t just pull over any old place along the river. It might be miles and hours between safe anchorages or marinas. Add in the uncertainty of the locks (we want to get through 3 of them today to make it to Midway Marina), wind and currents and you can drive yourself nuts trying to make a good decision.

One of the simple pleasures of our day is watching the chart pages flip by one or two at a time. The electronic charts for the Tenn-Tom cover about 3 miles each and, when we drive for a while without updating the chart on the Ipad, it automatically flips through one or two charts to show us our current location. We get a small sense of satisfaction when this happens (I did say it was a simple pleasure).

Cindy did a lot of driving today while I fixed a few things and tried to figure out our best strategy for the next few days. Instead of pushing the limit and trying to get to Midway Marina just before dark, pragmatism (and Cindy) won the day and we anchored in a nice sheltered cove above the Rankin Lock and enjoyed one of the best sunsets of the entire trip (it kept getting better and better so I ended up with more than 30 pictures by the time it finally set). We made a good choice this time.