Day 45

Today is a beautiful day. The sun is shining, the air is warm, and the river is calm. Two boats left today, southbound. The river level is dropping and people seem to feel that it is safe enough to travel. These boats have radar and GPS, so even in the high water and the fog; they can detect the channel and buoys, if they still happen to be there. We don’t have either of those. Today Tabbie went into town to talk to the banks and other business owners about some employment. She went into all three banks who were very happy to take her resume, however all said the same thing, noone is hiring, they have cut their banking hours and froze salaries. It was the same across each bank. Not much happens in this sleepy little town after the Christmas on the River festival. She stopped into a few other businesses who said that most places already have their seasonal help in place, and that after the holidays, business drops off. But everyone asked for my number and said that they would keep an ear open if they heard of anything. There were business that were hiring on the outside of town, but Tabbie needed something close to the marina, within 5 miles, since she would be biking to and from work. So after all was said and done, the consensus was that we would leave and try to make it to Mobile within the next few days. Other boaters around the dock were planning on leaving tomorrow, including the other boater from MN. Maybe Mobile would provide us with some more opportunity. The price was right to stay here, but the job market very poor.

Sheila from Trust Me, our neighbor boat, was assembling a dock party on her boat as a kind of send of. They are also leaving but will wait until Saturday to go. The party starts at 5 with each boat bringing an appetizer and our own drink. We brought the remaining of our brownies that we made the other day. (So did the other fellow MN boater-we must like our chocolate in MN) It was actually quite fun. We learned a lot about other peoples experiences, how they named their boat, other points of interest, and where they are headed or what their plans were. We were at least 25 years younger than the youngest person there, but it was fun, nonetheless. We felt very taken care of. We also got lots of information on the lay out of Mobile, which is not user friendly to a bike rider. It seems that most of the land adjoining the river is very industrial and the city is about 10 miles inland. It is not set-up on the river like St Paul or St Louis is. This was disheartening is a way, but helped us decided that in fact we should keep going and shoot for Florida. Tabbie spent part of the day calling Marinas east of Pensacola, and it seems that they are in better shape to take in Long Term dockage for pleasure craft. Panama City has some availability and west of there it was pretty much open. They become pricey and some require 12-month leases, but at least we know that they are open. There were several in Pensacola that Tabbie called that were completely closed to all boaters; no gas, electricity, or dockage. Even their current residents were anchoring out so that they could repair the docks. This information initially influenced us to think about staying in Demopolis, but since some marina will take a transient for up to a week, it looks like we could make it through.

So we began preparing for our departure and informed the other boaters who kind of took us under their wing. Some were leaving with us; others would be leaving at the end of the week. We also began cleaning the boat thoroughly and did the rest of our laundry. Grant had scrubbed the back deck and laid the carpet down. It made the boat look so nice. Tabbie vacuumed and washed the inside down. It is amazing how quickly this small space becomes cluttered and dirty. It takes only a matter of hours. We finished all of our chores at about 11 o’clock and went to bed. The other boaters would be getting up at 5:30 to leave at about 6. We wanted to do the same if there was no fog. It would be our longest day yet with 98 miles to go. The good thing that would be working with us is that the river would give us an extra 3.5 knots an hour. So hopefully we won’t have to drive at night. We plan on going to a place called Bobby’s Fish camp, which is not a marina, but instead, a restaurant and gas station. However, they are allowing boats to tie up and dock at night for safety. Some are even rafting to each other. Meaning that a boat will tie up to the dock and then another boat will tie to the boat. If the dock space becomes filled, it is either rafting, or finding a place to anchor. However, with the river so high, anchoring can become dangerous.