Friday, Nov. 16

Finally! On Thursday, the weather was predicted to begin cooperating on Friday. Though the cooler temps were to continue, the sun was supposed to shine (at least partially), with no precipitation. So about 9 boats were determined to leave Demopolis on Friday morning - a bigger group at 6AM, and a smaller group around 9AM. Of course, knowing Sue’s aversion to early mornings, we decided to leave with the early group (ha – fooled ya!) in order to make the 97 miles and one lock to the next dockage at Bobby’s Fish Camp. If you don’t get to Bobby’s, you have to anchor somewhere for the night. Apparently, Sue has a greater aversion to anchoring out in alligator-infested waters than to early mornings. (Actually, we haven’t seen a single alligator yet.)

We got up at 5AM, dressed, fed and walked the dog, and got to see a couple of morning stars in the pink clouds of dawn – beautiful! As the sun rose, so did the fog ... uh oh! Fog + run-off tree branches, logs and other things (someone saw a refrigerator floating in the cresting river a few days before) = no traveling by boat! Fortunately by 7AM, enough fog had burned off for our little procession of six boats to venture forth into the wild river! OK, not so wild, but booby-trapped with an occasional grouping of logs and branches – no refrigerators. We were able to enter the Demopolis lock immediately and be on our way for the day!  Eventually, the six boats shuffled into the correct order with the fasted in front and the slowest at the end resulting in arrival times at Bobby’s between 1:00 and 4:30pm. We were the 3rd to arrive at 3:30, thankful to have spent the day warm and dry in the sunshine.

Bobby’s Fish Camp, the only fuel-stop along the 216 miles between Demopolis and Mobile, is a popular stop for many Loopers and other south-bound boaters. Since the dock only holds three boats, we were able to tie up to it. If there are more than three boats, any others must raft-up to those tied to the dock. Three more boats arrived after us. As it turned out, the first boat had to leave before dawn, so no one was willing to raft to it. (Understandable!) One boat rafted to the second boat and the other two rafted to us.  The couple that rafted to us and the guy who rafted to them were all very nice and we were able to set up a step stool so they could get into our fish cockpit without stepping on Bo’s pee-mat (whew!), then onto our swim platform, and then to the dock.

Seven of us had dinner together in Bobby’s Fish Camp Restaurant.  Inside, it is full of old pictures and artifacts from Bobby Dahlberg’s life (passed away in 2011, it is now run by his daughter) and family plus many knick-knacks and a few antiques. Six people had the signature fried catfish, but Sue had the crab cakes. Everything was delicious. After the meal (it was 6:30pm, only 2-1/2 hours until Looper midnight!) we walked out into the darkness to see the lights of a tow pulled up to the shore! It was getting fueled by a tanker truck that met it there at Bobby’s. We all agreed to a time to de-raft and head out in the morning (7am – much to Sue’s liking!) and we called it a successful day.