The mechanics of “movin’ on” on the Tom-Bigbee Waterway and the Black Warrior River involve group travel. Much of those waterways are made up of dams and pools. The locks allow for upbound and downbound vessel traffic. Since each lock chamber is 110’ wide, 600’ long and 32’ deep, the fill and dump takes lots of water (15,840,000 gallons.) and a fair amount of time ( 20-30 minutes). For the past 237 miles we have followed a protocal for passing through the 10 locks that keeps the lockmasters happy. I have borrowed a word from the RV world and call it “caravaning”. The lead boat captain phones the lock early in the morning to report the number of boats traveling together that day... and asks about the availability of the locks. Tugs and tows have priority over pleasure craft. If the lockmaster can get a group of pleasure boats locked through before the commercial traffic arrives, he will tell the lead boat captain to come right along with his group. If the commercial traffic’s arrival is imminent, he will tell the lead boat captain to keep the group in the marina or anchorage for 2 hours or so and then come along. Once it’s time to go, we proceed single file along the waterway and into the lock’s chamber. Contact with the lockmaster, at this point, is made over the VHF radio. With five floating bollards (attachment points) on each side of the chamber, we choose a starboard or portside tie and secure ourselves to a midships cleat on our boat. Our typical group size has been 4 or 5. The one day that we traveled with 10 others, some of us rafted together. We end some days in a marina; others on anchor. Lately we have been traveling from dawn to dusk. This schedule creates havoc with our naptime! To be ready for the early departure each day, we have to be in bed by 7:30 each night. Oh, and did I mention that just around the next bend of the river may be the view that takes our breath away? Ah, yes!
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| Typical flow of the river...twists and turns |
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| The Dolly Parton Bridge! |
Created by Darcy O Campbell
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