Saturday, October 1, 2011 – Three Rivers Lake, mile 63.8 on the Tombigbee

 
 
 It was another beautiful sunny day with temperatures in the upper 70’s and very light breezes. Since there were so many bass boats zipping past us going back into the little lakes and sloughs, we guessed that there was a bass fishing tournament going on. After a couple of hours of fishing in the morning, Gale brought back about half dozen small bass which we cooked up for lunch. Nope – We’re not tired of the fresh fish yet!!

We talked to our friends on Life’s 2 Short and learned that another cruising friend, Dave, on the trawler Moonstruck lost his boat on the river the day before. He was meeting a northbound barge as he was southbound near the Tom Bevill Lock at Aliceville, Alabama. From what we understood, the vessels passed each other, Moonstruck turned into the wake (like we all do in tight spots) and the boat began to list to the side. There were four people on the fly bridge and the boat just slowly toppled over and turned completely upside down. Fortunately, they were towing the dinghy behind the boat and were able to cut that free to rescue themselves. Only the very bottom of the boat was visible after it sank. What a sad day for Dave.

 

About 2:30 pm, the bass boats left en masse which supported our theory about a local bass tournament with a 3 pm weigh-in. Gale put his fishing poles away and took Maureen out for a dinghy ride where we toured the lake we were anchored in and explored the sandbar on the main river.

 

Note the pictures of the tree that we had put a piece of duct tape on to mark the high water line when we anchored in the same spot back during the April/May flood. It looked to us to be about 15 feet above the current level of the lake.
 
 
 On the sandbar, we found a few artifacts of old steamships – the iron bolts used to secure the wooden planks, old screws, etc. We also saw where an alligator had come up on the beach, gone back into the shade of the trees and then left along the same path. Glad we didn’t meet up with him in person!
 
 







While walking along the sandbar, we noticed m/v Dual Dreams with our friends Mike and Harriet coming around the bend in the river. We shared the anchorage for the night and enjoyed happy hour together on their boat. As the sun went down, we returned to Blue Heron for another wonderful meal of fresh fish and potatoes.