Integrity Cruise

Day 164: Eastport, MS to Florence, Alabama

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Day 164: Thursday, September 29th: We slept in this morning, and then had a leisurely breakfast of homemade corncakes. Really good!

We started weighing anchor about 10:30am and discovered the anchor line was caught on a snag. After a little maneuvering around, we managed to get it loose and secured aboard.

With only about 31 miles to our destination in Florence, AL, we cruised slowly up Pickwick Lake. It was a cloudy and windy morning behind the cold front, but soon cleared up and the day was beautiful. We passed under this very graceful bridge that carries The Natchez Trace Parkway across the Tennessee River. While the design seems pedestrian to most folks, when it was built it was quite unusual. The design has been used for many bridges since being built here:

While the Tennessee Valley Authority, TVA, is known for its hydroelectric plants, it does operate some steam generating plants and at least one nuclear generating plant. Here is the coal-fired steam plant near Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The coal is brought in by barge:

We arrived in the Florence, Alabama area in mid-afternoon. This is the main bridge linking Florence on the northern bank with Sheffield, Tuscumbia and Muscle Shoals on the south bank. These towns provide the third most populous area on the Tennessee River, exceeded only by Knoxville and Chattanooga. If you look closely (near the leftmost bridge pier), you can see the canal cut going off to the left. This cut takes the lock traffic to Wilson lock, while the main part of the river goes to Wilson Dam:

Immediately to the left of the bridge was the entrance to Mystic Harbor Marina, our target stop for the night. To the left of the entrance was a popular park. The tower is just for show, and on special occasions is lighted. It's sort of different from your usual sign:

We figured the flags were at half-mast due to hurricanes Katrina and Rita:

Entering the marina, our view was dominated by this 80-foot Hatteras yacht. This fellow looks a little out of place. However, we met two Looper boats, Time and Space" and Her Ladyship. Her Ladyship was a Monk 36 like Integrity:

We did some much-needed cleaning (like getting the new brown moustache off the hull of the boat). Ruth made a run to a Super Wal-Mart using the marina's courtesy van. When she tried to start it to make the return trip, it would not start. Fortunately, she had thought to get the phone number of the marina, and called to get rescued.

Supper aboard and then snooze time.

Position tonight: N34 47.205 W087 40.464

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