Day 20 - Demopolis to Bobbys Fish Camp

In pursuit of the perfect day Mary got us up at 6 o'clock AM this morning to maximize the number of hours in case today was the day. We left Demopolis and were on the water by 7:15 heading downstream to our first and only dam of the day. The lockmaster had the gates waiting open for us so the whole process was wrapped up in 20 minutes and we were on to Bobbys Fish Camp 96 miles away. I had added some drier agent to the gas last night so my hopes were high that this would solve our sputtering engine problem. Thunderstorms were in the forecast for mid afternoon so the early start, as we would discover later, was a good idea for this reason alone. I set the Blue Fin at 4300 RPM (20mph) and for the most part left it there for the entire run and we arrived at Bobbys in our record early time of 12:15PM. At around 2 oclock the weather warnings went up and shortly after we were hit with heavy rain wind and lightning. This time Mary wasn't afraid because she was already nestled into one of Bobby's fisherman cottages without a care. I'm happy too to report that the Blue Fin's motor ran fine today and I hope it remains so.

Since. I'm again using the phone to write this I'll be brief and finish up by saying tomorrow is the big day when we make it to salt water. I'm still a bit apprehensive as we have 115 miles and our one last dam to pass. This stretch is the most remote of the entire trip and doesn't it fit that the worst always occurs just before the finale. If all is happening as discussed, son Matthew should be preparing to leave MN with car and trailer to rendezvous with us somewhere along the gulf coast. He will be joining us for a few days as we continue along the Intercostal until it's time to pull the Blue Fin from the water.

I will once again do some back tracking to give more details about todays adventure when I have access to a bigger pipe for the bits to pass through.

On to Mobile bay tomorrow and I bet the wakeup call comes early again.