We got up early to start the journey down the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. Other boats left at the crack of dawn and because we only had 53 miles to go to our next stop we waited until the fog burned off before setting out at mid-morning. Good thing we did, as all the other boats couldn't even see in the fog and ended up inching their way blindly down the river...

At this point we are at the highest level of the waterway at 414 feet above sea level. From here on out to the Gulf of Mexico it is down down down. 37 miles later we met our first lock of the day - and it was a monster, one of the largest locks of the whole Loop - the James Whitten Lock with a drop of 84 feet.

After that in rapid succession we had 2 more locks, the Sonny Montgomery Lock (down 30 feet) and the John Rankin Lock (down 30 feet). As we made progress through the waterway and the locks we began to catch up with all the other boats - about 11 of them piled up in the Rankin Lock - but we all got though in one go.

The Mongomery Lock, the Rankin Lock and the caravan of "trawlers"

These trawler-type boats tend to travel at about 6-8 mph - so Salty had to bide her time and fall into the queue as we made our way the 4 miles down the waterway to the Midway Marina in Fulton Mississippi. Once we got there the very able and organized dock crew managed all these boats brought them in and tied them all up within 30 minutes. We even got fuel and a pumpout in that time frame. We enjoyed the sunset over the marina and had an early night as we had to leave early the next day for the 57 mile trip to Columbus MS - a trip that includes four unpredictable locks. The town was too far away for a visit on bicycle-unfriendly roads, so we stayed in camp for the evening.