Day 170 Sundowner becomes an Icebreaker

Well, since both of us forgot about the time change, we got up at 4:15 to get an early start for our long run of 81 miles to Three Rivers Lake. A little too early. Since it was pitch dark, we went out and observed the stars from the back deck. The sky was brilliant. Fog was dancing along the water and the boat was covered in dew, so we went inside to warm up. It was around 29 degrees. Jack darted out the door about an hour later and when John chased him, he slipped on ice! All the rails and decking were frozen. We thought we were far enough south to be safe from this kind of unacceptable weather, but apparently not. Pulled the hook before dawn and wove our way down the waterway in drifting fog, but at least there was no wind. The terrain is looking more and more like backwoods swamp land. The high hills, mountains and rock formations are disappearing. A lot of "beaches", erosion, cypress, bogues, turtles and even an alligator. We passed through our LAST lock and dam. High five! Don't know the exact count, but I know we traversed over 100. We are now back at sea level and dealing with tides. To get to our anchorage, we entered a 20' opening off the river and tiptoed down a narrow canal until it opened up to a shallow lake. We dropped the hook at the mouth of the lake and breathed a sigh - serenity. Unfortunately, all the places in the guide books and on Active Captain between here and last night's anchorage are shoaled in, so solitude only lasted a short time because 4 more boats showed up. However, it's still a serene, quiet haven off of the TennTom. One more stop before we hit Mobile.