Columbus,Ms. to Mobile, Al.

We have arrived at another milestone, only 6 miles from the gulf..Mobile is where we are being reconnected with our mast so that we can actually sail again and not have to motor only.This could save us a fair amount of fuel.Today the technicians are preparing the rigging on land so they can step the mast onto the boat-  likely tomorrow.
 Now I need to backtrack a little and tell you about our trip from Columbus to here.Early Friday a.m. we left Columbus Marina with 5 other boats[ 4trawlers and 1 boat like ours]  to lock thru the next lock. The lockmasters have all been so helpful. 4 of us went in convoy to our anchorage at Sumter Recreation area. A very nice basin or bay with enough room. The Montgomerys in the other sailboat joined us too.3 of the boats in this anchorage were fellow Canadians. Sid and Evelyn on 'Something Special'came all the way from Woodstock, and John and Marsha [on Kadadi] came from Brampton  and their guests hailed from Listowel, On.In each case we had connections with people in their areas.The next day we all locked thru the next lock together[only 2 more locks after this one].The last no. of them have dropped us around 30 feet each.
 Not everyone travels in a motor yacht or mastless sail boat. We saw a canoe loaded with supplies, another little boat made of bamboo sticks, 2 small sails plus a small outboard motor, and 3rd a raft with a square tent section on it.

Sunrise at Demopolis Ms

White cliffs along the Tombigbee river

Town hall in Demopolis

 We made it to Demopolis Yacht  Basin on the Saturday.The section all of us docked in was brand new . Opened 3 months ago. We did manage to find a silted in area that stopped our boat short. We  backed off this easily but it did surprise us . The owner marked it with a stake right away.We had a great weekend here.. Tues.we couldn't depart with the early group since we needed fuel and after that the lock needed some repair work, so we had to wait. The lockmaster called us at 11:30 to head down.Just before dark  that day we anchored [bow and stern]behind the bridge posts away from barge traffic.To our surprise I was awakened at 2 a.m. by a big search light coming from a tow/barge. I got up and heard voices too. They actually were pulling in behind us to anchor there and catch some sleep too. All was well.The next morning there were tornado warnings for our area so we stayed put in our protected anchorage for a few hours . The sky opened to the south of us so we headed down and were given safe travels and amazing skies . The evening before a tow captain passing us and heading north radioed us to tell us to look behind  at the amazing rainbow.We were touched and marvelled again at God's creation  We hope to send a photo of this and the white cliffs we saw on theway.
 Good-bye for now .