Heading Upstream - Prologue
The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway has a unique way of indicating that fall has arrived and winter is on the way. In many parts of the country, it’s the color of the leaves that tells you things are changing. On the Waterway, it’s the number and hailing ports of the boats.
Kotona is currently in Bay Springs Marina on Bay Springs Lake, in northern Mississippi. As the first actual lake on the Tenn-Tom proper, it is a well regarded place to pause before transiting the Jamie Whitten Lock; the first of many locks leading to Mobile Bay and warmer destinations. So this time of year the marina’s transient docks are often full, and the fuel docks are quite active as cruisers rest, refuel, and restock before continuing the journey south. Sadly, again this fall, Kotona won’t be joining them.
One of the things about our family member’s particular long term illness is that you know the diagnosis, you know the end result, you just don’t know when that result will arrive. Add to that uncertainty, the hurricane damage from Helene and Milton, damage that has impacted several of the marinas along our intended path, and the decision to not go wasn’t hard to reach. We had held out a bit of hope that we might be able to head out this year, but deep down we knew it wasn’t likely. So we continue to do what needs doing.
With that decision made, we’ve been considering our boat options. Put it up for sale? “No, not an option” Amy says. We still intend to leave one day, but in the meantime… what to do? It’s around two hours, one way, to drive to our current marina. Which means round trip is most of a day, so running over to check on things or do a quick project isn’t a good use of time. If we can’t stay a couple of days it’s not worth going. But, in the event of a care facility emergency, a fall for instance, being that much further away for a couple of days is not great either. We were feeling somewhat frustrated about it all, until a chance meeting with an old dock neighbor from our departure marina in Decatur.
Amy was guest preaching at a nearby church, and after the service a man introduced himself, told her who he was, and said “tell David I said hello”. I later texted him to see how he’s doing. His boat is at Joe Wheeler State Park now, the place we stopped to avoid some bad weather on the first leg of our trip downstream. I mentioned we were up in the air about what to do with our marina situation. Well, turned out Wheeler had some slips open and he gave me the name of the harbormaster. The conversation with her was the beginning of a new plan.
Joe Wheeler is less than an hour from our house, a bit under 40 miles away. So running over to check on things or do a project becomes much less trouble. And maybe because it’s a state park and not a full service marina with haul out facilities, it’s significantly less money for a slip. It’s not as quiet as where we are because there is much more activity around (state park), but we think that’s a tradeoff we can live with. And it gives us not only the option of more frequent daysails, but also the option of occasional short overnight trips on the local lakes, so we can keep our sailing skills fresh for the day we can set off again.
Traveling back upstream almost 90 miles does have that feeling of having to start over. But we haven’t given up. In sailing, you have to deal with the wind you have. That might mean changing course. It might mean reducing sail. It might mean dropping anchor. It might mean heading back upstream until the time is right to try again. One thing all sailors know is that, eventually, the wind will shift in your favor. Until then, breathe in, breathe out, move on.