Chased by Hurricane Patricia

Chased by the Rain from Hurricane Patricia to Columbus MS

It’s raining here, as you can imagine. We’re in Columbus, Mississippi, in the middle of that straight border shared by Mississippi and Alabama. The Tenn-Tom makes a long S from the top of Mississippi to Demopolis, Alabama. We’re in a nice, calm marina with a roof over our boat! Many marinas here on the Tenn-Tom have covers over them, to keep off either the sun or the rain, or maybe both. It’s nice in a way, because we stay dryer, but we miss the wonderful sound of the rain falling on our boat.

For two days we made a bee-line to get here, knowing that the rain from Hurricane Patricia was coming. We stayed in the most awful marina in Smithville, MS, between the Fulton Lock and the Wilkins Lock. “Squalor” was the word that came to mind. But it was the only marina between the two locks, so that was it. On the other hand, however, we had one of the nicest “docktails” so far. Three other couples joined us on Pearl for snacks that made a meal, and we visited for about three hours. Our three tugs had been traveling together all day, and the fourth boat was a sailboat with its mast down for the river segments of the Loop. They were a young couple, the age of our children, taking a year off to do the trip. Most Loopers are retired and a few are taking time off like we are, but these were the first young couple we had met.

We’re staying here a couple of days until the weather settles down, then continuing south. Hurricane season ends on Sunday, November 1, when we will be free to go south of the 32° latitude. In Columbus, we plan to visit some antebellum houses, see a movie, do the laundry and some odd-jobs on the boat, and restock the groceries. If the weather clears, some guests might join the Melinda B to travel with us for a couple of days.

We’ve all agreed that fried food doesn’t really agree with us any more, and we’re all a bit tired of visiting Walmart.

There’s an invasive hyacinth growing in this marina that completely fills the empty slips and clogs the waterways. If we go through it, it can get tangled in our prop, but we have a cutter on the prop that would get it off.

It’s a good day for the captain to sleep in.