Day Ten -  Wednesday - Columbus to Cochran Cutoff  

        We’ve been averaging between 35 and 50 miles a day so far but as we move further south, marinas and anchorages become less plentiful.  Today’s run will be about 60 miles to an anchorage named Cochran Cutoff.  I am not mentioning the locks because Brett and I have become adroit at moving in, tying up and leaving.  How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.  And we have practiced and with only one small scrape on our rub rail, I have managed to remember where the boat ends and the harsh concrete wall begins in each lock.  Kristine’s pristine varnish work on AURORA’s bright-work remains largely unblemished.  Lucky for me, I might add. 

Fore and aft secured to floating bollard in lock

Do not scratch the varnish! 

         The original Tombigbee River was a serpentine nightmare.  Now the dredged waterway roughly follows a straight line that looks just like the vertical line intersecting the ess on our US dollar sign. Some of the old riverbed off-shoots are still deep enough that one can pull in a ways and safely anchor out of the main waterway channel for the night.  Cochran Cutoff is one such location. When Dennis and I arrive at Cochran Cutoff, we are alone and per common courtesy, I drop my anchor a good hundred yards away from VELA NARCOSIS. I could have anchored much closer but giving the other boat the privacy of distance is an unwritten rule amongst cruisers.

Perfectly serene anchorage

This unwritten privacy rule was taught to me indelibly while I cruised and lived aboard AURORA in the Sea of Cortez for six months.  I was a sailboat person for all of my life before AURORA and when I took her from LA down past Cabo San Lucas and up into the Sea, I had previously only anchored in bays with other sailboats.  However when I pulled into small bays in Mexico and angled towards where another boat or two were anchored, it became immediately apparent that they were horrified that a power boat would be a close neighbor. It took a few cervezas (ok maybe more than a few) on the shore one night with a couple of sailboat people to learn the reason for the obvious cold shoulder. They expected any power boat would run a generator all hours destroying the serenity of a quiet anchorage. I never ran my generator after 4 or so in the afternoon and as a result of the grapevine amongst cruisers in the Sea, AURORA was welcomed often in small bays regardless of where we anchored within the bay.  This acceptance may also have had something to do with the sheer volume of storage in the hold for stashing multiple cases of beer and wine aboard AURORA. 

            The Cochran Cutoff anchorage was the quietest anchorage of our journey so far and rivaled those tiny bays in Mexico for serenity.  It remained so even when a second sailboat slipped into the anchorage between Dennis and me.  Still plenty of space and privacy as Brett and I sat on the aft deck with a cup of tea and a quietly setting sun.  And then a 60 foot power boat came in and dropped his anchor between the new boat and up close to Dennis. After setting his hook, he finally turned off the huge twin throbbing engines and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief.  Two minutes later he started up his generator. So much for serenity and solitude. Brett and I retreated to the main cabin where we could not hear the grating rumble but I know that both the other sailboat and Dennis could hear his generator clearly even while below deck in their boats.  To his credit, the powerboat did turn off the noise maker around 10 PM but cruising is different than being at home.  When it gets dark, you go to sleep. When it gets light, you get up…  unless of course, you are a big power boat with many electrical gadgets that need AC power.  Then you run your generator and ruin an otherwise perfect anchorage. 

Not quite as perfect... but still pretty good