A 9 Lock Day Heading South

A beautiful day for the Orinoco as she sits for a picture in the beautiful Bay Springs Lake in Mississippi

We stayed on the lake for a couple of days and enjoyed the beauty and solitude of the clear water and quiet place

This mushroom is found here on this trail around the lake.  It looks like plastic but is growing out of the forest floor .  Wonder what kind it is?  I thought about cooking it with our evening mean and seeing if we get sick but maybe not.
Alas, we left the pretty lake and headed south again getting ready to go down a huge lock some 85 feet of drop out of the lake into the river.  A big let down for sure!

This is the Whitten Lock.  The wind was really blowing this day and as we tied to the bollard hanging on tightly as the boat swayed and tried to swing around.  The turbulent waters flowed out of the lock as if someone pulled the plug and I held on to the end of the line around the bollard as it sunk at an incrediable rate.  Down, down went the 44,000 pound boat into the pit as water and slime descended upon my head.
We made it and the swelling will go away in my right hand soon.

 This is the bollard I rapped my line around hanging on the loose end to keep the boat attached to the lock.

After the big lock we had to descend 300 feet through the next 5 locks, 30 feet at a time.  We went through the Montgomery, Rankin, Fulton,Wilkins and Amory lock on the same day.  At last we found a nice place to anchor and slept.
In the morning we only had one lock to look forward to conquering this day.  We pulled anchor and proceeded down river toward Columbus, Mississippi going through the lock at Aberdeen then finally got to the Columbus Marina in the afternoon.