Dodgin Gators and Eatin Fish

The sun rose on Bobby's Fish Camp this morning and I didn't even see it. First time for that in the last 30 days. Yes, I'm here at the finish. No big emotions, no shout from the water as I took my last stroke; just a quiet satisfaction of accomplishment. It did feel good to know that tomorrow morning I wasn't going to get up at 4:30 and paddle again. A great trip for sure, and a trip with many things I'll remember with fond memories and great stories. Before I go on, I want to relay the events of the last 3 days.
I left Demopolis with a changed game plan. Instead of Mobile, the end will be at Bobby's Landing at Bobby's Fish Camp. Bobby's Fish Camp is the most famous fish eating place in the southeast...bar none. There is another one though. Ezell's is about 50 miles up river from Bobby's, but I only heard of Ezell's when I crossed into Alabama. I've been hearing of Bobby's from Tennessee. Since this trip has had it's food theme, I'll have to judge for myself.
The morning I left, skies were grey and the air humid. Sticky and muggy I left at my usual time with Demopolis locks a couple miles down river. I reached the lock just before sun up and had to wait for a barge to lock through going upstream. As the sun rose I thought of the 100 miles I had left and wondered what I would see on this final leg. The barge passed and in I went. Quickly locking through, the waters on the otherside were flowing through the dam on the west side creating a river with ledges and actual whitewater. Joining the main river a few hundred yards below, I could see white herons and mists rising from the ledges and waves. It seemed incongruous with the surroundings, but beautiful. I headed on downstream after few photos.
The day went by quickly and my pace was easy. I paddled with the idea of doing 25 miles a day until I reached Booby's on Friday. However, the day was cooler, even if a bit muggy so when I reached the 25 mile point, I went a little farther, stopping at around 29 miles. I stopped at a big sandy beach and set up camp. A great day for wildlife, including a couple more bald eagles, some wild hogs, a couple coyotes loping along the far bank and an Ibis. The bald eagles included an adolecent which I originally took for a hawk of some sort. It was circling around and landed in a tree just in front of me. When it landed I took out the camera and snapped a shot. When I looked at the photo, I saw a mature eagle sitting next to it. I hadn't seen that until I snapped a shot. It was then I realized what it was. Cool! The coyotes were another surprise. I don't like coyotes much, ever since our dog was bitten by one, but in this setting, they were beautiful creatures. I was wondering where the roadrunner was as I watched them sniffing and searching along the sandy bluff.
The next day the sun reappeared with a vengeance. I saw more barges and tugs plying their cargo and a couple pleasure cruisers as well. Other than that, there isn't much on this section below Demopolis. a couple miles above the state hwy 10 bridge I saw my first gator.
In the heat of the day I usually paddle along the shore and catch as much shade as possible. It's difficult during the middle of the day to find shade so I paddle even closer to shore and zigzag in and out of the shade offered. It was about 1 pm and hot. I had just taken a rest stop and napped for about 20 minutes so feeling a bit refreshed, I set off at a cruising pace. I was feeling pretty good and my thoughts were on the audio book I was listening too (Eldest). I rounded a bend when out of the shadows of the shade I see a huge gator scrambling to get in the water. Shiny and black as night, it was glistening as it started to slide into the water toward me from about 15 yards away. Yikes! I couldn't get the camera out and really didn't want to, so I backpaddled quickly. Wow! That thing had to be 10 -12 feet long. It's middle was as wide as my boat...or wider. The size surprised me and made me reassess my paddling strategy a bit. I wasn't in any real danger, but if it was 5 yrds closer and I hadn't seen it as soon as I did...hmmmm. I paddled out into deeper water and continued on down. Big gator!
Another hour and I crossed under the bridge and reached a building along the west bank. Ezell's Fish Camp. Lunch time!
A great, old building that you could see had history written all over it. Evidently the restaraunt was about 55 yrs old with several additions to the original building. I tied up nearby and walked the coulple hundred yards up to the building. The original part was log cabin construction. The manager there said it was over 200 yrs old and used to be a trading post for the Choctaw indians and traders in the area. The parking lot was full...good sign. I went in and drank some sweet tea while I figured out what I wanted. Old pictures lined the walls and the eating area overlooking the river was obviously an old back porch that used to be screened in. The photos showed the catfish operation from the 50's. Baskets of catfish being cleaned and fish traps made of wooden crates with wooden stays used for the traps. The upper part of the walls were adorned with deer antler trophies and large catfish and bass mounted. The food was ok. It wasn't as freshly cooked as I had hoped. It had probably been left over from the last of the lunch crowd. Now, it was still good...very good, but just not as good as my expectations. I love catfish and still ate it with relish.
I hung out there for the next couple hours. The sweet tea and ceiling fans were a little better than the heat of the sun and hard to leave.
Finally, around 4:30 I headed off. I only had 5 - 10 miles to go and enjoyed the afternoon. A small shower around 5:30 cooled things off and I found a camping spot for the night.
The camping spot turned out to be my last. I had paddled 32 miles and only had about 35 to go the next day. It also turned out to be one of the best spots of the entire trip. I small, smooth rocky/clay bank lined the west side. Gently sloping to the water it gave me a place to easily pull the boat up, but even better it had a few mushroom like outcroppings. These outcroppings were of harder rock that sat up like mushrooms out of the hard clay. When the clay washed away, these rocks sat like the cap of the mushroom. Flat on top, the largest made for a wonderful tent platform and overlooked the river. The one next to it, made a comfortable kitchen. It was a nice change from the sandy beach of the night before.
The next morning I left a little later, at about 5:30. Still dark and thinking of gators, I stayed out in the middle of the river, not wanting to surprise anything in the dark. A full moon lit my way and the cooler temps let me make some miles. By 10 am Ihad put in about 14 miles. I thought about this being my last day, but like all the other days, I didn't think too long about that. I still had work to do and things to see along the way. Gators were seen more often for sure. Many from far away, but as the day grew warmer, I had to paddle closer to shore, warily for sure.
I was surprised again and this time was a little too close for comfort. Again, rounding a bend I suddenly heard and saw a huge commotion to my right. I quickly slammed on the breaks and saw a wake heading for me. The water was still frothing and churning as I turned 90 degrees to deeper water and watched as the wake was still heading to me. Taking a few quick strokes more, the water started churning along the bank with spray going everywhere. Finally, the waves died down and I stopped to get my breath. I never saw the gator, or gators. I must have been a pretty good size gator due to all the water flying everywhere. What I think happened was I spooked the gator and it immediately dove into the shallow water toward me to escape. It either escaped under me in the deeper water, or turned back when it saw me. The commotion near shore could have been it, once it turned, trying to fight its way over the branches and limbs of the downed trees along the bank. Or, there were 2 of them. The first going under me into deeper water, and the second fighting its way along the bank and over/under the branches. Either way, at least on of them was probably pretty good size and did surprise me as much as it was surprised by me. Again, time to rethink my gator strategy. I moved farther away and kept a sharp lookout the rest of the day.
I did manage one more gator encounter, but I saw it from about 15 yards away. It was hanging out in the water in front of me. I see lots of logs and have to check them all out as I approach. This one wasn't a log and had the definite eyes and snout sillouette. I stopped at the same time it saw me. It sank out of sight and I gave it a wide berth as I passed. No problems.
Finally, after a long day, I pulled into Bobby's Landing at around 6:30. Glad to be done with the days paddling and smiling. So, who has the better catfish? Well, Bobby's does :). In one last act of kindness, I was invited to eat with a couple boat cruiser couples. We enjoyed eating, talking and sharing river experiences over the course of devouring Bobby's delectible food. In the end, when I got up to pay for the meal, the owner of Bobby's told me one of the cruisers payed for everyone's meal. What a great way to end the journey! I don't even know who it was since they had all headed to their boats and lights were out. Thank you whoever it was.
Oh, and early on, I had given a math problem to solve. I did get an answer on the comments section from Robby0 I think. How many strokes a day? 27,000 on the average. Working it out to how many strokes for the trip I get 756,000 strokes. So, 760,000 strokes later...I'm done. Not bad.
At the moment, I'm waiting for Susan and the kids to come get me. They are somewhere near Birmingham right now. Looking forward to seeing them for sure.
I'm not really ready to write any conclusions or give any hindsight about the trip. That will come when I get home. Suffice it to say, I'm glad to be finished and incredibly satisfied with the trip. I've truly enjoyed writing about the adventures, surprised at the people I've met along the way and incredibly appreciative of the friends from all parts of my life that have joined me in support of this project. I know that my dad was following along, much like he did when I was younger. Throughout our lives, we both enjoyed telling and listening to each others adventures and experiences and this trip was just another aspect of that.
Thanks to all who prayed, commented, encouraged and sent good thoughts. They really did make a huge difference, especially on some of those hot, miserable days. My appreciation for all of your support is immeasureable.
I'll post more soon. Until then, enjoy the pics from the last 3 days.