Joe Wheeler and the Rendezvous

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Rendezvous Dock at Joe Wheeler

With some of our Wilson Lock troubles behind us, we locked through the auxiliary lock and we're given a slip assignment right in front of the Joe Wheeler Lodge for the AGLCA rendezvous. It was a great time to see old friends and to make some new ones. The Wilson lock auxiliary was not as bad as we anticipated and it actually was quite a pleasant passage from Florence to Rogersville, Alabama.

A small boat dock to our starboard, Petite Fleur, was crewed by a husband and wife in their mid 80s. Just before the meeting began, the husband mistakenly placed a water hose into his diesel tank and succeeded in flushing probably 20 or 30 gallons of diesel into the harbor. All the loopers from the dock joined in to address the problem, placing oil absorbing pads in the water, and then removing them with boat hooks to remove the majority of the diesel fuel. It was a refreshing example of good people cooperating to help someone in difficulty.

We arrived fashionably early for the AGELCA meeting. This is a five day long meeting for loopers with an emphasis on education, most notably, route planning, boating, techniques, and interesting sights along the route. This meeting covered cruise planning from Rogersville down the remainder of the rivers, across the golf, around Florida and up the East coast as far north as Norfolk Virginia. This meeting was particularly helpful to us as we attended several sessions on navigating the Gulf coast, including Mobile Bay, and most notably, an overnight Gulf crossing from Carabelle to Tarpon Springs. Listening to a talk from experience voters who had repeatedly made this trip was helpful and quite reassuring.

Another great meeting feature is the ability for people who are planning or considering doing the loop to tour the actively looping boats tied up in the marina. At this meeting, they were probably 30 to 40 boats hosting an open house over three evenings. Katie B participated on two of those three nights and we probably saw 50 people tour our boat and ask questions about the boat, electronics, route, planning, Great Harbours, etc. This is precisely the experience that Kathy and I had three years previously when we attended the same meeting at Joe Wheeler State Park at least a year before we began our journey.

When the meeting concluded, we left Katie B and flew home for a weeklong visit to Minneapolis before returning to take on the Tombigbee waterway and the Gulf.