Mud, Fog and Humor on the Upper Mississippi 9-23-2014

Tuesday September 23, 2014

We were out of bed at 6 AM, anticipating a 10 hour day to get to Grafton Harbor, IL.  Grafton has lots of services, walking distance to town, and a courtesy car to Walmart, where we can replace our hand vac that died the first day out, as well as buy groceries, brandy, and...LAYS KETTLE CHIPS!!!




Leaving Two Rivers Marina, in Louisiana, MO

It was 47 degrees, so we made coffee and tea, and bundled up.  Tim filled the diesel from the jerry cans that we keep on board. 



Diesel Cans on the boat.

The mist in the harbor was lovely.

Mist in the Harbor of Two Rivers Marina, and the Louisiana, MO Highway Bridge

Kathy emptied trash, and turned in the bathroom/shower key, and at 7:15 AM we headed across the harbor to continue our sojourn down the Mighty Mississippi. 

THUNK.

Sea Fever came to a complete stop as we ran in to mud and silt at the mouth of the harbor.  The depth dropped quickly from 4 feet to 2.5.  It was even too shallow for the depth sounder to work!  We had had no problems 2 days before getting into the marina!

Tim backed her up, and tried again, much slower.

No THUNK, but we came to a halt again.  Backed her up once more, and stayed closer to the downstream side of the harbor and made it out into the channel.  Crossed under the Louisiana Highway Bridge and headed toward the Louisiana Railroad Swing Bridge. 

When we hailed the bridge on the marine radio, the conversation was this:

Tim: Louisiana Railroad Swing Bridge, Louisiana Railroad Swing Bridge.

Swing Bridge: This is the Louisiana Railroad Swing Bridge.

Tim: South bound sailboat requesting passage through the Louisiana Railroad Swing Bridge.

Swing Bridge: Yes, Captain, do you have a chain saw on that there sailboat?

Tim:  No sir, it is not in my inventory.
 

Swing Bridge: Then I guess I will have to open it for ya since you can’t cut down your mast.

Tim:  We appreciate that, sir.

How droll. How early.

And so we waited and the swing bridge swung and we passed through it, mast intact. And it was only 8:00 in the morning!

Just past the swing bridge, we encountered fog ahead.  We could not see the channel markers. Worse, we could not see any oncoming barges that might be headed our way. Even worser (new word) there was a lock and dam just a mile ahead of us.



Fog just past the Louisiana Swing Bridge

So, we decided to hunker down close to shore and wait until the fog lifted so we could see the markers, the barges and the dam! Waiting took about 45 minutes. 

We could have slept in!

But that is how life goes on the river.  You never know the challenges that will meet you.  You don’t have traffic radio or TV to give you advice.  Tim uses a web site called Active Captain, which tracks weather, marinas and other circumstances.  But the truth is, the crew on the boat has to be aware.  Pay attention to obstacles in the water.  Note other boats, whether they be towboats, or pleasure craft, and how they will influence your boat. And if something seems wrong, pay attention to it.

A northbound barge emerged from the fog bank. We called on the radio to be sure we were out of the way, the captain said the fog was lifting.

We started up again and quickly made it to the Lock and Dam 24. We didn’t even need to wait for other boats to lock-through ahead of us. Once in the lock, we ''floated'' in the middle of the chamber, rather than holding lines next to the wall.  Midpoint in the process, Tim asked me to drive.  He told me to put the throttle into forward idle if I needed to steer.  I thought that meant  forward neutral.  

WRONG.

Neutral gives no steering power since the boat has no forward motion to cause water to flow past the rudder.  Forward idle engages the engine at low speed allowing the boat to change direction.  As we headed toward the lock wall, Tim rescued me from my mistake. Picture, if you will, sailor talk, and tears.  Yikes.

I thought I knew what he was saying…as did he.  An Aha moment.  Now I know.

Without any additional dramatic moments, we motored along to Grafton Harbor.  It was a long day, taking some 8 hours to go the 64.6 miles.

We are at "home" tonight in Grafton, IL harbor.  We had burgers for dinner at the marina restaurant, and, after a long hard day, will head to sleep soon.

Wednesday will be a clean up the boat day.  And perhaps I can use the courtesy van to go to Walmart. 

We will be here for several days.

Several of you have asked about who writes this blog.  Kathy writes, Tim uses his skills to edit, Kathy edits again and publishes.  So it is a joint effort. Hopefully using the best of both of our talents.  We recently got new phones, and one of the features is a voice recorder.  It makes it very easy to record events, and the time that they happen.  So when we get behind on our blog, we have some date stamped observations to help us recall times and occurrences.

Thank you for reading.