Tuesday, September 30
Little River Diversion Channel to below Olmstead Lock and Dam
Little River Diversion Channel is a peaceful and beautiful anchorage. The narrow tree-lined channel is quiet, the water calm, and a gentle current trickles by the six anchored boats. Overnight, fog settled in and our departure was delayed until the sun burned it off.
No one minded the delay really. The anchorage was calming and fog was among the evils Fern had warned us about in her litany of river-horrors. “If it’s foggy”, she told us, “don’t leave until you can see at least a mile”. No one wanted to tempt fate or Fern, so we waited the half hour it took for the fog to lift and pulled up our anchors and headed out for a “late” start at 7:30.
Today’s challenge is to travel 63 miles to an anchorage just below Olmstead lock and dam on the Ohio River. Yup, the Ohio. We will be leaving the Mississippi behind today. Mile 0 of the Upper Mississippi is only 48 miles away. Then we head upstream 15 miles on the Ohio River.
 |
| Diversion Channel, mile marker 48 on the Upper Mississippi |
As we left the Diversion Channel, each boat was grabbed by the current and propelled sideways until it got enough speed to overcome the river’s push. The Mississippi had us in its grip once again racing along, wide, muddy, turbulent, filled with debris and towboats and barges. And, of course, us.
The Mississippi has been a difficult river to cruise, particularly since we passed St. Louis. The increased speed, amount of debris and turbulence required constant vigilance and concentration. We are always steering around debris that ranges from twigs to trees.
The Army Corps of Engineers has added to the problem by building underwater structures that disrupt the water’s flow to keep the channel from silting. The eddies, whirlpools and waves this creates on the surface tends to trap debris and prevent it from being flushed down river. Almost every turn in the river below St. Louis is like a rollercoaster ride.
The turbulence also makes it difficult to see smaller objects until they are quite close to the boat. So the person manning the tiller can’t look away from the river for more than a few seconds. After our 110-mile run, Tim’s right shoulder was very sore from constantly steering the boat around debris.
Hitting a branch or 2x4 would likely not damage Sea Fever’s hull since we travel so slowly. The propeller is another matter. It is whirling around like crazy to keep us moving slowly. Lots of props get seriously damaged on the river. We met one couple in a power boat who were running with 2 damaged props and had already gone through 4 others.
We hit a couple objects during our trip. The loud ‘ping’ from the prop is frightening. No serious damage resulted however. I guess our constant vigilance and astounding lack of speed paid off.
As we approached Mile 0 of the Mississippi, we weren’t all that sad to end this portion of the journey. Everyone in our group was happy to have the Big Muddy behind them. It was an interesting and difficult 772 mile journey from Lake City. We are glad we did it and glad it’s done.
At 12:40, we left the Mississippi to head up the Ohio River and through Cairo, IL Mile marker 0.0. The start of a new and different adventure.
The beginning of this new journey up the Ohio looked a lot like we had motored into a huge barge parking lot. It was barge-o-rama. Barges were moored everywhere in the Ohio River by Cairo. There was even a set of barges anchored under a railroad bridge in the middle of the bridge span.
The way through this mess was unclear at best. Fortunately, one of our fellow travelers was about a mile ahead of us and we followed his lead. Once past Cairo, the barge congestion eased and the Ohio looked more like a river.
On the Ohio, we cruised upstream, meaning against the current, but we didn’t experience the troubled waters found on the Mississippi. The water was amazingly calm and clear. We were only going about 5-6 mph and not the 10 mph we enjoyed on the Mississippi. We are finally seeing some fall colors.
We reached our anchorage just below the Olmsted dam construction site where our now “old buddies” were settled in. There we were promptly invited to a potluck dinner. Kathy panicked, wondering what she could add. It was now almost a week since we had run our madcap resupply excursion to Walmart outside of Grafton. So supplies were low. But we cobbled together the left over wild rice, cut up our remaining salami and cheese, and trundled over to the party with the help of another water-taxi ride.
Dinner was a delight. As folks boarded Perfect Balance, we were amazed by the food that came with them! A salad with fresh raspberries, homemade California rolls with salmon, roasted potatoes and carrots, and the hostess presented chicken-and-vegetable kabobs accompanied by freshly made bread. Clearly these powerboats are far better equipped and provisioned than Sea Fever. We ate like royalty.
Our water-taxi brought us back to Sea Fever just after sunset and once again, we fell into bed, and slept hard.
No comments:
Post a Comment