Our first real day on the Mississippi

Day 2, Monday, September 7



A Sea Fever morning  at Wabasha City marina

After a hard nights sleep, we woke to a glorious sunrise in Wabasha, MN.  And prepared to move on to our next night's rest.  Our goal was to get to Trempealeau, Wisconsin, a good 45 miles down the river.  Sea Fever is, after all, a sailboat, that runs at about 6 knots at top speed.  A knot is about 1.15 miles an hour. Our first hurdle was to navigate under the Wabasha bridge that spans the Mississippi from Minnesota to Wisconsin.  It is fairly easy to tell if you will clear the bridge, as there are water markers on the bridge itself.  But gosh, looking up from the cockpit of the boat, one is certain that the mast will crash into the bridge, bringing the boat to an immediate and disastrous stop!  We cleared.  Tim's theory is to do the calculations, and don't look up.

There are about 35 or more locks that we need to go through on the whole trip.  We managed three of them on this leg of the journey. On all three, you radio ahead to the lock, they tell you how long you need to wait to go through.  They literally give you a green light when the lock gates are open, and you enter the lock.  The gates close behind you, an attendant  throws you a line, and you hold the boat close enough to the lock wall, but far enough away to keep the boat off the lock wall.  As the level of the water goes down, you let the line ease away, and when the water is down to the level of the river beyoun the lock, you toss the line away, and the gates open on the other side of the lock and you motor on out.

Sounds easy.  It is easy in concept.  But it is hard work.  But we did great.  Kathy was consistent about letting the attendant know that she was a novice... so she got some good advice.

One of the other challenges in navigating the river is passing barges and tows on a fairly narrow stretch of  water.  We have barges parked in front of our home in St. Paul, and they look really huge! 
 But navigating past them on the waterway, from a little sailboat is intimidating.  We hail the captain of the barge with our handheld radio to verify which side of the barge they want us to pass.  By the way, the navigable channel is marked with red and green buoys.  The red ones marks the side of the channel that returns from the ocean.  Green ones mark the other side.  One captain told us to pass on the black side.  Tim hailed back for clarification. The captain then responded that the green ones used to be black, and he just forgot.

When driving through the countryside on the highways, one notices the personalities of the towns and hamlets, but one doesn't get a good picture of the town.  From the river, the views of the river towns are amazing.



Fountain City, WI
 

While the dawn promised good weather, the day quickly grayed, and the winds came up.  We quickly donned our foul weather jackets and continued on.



Captain Tim trying to stay warm





Kathy at the helm

We made it to Trempealeau, came into the marina dressed as if it were winter, only to be met by the marina owner in a short sleeved shirt and shorts!  We docked, ate, and slept.

Thanks for reading.