On to Aberdeen, MS 10-23

Thursday

October 23, 2014

The morning was so foggy that we could not see other boats in the marina.  Tim and Jeff determined to wait out the fog. The power boats waited a bit, but still left before we did. Their steering stations are higher and they can see over the river fog. They also have radar.

We managed to get started about 9:30, when the lock was next available. We spent considerable time waiting to get into the second lock. We locked through and motored some 38 miles as well. It was a long day.

Brisa underway

 Kathy was pleased to note that we’ve now been through 6 locks so far and she’s not seen a water moccasin on a bollard yet. It’s her current paranoia and one shared by a looper friend named Sylvi who is currently back in Quebec visiting family. Each evening Kathy sends Sylvi an email in French saying “Trois écluses, pas de serpents dans les bornes.”  Three locks, no snakes in the bollards. And always a paragraph that starts with “I hope I said…” Kathy hopes her French Club back home is proud to see that she is trying.  When Kathy was packing for the trip, she looked at her French notes, picked them up, and put them down again, thinking “Naw, why would I use them on this trip?”

Toward the end of the day, Brisa was in the lead when white smoke started coming from her exhaust. No alarms were going off and so we slowed down and kept going since our destination, Aberdeen (MS) Marina was only a few miles away.

The channel into Aberdeen Marina was about ½ mile long and quite wild. There were lots of turns and twists as well as cypress knees and trees. We headed into the woods and didn’t even see the marina until the last turn. Fortunately lots of red and green markers guided us along, but we were losing light and Brisa wasn’t getting any better.  One of the things that we have learned is that you don’t cut corners when entering a marina, since you don’t know what evil things lurk beneath the surface. 

Brisa navigating  the channel into Aberdeen Marina



Egret sentries to Aberdeen Marina

 

As we pulled into the fuel dock, we saw fellow loopers Rich and Pam.  They have been there for a couple days. Rich explained his philosophy to us.   He said, “We have nowhere special to be anytime soon.  So why hurry there?”

Turns out that this marina had just changed hands in the last week.  Things were somewhat chaotic. The marina information we had indicated that there was diesel fuel, a pump out, and a courtesy car available.  But none of those were available.  However, the marina was picturesque, and had some darn good fried chicken at the gas station/marina office.  Dinner was served.

 

Such is life on the river.