The Towboat Catherine Ann

We began the last leg of our adventure just as we had every other with Honey Buns and Miller Lite, a little "hair of the dog" gave our heads a boost after closing down the nightlife at the Pine Bluff marina. I guess we were lucky to not have riled the locals badly enough to get shot... or worse. No one was in when we came into the marina so we tied to the gas dock and hooked up to electricity and water. We had to wait to leave later than we wanted to for the marina to open up so we could pay... I guess that's why they do not exist any longer. Anyway, we were on the way with the next stop Little Rock and Detour's new home for the foreseeable future. There is an old saying with cruisers, actually there are a lot of old sayings with cruisers, but this one is shared often; don't get in a hurry. Well, we were in a hurry and things seemed to be going just as planned. We were approaching lock number five, locks are numbered on the Arkansas; I think they have names too but the lock masters won't answer you if the names are called. I looked up and saw a tow boat entering the lock. Man, I told Mickey, this is going to delay our progress. Without thinking much about it, I called the lock master and told him we were in a hurry, as most any time before, and wanted permission to lock through with the tow. He answered immediately and gave his permission. He instructed us to wait at the long wall and enter the lock when he waved us in. I've never had a lock master walk out on the the lock wall and wave me in but that what he did. As I approached the lock doors and moved besides the tow boat so Mickey, who was out on the foredeck, could tie us up, I heard the tow boat captain ask on the radio, "is the recreational vehicle coming in here?" The ensuing conversation escalated quickly with the last transmission being, "I'm the captain of this boat and I don't want the RV in here"; "I'm the captain of this lock and he's coming in". At that point, I get on the radio to say, "hey, guys; no big deal I'm getting out". I put the transmissions in reverse and begin to back out of the lock when the angered boat captain put his transmissions in forward, turned his rudder toward us and throttled down. You'll have to imagine again because if I tell it like it really was, you'll think of that Marco Polo deal I was talking about in the last post. Let me give you a quick and dirty; the prop wash that came out from under that tow boat was enormous and picked Detour up about five feet or so and slammed us into the lock wall. We had fenders in place that kept damage to a minimum but it threw Mickey over the rail and the only thing that kept him out of the water was hitting the lock wall, actually the lock door, and then falling back onto the deck. Instinctively, I tried to counteract the actions of the tow captain by throttling my engines to try and keep us off the wall, which exacerbated Mickey's predicament and made our situation worse as we bounced off the wall a second time from my efforts. As I regained my composure and Mickey checked his extremities for blood and bone, I could hear the captain and the lock master saying things on the radio that the FCC would have been seriously concerned about... come to think about it I had a few comments of my own. I learned something that day and I have practiced it religiously since. Never enter a lock with a tow boat unless you first get permission from the captain and then the lock master. Maritime law dictates that a tow boat captain must obey the authority of the lock master when the boat is in the lock. However, please know and remember where you heard it; the lock master has the "authority" but the tow boat captain has the "power". Mickey and I made our way to Little Rock and as we passed the Catherine Ann gave the proper respect and even saluted her captain.

On to Little Rock

Because I'm writing this from memory and since have had significant difficulty on the Mississippi, this trip has been very smooth... other than the fact we could have been "mowed down" by a hyped up, gun tote'n group of casino security guards. Mickey and I shoved off early after a breakfast of Coors Light and sweet rolls. We had not more than gotten around the first bend and just passed President's Island when I looked up and saw the most humongous group of barges I've ever seen. I think you'll see in the picture that it is seven across and nine long. Sixty-three barges, give or take a couple either way is an unbelievable sight.

If you have experience with tows you'll know that the wake they produce is minimal; what you might also know is that the larger the towboat pushing the larger the prop wash. Well get ready, this raft of barges was being pushed by two big towboats each with three big gas turbine, read my lips... jet, engines and worse it was going upstream causing it to kick up a tremendous series of prop wash rollers. Well, I mentioned those of you who know of this prop wash deal. Ole Mickey and I didn't have any idea about prop wash but we were about to experience it first hand. I want to describe the significance of what we were about to encounter but I don't think there is any way I can without sounding like Marco Polo or some other person in your memory who always made the story much more interesting than the actual experience. You'll just have to think what you will but when we fell over the top of the first wave behind the tow and got into the bottom of the wave trough, I couldn't see over the next wave and didn't think Detour would ever be able to climb up and over without pitch polling over backwards. Did you see Perfect Storm? I won't go any farther with the story; you know the issue and obviously we made it through and I am reporting today but we were rocked pretty good and it was the first of a couple of close calls we had on our merry way to Little Rock.

We made better time than I thought on the big river and when our schedule called to overnight just inside the mouth of the White River we decided to push on to Pine Bluff. If you are not familiar with the White/Arkansas confluence with the Mississippi, it is a little interesting. There is a low-head dam at the mouth of the Arkansas that maintains a constant navigable depth upstream. One must enter the White, a few miles north of the Arkansas and traverse the Arkansas Post Canal that connect the White with the Arkansas. This system of canals and locks ensures positive water flow and steady navigable depths. A year or so ago the Corps completed the Montgomery Point lock that is downstream from the Post canal that is used in times of low water depth otherwise it doesn't come into play.

One other little tidbit of advice for those of you planning a trip up the Arkansas, when you steer your boat out of the Mississippi the water dept rises quickly from a little less than 100 ft to about 16 ft in the White and the mouth is in an outside bend. The resulting turbulence is surprising and should be undertaken with sufficient power to make an aggressive turn. Trust me on this one.

There are seven locks on the Arkansas between the Post canal and the Little Rock Yacht Club. We made four which landed us at the Island Harbor marina at Pine Bluff before dark. That's 71.2 upstream miles on the Arkansas after 137 miles on the Mississippi. That's a little over 208 miles and six locks which I would say was a pretty good day for a inland cruise. Everyone writes about the Rob Roy railroad bridge on the Arkansas because it is raised and lowered by a guy in Iowa or Illinois or somewhere far off. He knows you want to get under the bridge when you key your VHF mike about four times on a particular channel, that I can't remember now, and request the bridge to be raised. He raises it and asked you to key again when clear and the bridge mysteriously lowers. Kind of a neat deal.

The other neat deal is the nightclub at the marina at Pine Bluff. I understand the marina is now closed but hopefully the nightclub is still jumping. Me and Mickey never met a country nightclub we didn't like and this one was no exception. Try it when you stop over.