Baton Rouge and Beyond

The night at Fancy Point Towhead was restful because we were so exhausted that we didn't worry about being overun by a tow boat or dragging an anchor. We intended to get an early start to help regain some of the time lost at Vidalia (however, remember the cruisers law, "don't get in a hurry and never depend upon being somewhere on-time) but our early start was put on hold by one of those lower Mississippi fog banks. Moisture from the blue gray cloud just didn't settle on the boat and occupants but consumed us and every nook and crany of Detour. We could hear towboats stopped on the river, engines running but making no headway.

I don't remember exactly what time the fog lifted and allowed us to carefully make our way out of the perils of our shallow anchorage and back to the perils of the big river but I knew we had a perfect record of delayed departures. The pressure of keeping a schedule continued to encourage my urge to increase speed and ignore the real issue; gasoline usage. But, Mickey and I have never been very logical in our reasoning when trying to catch fish, hunt or any of those other guy deals.

The weather had moderated from the cold windy conditions of the first two days of the trip and had taken on the more normal warm and humid feel of late April. We set a course for New Orleans and pushed the throttles up to 3000 RPM's and looked to see the tall state capitol building of Louisiana and the city of Baton Rouge very soon.

In the middle of the afternoon, it seemed our trip was to be one of those rare occasions of "no issue" cruising. But never jump to conclusions; the starboard engine began to sputter and I quickly realized that our haste and subsequent waste of gasoline had put our trip again in jeapordy. Not to mention the hazards of being without power in the busy channel of the lower Mississippi River. I knew from experience that Detour's starboard engine used fuel about a gallon an hour faster that the port engine and that we had used the generator, which pulls fuel from the starboard tank, for about an hour. Now, my confidence in calculating fuel useage had taken quite a "hit" and the increased speed had complicated my calculations but I figured we had about an hours gasoline left for the port engine if we idled along.

What to do? We know that no marinas on the lower Mississippi allow pleasure boat to approach their docks (insurance issues) and very few even carry gas (only diesel). I had read a blog written by another pleasure cruiser that there was a small salvage yard owner in the area that would assist if gasoline became a critical issue. This was a critical issue. I began to look through my planning notes (I did prepare) to see if I could find the telephone number of the slavage dock. Just as always when Mickey and I get into trouble, we found the number and made contact with the dock. Bottom line; yard owner allowed us to dock at his yard, loaned me his pick-up and I drove to the nearest gas station, filled up four six-gallon cans with "high test" and headed back to the salvage yard. The owner would not accept payment for his kindness and I, to this day, marvel at being able to get gasoline in under those circumstances.

I knew we would be very close on gas getting to our marina in New Orleans, so we slowed way down and made our way through the unbelieveable sights of the highly commercial waterway north of the Big Easy.

Fancy Point Towhead

If my memory serves me correctly, we shoved off the barge/dock at Vidalia about 1:30 or so and anticipated an interesting trip as the Muddy Mississippi became wider, muddier and much more congested. I had figured the fuel use carefully and my calculations had been pretty close to correct to date. However, the delay of the morning and the anxiety of a close schedule lay heavy on my mind and heightened my natural tendency for a need for speed. My plans were to get as far as light would take us and find the safest anchorage possible on the lower/lower Mississippi... which in any ones terms is the grandest of "oxymoronisms".

If I haven't mentioned it before now I want you to be sure and understand my shock and awe of the lower Mississippi River. It is almost without description, at least any I could craft, and I won't attempt it except to say that it is, in its own way, beautiful with a hint of terror. It has a mesmerizing personality that lures you into compliance with its aura and snaps you to conscientiousness with its strength and its vast array of inhabitants, biological and man-made.

After a few miles on the river, we put our "waiting for gas" frustrations behind us and settled in to our river cruise routine of watching for nasty things in the water before they smoothed off Detour's bottom of all mechanical implementation. As I think back now of all the things that could have gone wrong on our adventure, I wonder why we didn't destroy the running gear on partially submerged flotsam. It was our good luck because there was no way we could see it all. The best that I can recall, we made about 105 miles or so after the long delay in Vidalia; not a bad day's run. We found a large cut-off or Towhead at about mile marker 258, called Fancy Point Towhead and pulled in as closely as possible to anchor. The water was 80 to 100 feet deep in the river but as we carefully pulled out of the channel, the depth jumped up to 12 or so and we anchored in about 6 feet as I best remember.

Anchoring on the Mississippi is, as I have alluded to before, is a practice of faith. You know stumps abound in the shallows but you must get far enough away from the channel to ensure one of the monstrous tows won't run you over. I wanted to get close to the towhead point to keep out of the way of small tows that might decide to use the channel behind the island to save time and cut-off a portion of the river. Now, about the current; I would say that it was flowing 4 to 5 miles per hour. Now, that doesn't sound to fast but believe me it is very fast and very frightening. I could see us in the night with a broken anchor rode and cruising backwards to the Gulf of Mexico, or worse into the path of a big ole tow.

The evening came quickly and we hurried to get the gas we had in barrels transferred into Detour's tanks. Now, lets see, those dangerous river things I was describing a while ago paled in comparison to having 60 gallons or so of gasoline in the cockpit and using a hand pump to move it from the barrels to the tanks. I tried not to think about it in hopes that our luck would continue to hold up. It did and we settled in for the night after another quick supper.