I know most inland waterway cruisers plan their anchorages very carefully and well they should. Mickey and I didn't have that luxury. We had three days to get to New Orleans, lake Pontchatrain to be exact, and were forced to travel as far as possible each day, find a reasonable spot to "tuck in", hope the anchor held and that we didn't get run over by one of those monster tows that run 24 -7. The afternoon cruise had been much smoother than the morning battle with the wind and river. I've heard veteran cruisers call a rough day on the water "snotty" well this morning was worse than that but I don't know a good term to describe it; I think you get the idea. I was still missing Pam and as I recall didn't have cell phone coverage and couldn't get a report of her progress. She picked up our car, which she had driven to Greenville and had plans to drive to Brandon, MS to spend the night with Paula, her identical twin sister. Because I am writing in retrospect, I can tell you she made it safely. The sun set beautifully over the river that night and we found ourselves without anchorage as the evening drifted in around us.
Mickey and I have always pushed ourselves a little further into the evening than advisable no matter whether hunting, fishing or hanging out we never really could bear to call it a day. However, now we would be forced to take the first cut or towhead we came to and try to turn it into a safe harbor. We found a wide cut in the river on the left descending bank. It was an inviting piece of river chute with cypress trees and a huge sandbar on the down river bank. My plan was to ease into the cut on the downstream side of the opening; I think I remember someone telling me that the water is normally a little deeper on the downstream side. These cuts, from my own experience, are always shallower at the mouth and if you are lucky enough to get over the shallows they will get deeper as you move back into the chute. The tricky part is going slow enough to keep from breaking something if you run aground while keeping enough headway to overcome the strong Mississippi river flow.
As we approached the mouth, Mickey perched on the forward bow to look for snags, although if you remember Samuel Clements' quote, "the Mississippi is too thick to drink but too thin to plow", (I guess it could have been John Stennis or some other famous person or even unfamous person who said that but it doesn't matter) he couldn't have seen anything if his life depended on it but it made us feel better anyway. The depth was sufficient to allow our passage and we glided slowly into the slack water near the sandbar and dropped the hook for our second night out but the first on the real river. I remember how enjoyable it was to finally cut the engines off, relax on the bow seat and enjoy our first cold beer of the day; it was the first of several. We washed the beer down with vienna sausages, crackers and potted meat. I think I remember a cookie or two to top things off.
As the night rolled on, so did the river and the non-stop commerce it supports. Towboats have an unmistakable sound and the huge ones on the river can be heard for miles. They don't throw much wake from their bows but prop wash from the big turbine engines can be frightening.
When a cruiser passes downstream the turbulence from a multi-engine towboat and sometimes two towboats pushing the same raft of barges upstream is well "snotty". The other issue, as I think I mentioned in an earlier post from a night on the Arkansas River, is the powerful search lights. These lights are so intense that, I promise, you can feel the heat of the red hot bulb as an inquisitive captain tries to figure out what idiots are spending the night on their river. We had several take second looks. The sound of the big engines, the waves kicked up by those six foot across props, the spotlights shining through the windows and our anxiety on being so near the dangers of our river made the night a long and unnerving experience. Daylight brought a pleasant end to a test of endurance that we seem to have survived along with Detour, which remained securely attached to mother earth under three maybe four feet of the mighty Mississippi.
Mickey and I have always pushed ourselves a little further into the evening than advisable no matter whether hunting, fishing or hanging out we never really could bear to call it a day. However, now we would be forced to take the first cut or towhead we came to and try to turn it into a safe harbor. We found a wide cut in the river on the left descending bank. It was an inviting piece of river chute with cypress trees and a huge sandbar on the down river bank. My plan was to ease into the cut on the downstream side of the opening; I think I remember someone telling me that the water is normally a little deeper on the downstream side. These cuts, from my own experience, are always shallower at the mouth and if you are lucky enough to get over the shallows they will get deeper as you move back into the chute. The tricky part is going slow enough to keep from breaking something if you run aground while keeping enough headway to overcome the strong Mississippi river flow.
As we approached the mouth, Mickey perched on the forward bow to look for snags, although if you remember Samuel Clements' quote, "the Mississippi is too thick to drink but too thin to plow", (I guess it could have been John Stennis or some other famous person or even unfamous person who said that but it doesn't matter) he couldn't have seen anything if his life depended on it but it made us feel better anyway. The depth was sufficient to allow our passage and we glided slowly into the slack water near the sandbar and dropped the hook for our second night out but the first on the real river. I remember how enjoyable it was to finally cut the engines off, relax on the bow seat and enjoy our first cold beer of the day; it was the first of several. We washed the beer down with vienna sausages, crackers and potted meat. I think I remember a cookie or two to top things off.
As the night rolled on, so did the river and the non-stop commerce it supports. Towboats have an unmistakable sound and the huge ones on the river can be heard for miles. They don't throw much wake from their bows but prop wash from the big turbine engines can be frightening.
When a cruiser passes downstream the turbulence from a multi-engine towboat and sometimes two towboats pushing the same raft of barges upstream is well "snotty". The other issue, as I think I mentioned in an earlier post from a night on the Arkansas River, is the powerful search lights. These lights are so intense that, I promise, you can feel the heat of the red hot bulb as an inquisitive captain tries to figure out what idiots are spending the night on their river. We had several take second looks. The sound of the big engines, the waves kicked up by those six foot across props, the spotlights shining through the windows and our anxiety on being so near the dangers of our river made the night a long and unnerving experience. Daylight brought a pleasant end to a test of endurance that we seem to have survived along with Detour, which remained securely attached to mother earth under three maybe four feet of the mighty Mississippi.
