More soon

I apologize for the void in my posts. I can't blame it on the blogosphere, but I have been very busy with taking the boat out of the water and getting it back to Texas. There is a blog finale coming in the next day or two, so stay tuned and thanks for traveling down the river with me.

Day 82, MM 123 to Algiers Canal (MM89)

It was a stressful day on two accounts, one, the sheer number of barges and ships that could squish us deader than a mackerel, and two, I still hadn't determined where I could take the Getter out of the water. Both my mom and my dad had been researching possible take out locations but they were turning up the same results I had. Either the facilities were too far away, inaccessible or non-existent. My only chance were some boat ramps on the intercoastal waterway after the Harvey and Algiers canals meet. I could navigate up the Harvey canal but we would miss downtown New Orleans altogether so I decided to go the extra ten miles down to the Algiers. The traffic was heavy and it was hard to relax. In-fact I would have gone right by downtown unbeknownst if Kathy hadn't tuned me into it. She urged me to pull over on a sand bar opposite the city and between the view and a celebratory drink my nerves settled quite a bit. I couldn't believe the trip was coming to an end. Three months ago I couldn't have even imagine this moment. I reveled in the summer's accomplishments and adventures and felt sad but equally as satisfied. We shoved off, said good bye to New Orleans and headed for the Algiers lock. It was another seven miles or so down to the canal and when we got there a line of at least three barges were waiting to lock through so we waited along side them. Our turn didn't come around until after 6 p.m. and I didn't want to get caught on the skinny canal in the dark with no place to sleep and since I wasn't sure about any boat ramps I asked the lock master if we could sleep up against the back side of the canal wall. He granted us permission, so we are enjoying one last unexpected night on the river.

This is what the shoreline looks like now

Ships

Downtown New Orleans

2nd to last photo on the Mississippi river (looking upstream)

Last photo (downstream)

Day 81, 26 Miles - MM 149 to MM 123

A great blue heron takes a raft ride

My future kevel

I can't remember when I first started admiring the barges gigantic cleats, which are called kevels, but it was early in the trip. There have been several barge workers who I have asked for an extra one. They laughed under their breath and couldn't believe why I'd want one. For over two months now I have been hoping to get a kevel and then, today, the next to last day of the trip, I struck gold. Kathy and I were minding our Ps and Qs and staying out of the way of all the Death Stars that travel these parts when some barge workers yelled for us to come over. We obliged them and visited for a while. Eventually I asked if they had any giant cleats hanging around that I could have. They chuckled in unison and one fellow said "They weigh several hundred pounds, it might sink your ship." Another man chimed in, "if I dropped it from here it'd pop that little blue balloon and send you for a sputtering ride." I chuckled with them but really I could have done with less comments and more kevels. A third fellow said that the next barge up was being cut into pieces to haul off to the scrap yard and if I made nice with the Mexicans they would probably cut one off for me. He offered to ask for me and within 15 minutes a couple of welders were making my dream come true. The Kevel fell with a thud onto the sand and after I cooled it down with some Mississippi water the two guys helped me lift it up onto the Big Getter. I couldn't believe how heavy it was and finally understood why all those guys had laughed at me. When we pushed the boat out into the water I realized that the kevel, which was on the front deck had raised the stern out of the water so far that the outboard's propellers were above water. Kathy and I painstakingly rolled it inside the cabin and the boat regained its sleek trim. I was finally kevel rich, although I have no idea what I am going to do with it.

Here it comes

A ship of Barges (there are 33 barges here and the largest tow I've seen had 56 barges)

It is still peaceful aboard the Big Getter

The real scale (I am still at least one hundred feet in front of the ship)

"67 here, 'bout to flip out"

So the industry and barge traffic has increased exponentially over the last two days and I now listen to the VHF radio religiously. Although I don't speak that often it is fun to listen to all the rough and rugged river jargon of the tug boat captains, not to mention the invaluable knowledge of what is happening around me. Sometimes however, I don't understand the colorful language and have to wait until after the fact to decipher the meaning. Here's an example. Kathy and I were startled one time as one of those huge ocean going ships honked. I automatically assumed I was doing something wrong but was unaware of what that could be. Immediately I turned up the volume on the radio and heard "67 here, 'bout to flip out." I never had heard anyone announce that the were about to go postal and thought that our society should be required to honk a horn before they went ballistic or became irate. It would be the civil way to be uncivilized. Soon however the ship, which was anchored, had pulled in its anchor and began to turn around, or 'flip out.' Another amusing comment I heard was, "Ah, by the time you get here, you'll have plenty of daylight, see ya on the two whistle." That translates to: you'll have plenty of room to pass me on the right. It has been a ball listening to and learning a little bit of river slang. I also heard "He's dragging his feet all the way to work" and "I got more space than asia." At one point in time I was listening into a conversation about me. One tug boat pilot was alerting another northbound barge that was around the bend that I was in the channel. He said "you got a little motorboat, raft, house, ..... it's hard to describe, you'll see it, blue pontoons, crazy looking little animal." I got a real grin out of that one.

Day 80, 43 Miles – MM 194 to MM 151

Im not sure what woke us up last night but Kathy is trying to convince me that it was an alligator. Maybe? All I know is that I shot awake feeling like our anchor had failed and we had drifted into shore. Our boat got rocked hard and a ferocious splash ensued. In five seconds flat I was out of bed and on the front deck looking for an explanation. Our anchor line was still taught and I couldn't discern where the splash had originated nor could I see any evidence of what had shaken us out of bed. I fell back asleep happy to still be anchored but curious. In the morning we saw that our neighbors were on a Corp boat named La Fourche that we had seen several times yesterday. There were two men mulling about so we went to say good morning. It was fortuitous that we ventured over because Pat gave us some unfortunate but vital information. The Industrial Canal that connects the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain was closed. Over the last few days I had decided to change my take out from Venice to Lake Pontchartrain, but this was now out of the question. The rest of the day was tinged in somber shades and I racked my brain with alternative solutions on where to take out. The river was becoming more and more industrial and I was convinced that it would stay that way for the rest of the river. I was in a quandary but still enjoying the adventure. 

Corp of Engineer guys that were also sleeping at Bayou Goula

Ship and Dredge

Just a little scale (the tug is about 20 times bigger than the Getter)

Day 79, 41 Miles – Baton Rouge to Bayou Goula (MM 194)

Hurley's dredging arm and the upper Baton Rouge bridge

Beautiful Baton Rouge

Grain loader

I woke up in a fine mood and feeling much better than yesterday. Kathy and I launched before we even made coffee, determined to make some miles to what looked like one of the only safe anchorages in the next 50 miles. Shortly after we pulled the sand stakes we were floating by Hurley closer than 100 feet. We got out in the channel and I climbed up top to drop in the stern sweep while Kathy made a pot of coffee. For the next 14 miles I stood up top waving to truck drivers, yelling good morning to factory employees and dodging barge traffic; all the while sipping coffee and enjoying the industrial surrounding. It was a fine morning indeed. Soon after passing the lower bridge the mechanical banks thinned into the tree lined shore that we have known for the last 500 miles. Over the next 20 plus miles the river maintained it's natural beauty and sparsely populated banks. It was near on dark when we found a sand bar just a few miles upstream from our goal anchorage. We decided to gamble sand and land fall against anchoring in a side channel. After dinner we played an intense game of cards in the cabin, which offered some protection against the biting insects, and after the fierce but friendly competition we emerged for fresh air. "wowsers," I said as a massive sea ship passed by us north bound. Kathy and I both watched in awe as the behemoth sailed by. The ship was about on the same latitude with us when their wake came soaring up the beach. "Kathy, we are about to get hit hard," I yelled and we both maneuvered to the downstream side of the Big Getter. Our weight helped stabilize our vessel but the wake was so strong it rocked one of our stake loose. Neither one of us wanted to deal with that kind of motion all night long so we high tailed it to Bayou Goula, the safe haven that we had originally set out for. It was dark by the time we dropped anchor but went to sleep with out concern of 'waking' up.

Day 78, 30 Miles – MM 265 to Baton Rouge

It could be the beginning.

Big Getter, Justus, Cammie, Brice, Hurley

Hurley and it's slave boat

I awoke feeling a little lethargic and tad bit down. Couldn’t say what got into me, I think it is knowing that the trip is nearing the end. I also expected that this might be the last day of sandy beaches and infrequent barge traffic. By the looks of it on the map from Baton Rouge south is pretty heavily industrialized. The funk lasted nearly all day but by the time we reached Baton Rouge my spirits were back on track. The Dredge Hurley was anchored just down stream from where we tied up for the night and the sight of that behemoth with its arm sticking way out into the channel helped cheer me up even more. Cammie met us there and helped us re-supply for the last leg of the journey. It will take us 4 or 5 days to get down to New Orleans so we stocked up pretty well and then said good-bye to Cammie and Brice.

Day 77, 35 Miles – MM 300 to St. Francisville Ferry

Brice 1920's style

anybody home?

Sunset at the Ferry

Day 76, 36 Miles - MM 336 to MM 300

From far away we heard the low long blast of a signal horn. It wasn't a barge or train, but sounded more like a baritone BBBwwwaaaa, pause, BBBwwwaaaa as if the space ship we were on was about to self destruct and we only had T minus 30 seconds and counting. It was curious but we soon rounded the bend and saw a hydro-electric plant and a warning sign that we weren't close enough to read but mentioned something about discharge. I opened the map and couldn't believe what I saw. The warning sign was there alright, right next to a black dotted line that read 'Coochie Discharge.' Now you know we got a kick out of that one. We couldn't stop laughing and when the next BBBwwwaaaa went off Brice said in a loudspeaker voice, "No swimming in the Coochie Discharge." Oh, the laughter turned into hysterics and we were all waiting for the next honk. It finally sounded and Kathy started to open her legs slowly while saying "releasing, releasing" as she tried not to keel over from a mad fit of the chuckles. The game continued well into the afternoon but I'll spare you any more anecdotes.

Coochie Discharge ??????

Day 75, 27 Miles - Natchez to MM 336

Barges in the not so far distance

Yes, the gun is still in full effect

We met up with Brice and Cammie last night in Natchez. There at the boat were the group of kayakers we saw back up in Vicksburg. They were pretty sun burned but had had a good trip. Kathy and I tied the Big Getter up to a couple of inadequate bushes, dropped a stern anchor and grabbed our goods for the first nights sleep of the boat since June 1st. Cammie helped us gear up this morning before we shoved off. She seemed a little reluctant to see her son go off on a boat that is the fraction of the size of even the smallest tow boat boat but after some assurance she was able to say "good luck, have fun." 

Day 74, 46 Miles - MM 409 to Natchez

It was a desolate day. Yesterday's rain has made the river rise and with the higher water a slew of debris has entered the channel. There is infact more debris now than what I encountered during the flood. 

Day 73, 28 miles - Vicksburg to MM 409

Could this be a future nuclear plant? 

Boat Life

Grand Gulf Nuclear Facility

Both the river and the sky keep getting bigger

Day 72 - Lay over in Vicksburg

Big Getter in front of a Sternwheeler turned Casino in Vicksburg

"No caption needed" - Kathy

The Iron Clad Cairo spent 102 years under 30 feet of water

I am on the starboard side in front of the cannon

We met up with Susan and her family for dinner last night and on top of offering us showers and laundry they lent us a car to tour around in. We drove across the bridge and then on to the Vicksburg Military National Park. The park was a delight and the visitors center was one of the best ones I have seen. By far, the highlight was the resurrected Cairo. Vicksburg was one of the key positions in controlling trade on the Mississippi River during the revolutionary war and iron clad steam boats were an elemental weapon in the battle which lasted several months. 

Kathy has decided to stay on with me and since her schedule allows and some of my guests have backed out. Im glad she is onboard and both good times and bad times are better shared.

Day 71, 6 Miles - MM 443 to Vicksburg

Breakfast in bed is nothing compared to what happened this morning. Kathy and I were enjoying our morning coffee on the roof when a biplane buzzed us. We waved enthusiastically as they flew right of our stern. Downstream they arced back around and started a landing descent. They floated right next to our boat and beached the plane on the same sand bar. Now these were visitors of a different style, rednecks I doubted, but if so it had to be a camo clad Hans Solo and Cewbaka with a mullet. Two men emerged about the time I had climbed onto the bank. As they walked up one of them said "I got a phone call about you last night." That took me by surprise and I asked who the phone call was from. "Susan Chiarito" he answered. Oh yeah. She is the cousin of a friend of mine and had been expecting me soon. The four of us chatted for a while and they were intrigued by Big Getter and said that they wanted to make the same trip but by plane. I eventually asked them advice on where to dock or anchor in Vicksburg. Dan said "well, do you want to see what you're up against from the air?" "Yeah." I sprang into action like the owner of a winning lottery ticket and was in the plane before Dan had climbed off my boat. He took us downriver at the same height as a tug boat pilot house (which is relatively low for a plane) and showed me some back channels as well as his business site. I don't know if you remember me commenting on the Army Corp boat with the crane on it but now I know what it does. Dan owns a construction company that makes the concrete blankets that the Corp uses to contain the sides of the river with. The giant crane is used to clear the river banks in order to lay the concrete blanket down. We continued to Vicksburg and up the Yazoo River where we landed to check out the water front. It was a suitable for the Big Getter so we took back off. He flew me over the town and then up to the industrial harbor. We came back around to where Big Getter and Kathy were waiting and I got a few arial photos of the boat. It was a fantastic morning and one that I will remember for ever. Thanks. After breakfast Kathy, who was a little jealous but very gracious, and I continued down to Vburg to where I knew I could put the boat.

Hans Solo and Chewy pulling up

I wish Big Getter were in this photo for some perspective.

It would be very very small, probably about the size of the index finger of your cursor

The concrete strips used to form the blankets

Big Getter about 5 mile upstream of Vicksburg

Day 70, 23 Miles - MM 466 to MM 443

'Redneckin'

Sunset Dinner

So if you guys aren't aware of the Persaides Meteor shower look up at the sky tonight. We have seen some kick ass meteors, short ones and red ones and one that spanned the skies breadth. It is going on right now but the mother load won't be here until the 11th and 12th so get out of the city lights if you can, take a blanket and a loved one and sit up on the roof of your car cinema style. The meteor shower kept us out of Vicksburg one more night. It would have been easy to arrive there at 4 o'clock this afternoon but between the atmospheric light show and the red necks we met on the river we decided to camp out one more night. Now, when I say 'rednecks' it is only because they self proclaimed themselves as just that. Doug, Phillip and Luke spotted us up river and came out to see us and insisted that we come 'rednecking' with 'em. Kathy and I felt half obliged, half apprehensive and a hundred percent gung ho so off we went. We weren't sure what to expect but they were about the same as anyone else one this earth. They drank Bud, argued over the spelling of hermaphrodite (not they they new what it meant), and cussed at each other while having the time of their lives. The redneck weekend came and went too soon just like everyone else's and the whole goal of 'rednecking', as far as I can tell is to hoot and holler. Yipetty Yipetty Yahoooooooo and fuck you too.

Day 69, 51 Miles - MM 517 to MM 466

Kathy's feet and a Zebra Swallow Tail Butterfly

I lingured in bed this morning enjoying the cool breeze

Blissful was today, still cool from yesterdays storm and for the most part barge free. We floated unencumbered all day. The rivers wide turns are several miles long and and the current held us well. Almost twelve miles went by without us having to make any adjustments to avoid the shore lines. 

Day 68, 31 Miles - MM 548 to MM 517

We had planned to resupply in Greenville, Mississippi but the water front was not only fairly inaccessible from the river it was not close to town either. Kathy and I found a small patch of sand to beach the boat and hiked up the levee to a small RV park where we were able to fill our water jugs. The water flowed out of the faucet brown so we let it run for a while but there was no change. We went to a different spigot hoping for clear water looking water but found the same coffee colored liquid. We decided this could be our cleaning and bathing water and we had enough drinking water to last us the 100 miles down to Vicksburg. I saw a man down the way so I decided to ask him what he knew about the water. "I've lived here 70 years," he said, "and every time I draw a bath it looks like someone has already bathed in it." "It's clean water and sweet to drink, it just looks muddy." He continued on and on about the water and how it hadn't killed him yet. Evidently, according to the old timer, in the town of Greenville when you order water at a restaurant it has a golden tint. Back at the boat we re-evaluated our food supply and although we were down to just carrots, cabbage and canned goods it was enough for at least a week so we left Greenville unladen.

Looking back at the bridges and the tail of the storm

Downstream a few miles there are two bridges that cross the river and as we approached them  so did a north bound 35 barge tow. The clouds had grown dark and I could see wind whipping the tops of the Arkansas forest. A little fishing boat mached by us and I was reminded of the horizontal tornado that Johnny Lawless and I encountered two months ago in Minnesota. Just like that incident this storm was on us in no time and although the wind wasn't vicious the rain was blinding. Our visibility went belly up. The bridges downstream disappeared completely and so did the barge in a very disconcerting way. We couldn't see a dam thing, I became very disoriented and only new which way downstream was by the water flowing under the boat. I didn't want to chance getting to shore since that barge was out there somewhere so I motored against the current and the wind and held our position outside the channel about a hundred feet off a red buoy. That buoy saved us. Relentlessly it rained, and after 20 or 30 minutes of motoring in the same position visibility cleared slightly to reveal the barge. The pilot had driven up against the shoreline and was waiting out the storm just like we were. I still could not see the bridges half a mile down stream and we stayed there for the next half hour until the storm was in front of us. Finally the bridges were in plain sight and barge traffic had resumed, I sighed heavily and turned downstream. 

Day 67, 27 Miles - MM 575 to MM 548

Matt and Patrick securing the trawl line.

It was already hot but still early in the morning, about rush hour, when two motor boats sped up beside us. In one boat there were three guys, Matt, Paul, and Patrick, the other boat was driven by Hal. They were a team of researchers from a Mississippi university studying the range and habitat of Shovelnose Sturgeon. They visited with us for a while and told us of a great fossil hunting spot around the bend called Catfish Point. They also invited us to come visit them while they worked. Kathy was especially interested in the opportunity and we said we would look for them downstream.

Matt holding the first sturgeon of the day.

After hunting fossils we headed downstream in search of the fish hunters. They spotted us first and came out to greet us. "why don't ya'll tie off to the shore and come ride with us for a while" Hal said. I said "alrighty," and headed for the closest sand bar. Soon we were zipping along the water at a race car's pace. It was a huge change from our slower-than-molasses crawl, and fun to have to hold on to my hat. 

Kat holds the fish being careful not to let the razor sharp spines slice her

They used a trawl line and would scrape the bottom of the river bed for the endangered species. After catching one they would measure its length, take a sample of it's fin to determine it's age and tag it. Over the course of a few hours they set the trawl line five times and caught several baby Sturgeon, a small Asian Carp and two 8 pound Flathead Catfish.

Day 66, 40 Miles – MM 612 to MM 572

It was a day of barges. We encountered 3 or 4 times the normal river traffic today. At one bend in the river I counted 7 barges half of which had already passed us and the others were steaming up on us quick like. There were no mishaps or close calls just lots of maneuvering to avoid aircraft carrier sized boats. Not too many miles ago we passed the confluence of the Arkansas River. If it weren’t for the swirling colors of two rivers I wouldn’t have even noticed it. Its volume was insignificant compared to the Mississippi and there was no distinct river channel.

Despite what I had heard, the scenery down here is awesome. The vista sweeps across the world and there is a sense of wilderness that did not exist further upstream. The long drawn out bends of river are only bound by the sky’s border and make the Upper Mississippi feel almost claustrophobic. I am extraordinarily pleased with the beauty of the Lower Mississippi and am happy that I chose to see it for myself.