Below Alton we came to a 5 mile canal that bypassed the rapids on the Mississippi. Rapids this far south? I don't remember that from history class. At the mouth of the canal the Army Corp of Engineers had installed underwater weirs that cause the surface to boil like you were over a wing dam. My heart stopped when we entered the turbulence but the water depth increased to 35 feet. Whew! A second lock at the end of the canal opened to St. Louis and the arch - breathtaking from the water.

In St. Louis we played dodge the dredge. We passed four of them working along the channel. Particularly dangerous because the are slowly crawling upstream on a pair of anchors and long cables.

We motored about 40 miles to Hoppes Marina, a string of barges on the Missouri side of the river. This is the last stop for fuel and water until the Cumberland after Barkley Dam - almost 200 miles. We've been burning about 1.1 gallons per hour. On the Illinois waterway we averaged 10 miles per hour, on the Mississippi we are running between 12 and 13 miles per hour thanks to a healthy current.

At Hoppes we met a new group of 6 boats. We arrived just in time for Fern's chart talk on the Miss, Ohio, and Cumberland rivers. She gave us an hour narrative on places to anchor and hazards - there are no marinas until we lock through the Barkley Dam on the Cumberland (4 days away).

10/26/04- Tuesday, pesky reality, sales taxes payments to send in, insurance payments - fun to try to do from nowhere. That behind us we departed Hoppes at 9:15am after the fog lifted at the bend below us. We're trucking again - 11 to 12 knots according to the GPS (for the non-boaters that's Global Positioning Satellite receiver that uses satellites to determine our position and speed - oh, a knot is 1.15 miles per hour). That piece of information is for my sister Kerry's home room class that's tracking the journey.

The river is very different than the Illinois Waterway - it's faster, the currents are much stronger, it has hundreds of rock and earthen wing dams forcing the river to a navigable path, and the apparent wildlife is sparse.

4pm and foggy, we've run over 79 miles today and are searching for safe anchorage below Cottonwood bar, a small island at mm79. We've grounded twice - the water depth is less than expected. The fog pretty much has the main channel hidden, I think it's a phenomenon caused by the weirs forcing the colder water to the surface where it interacts with the warm humid air. It's interesting to watch as it drifts over us and recedes.

Finally, anchor set in 9 feet of water (we've been warned the river can drop 4' overnight at this stage). The fog is getting denser, we can hear the hooting of an owl as I fire up the grille for brats and corn - our first night at anchor since we left October 1st. I'd like to be further from the channel but the backwater is silted up. We have the company of Latitude Dancer and Carrie to light our area for the tows as the rain starts. We fire up our hurricane lantern to add a little more light to our position. We also rigged our radar reflector to increase our visibility to the tows moving in the dark. There are places one would rather not be at night, but the river is the domain of the towboats, not pleasure craft.

10/27/04- A short night, I didn't sleep well at anchor, given the rain and fog. Being invisible on a busy river doesn't sound like a formula for long life. As it turned out, the tow operators must have felt the same - we had no traffic during the night. It's raining and foggy out. One boat departed about 8am, two of us stayed at anchor. You can't see an eighth of a mile. He had radar and a schedule to keep. I don't like where we are, but I like the odds on the river less.

At noon the fog lifted and we headed downstream with Latitude Dancer. Upstream traffics was heavy due to an "incident" at Cape Girardeau that blocked the river for a day (it appears that they were demolishing a RR bridge and it fell prematurely, blocking the river).  We saw our first eagle on the Miss. river today. Other than that it was a quiet run with a lot of up-bound traffic.

At 3:15 pm we arrived at Little River, a drainage ditch on the south edge of Cape Girardeau,  with 10' of water - a great place to spend the night. We were the second boat in, behind Latitude Dancer. placing a bow and stern anchor to keep from getting crossways in the ditch. Amantes, came in about 30 minutes later announcing that another 2 boats were behind them. At 7:30, in pitch dark, they had not yet arrived?

Our postings have been spotty due to unreliable internet connections.

10/28/04- A grey sky greeted us as the weather channel predicted light rain; exactly what we had. The other two boats hadn't arrived. Hope they anchored at the Cottonwood bar!

At 8am we put out a radio request four traffic info at the mouth of our river, a blind hole that we would have to exit at 5-6 knots. A northbound tow reported that he was 1.5 miles away and closing, other traffic had just passed. We blew out of the opening and headed south.

We met a northbound towboat with a sinking barge in his tow. He was trying to find a sandbar to ground the barge on. Further down two towboats were assisting a third as he resolved a problem (engine?). Definitely a working river.

Fog started to accumulate... by 10am we were blanketed and had to stop and anchor just off the channel with Latitude Dancer and Amantes. We couldn't see Latitude Dancer until we were within 50' of her. We are aware of a northbound tow that has stopped below us, but are hearing radio transmissions indicating that other tows are trying to move in this pea soup - ohh goodie!

Sitting in the fog listening to the rumble of tow engines is like when we were kids listening for monsters in the dark. You know they are out there, but where?

Noon and we're moving again. There's more eagles today than we've seen since the Illinois river. A lot of tows too! We ran pretty event-less until 3pm when we came to Cairo IL where we ducked into a little slough above the hwy 60-62 bridge for the night. Tomorrow we head up the Ohio.

Back to Loop Route

On to the Ohio

Another Adventure treks south

The 25th and 26th take us to our first anchorage

Waiting for the fog to lift at Cottonwood bar

A short lesson in river radio talk:

"See yawl on the two" - I agree with your request to meet and pass on my port side.

"Wher did'yawl sey you tha say-boat was at" - Obvious one, asking where another tow had seen us.

"Bring er on down the blacks." - Tricky, it means hug the green buoys south bound (they look black when the sun is behind them).

What's it like to drive a tow?

Wait until dark, then litter the kitchen floor with your kids toys. Lay a six foot  2 x 4 on the floor and lay a penlight on top of it. Put a finger at one end of the board and point the penlight toward the other end. Turn out the kitchen lights... and try to push the 2 x 4 across the room with your finger without hitting anything. Fun, ehh?

Mining sand on the Mississippi

Mississippi Musings

The Mississippi river was a bit of a disappointment. We traveled during a low water period, a good thing because the wing dams were very apparent, a bad thing because the wing dams were very visible. The dams are created by piling rock and sand to create finger dams that extend out from shore toward the middle of the river. They divert the river's flow to that middle channel so it scours a deeper path for traffic. In areas they are L-shaped, creating an artificial river bank. Basically they are ugly, creating a sense of traveling through a construction site. In high water they would be relatively invisible, riled water would be a marker, but the weirs also rile the water and they are safe to pass over.

We made good time on the Ole Miss, traveling with the current (and logs, drums, trash).

It was interesting to see the bluffs before Alton, and to see the river cities we learned about in school. The tows were big, but easily managed.

The waterway is definitely a working river with few places for pleasure craft to fuel, dock or anchor. Slow craft need to plan well.