Day 20
Friday 24 September 2010
Beep, beep, beep… I turned around in my sleeping bag and tried to ignore the annoying noise. Beep, beep, beep. I collect my wits together and guess it is the slipped anchor alarm. Still in my sleeping bag I look out the widow but see nothing untoward; the house is still there and the garden light. It was a little after midnight.
‘Pete!’
Nothing. I called out louder and he finally stirs. This is so unlike Peter because he has a sixth sense when something is not right and is always the first to respond. He hears the alarm and is out of his sleeping bag in a shot, trampling over me to get to the satellite navigation system.
‘We’ve slipped anchor, quick get up and help me!’
‘Pete, I’m sure it’s a false alarm, we haven’t moved.’
A quick inspection by Peter reveals that all is OK although neither of us can explain why the alarm sounded, but we crawl back to our sleeping bags and succumb to the lure of the possibility to snatch more sleep.
Beep, beep, beep… Again it was me who woke up first and had to rouse Peter. It was 2.40am and it was another false alarm. So was the one at 4.10am.
This was definitely not a false alarm. We had exactly 10 minutes to abandon the USS Joanne before it destroyed itself and us with it. How the hell did we get in this mess? Peter and I had decided to split up and search for the alien before it could get into our escape capsule. The old horn continued its ominous warning… on/off, on/off. How were we going to explain to the folks back home that we had failed in our mission to reach the New Orleans solar system?
‘Peter, turn that f***ing alarm off!’
We are away by 6.45am and although it is cloudy, the weather is bright and promising to clear up later on during the day. I settle down to do my regular morning chores. I’ve noticed that whoever starts doing a particular task, it becomes their responsibility from there on. For example, Peter always casts off in the mornings on his own. He leaves me to have a lie in if I want, but this is impossible lately as my blow-up mattress has developed a slow puncture meaning I’m lying on the floor boards by 5am. After Peter casts off, he drives the first stint. When I get up, I tidy up after Peter. I roll up the anchor rope nicely and put it under the bench seat I made by the front door. I then collect any other mooring ropes that were used and roll them up nicely too. Deflating the air mattresses is next (although I can skip mine by now) and then they are rolled up and stored behind my chair at the back. I then hang the sleeping bags against the wall behind my chair. General tidying and washing up after the previous evening’s diner is next. This is quite interesting actually.
Originally, we used our fresh water supply to wash the dishes, but I had found an even better method! I should explain that the washing up is always done from the deck behind the cabin, this means that this chore is done out of sight of Peter. My method involves putting detergent on a pot-scourer, dipping it into the Mississippi River, giving all the pots, pans, cutlery and crockery the once over and then rinsing them in the river. It’s fast and effective, plus we save on water. However, I don’t think Peter would approve.
Anyhow, Peter tends to be the cook – he’s not bad actually. In the mornings, we try and have a good hearty English breakfast, although today it’s me that’s cooked bacon sandwiches. I’ve realised my diet has been thrown out of the window for this adventure. Meals are a problem because all our food shopping is done from the garages that we use to refuel. Very little fresh fruit and vegetables are available. We try and balance eating so that it is not simply a means to ‘fuel’ our bodies, but something that warms us up and tastes reasonably good. However, Despite Peter’s obvious culinary skills, there’s only so many ways you can cook bloody pasta!
It’s fascinating to see how the everyday jobs are ‘owned’ by one or the other; neither crossing over our ‘responsibilities. There are the jobs we share, like getting fuel and driving for example. But even here, these jobs are shared according to an unwritten matrix.
At 7.55am, at the bottom end of Bumguard Island (Look, I’m sorry; I don’t name these islands, well not for a while anyway) we enter a five mile stretch of river which gets very choppy and tosses Joanne up and down like a cork. Everything is contrasts today – a little over an hour later, we reach the speed of 11.3 mph for the first time!
We play the soundtrack of ‘Good Morning Vietnam’ and although I have never seen the film, after listening to the soundtrack, I’m determined to do so. The river banks are either sandy banks or gravel and rocks along the river now. We’ve noticed that instead of a minimum depth of nine feet, we have at least 35 feet now. The river banks hold the same scenery since we left St Paul’s; the same green trees rooted in the same geographical relief since, whenever. Despite the landscape being stunningly beautiful, we wake up every morning to it, drive along it all day and go to sleep looking at it. It has become a little tedious lately and it becomes a thrill to enter towns for the change in vista.
At 9.50am, I busy myself with repairing the coat hanger on the back door. We discovered that we can reduce the drone of the engine by half if we hang Peter’s winter coat on the back of the door. If driving, the engine noise is invasive, and helps to create drowsiness. Just as I step back into the cabin, the engine cuts out.
This is strange. We refuelled only 50 minutes earlier and normally five gallons would keep us going for at least two hours. Peter manages to start the engine again, but as soon as he puts the engine in gear, it immediately stops again. We lift the engine halfway out of the water and search for rope or any other debris that could have impeded the propeller – nothing. We say nothing; there is no need to exchange views because they are the same. We have a serious problem on our hands. We are perhaps half a mile away from Highway 57 Bridge and a couple of miles north of the town of Cairo. A barge train being pushed along by the Jay Luhr passes by. Peter tries to call the tug by radio on the international calling channel, but gets no reply. We learn later that the operating channel for this stretch of the river is channel 13. The Jay Luhr sees we are in trouble and tries to give us more room. We are drifting downriver and using a bucket on a length of rope and an improvised paddle, to try to row Joanne to the right bank.
To our terror, the Jay Luhr changes course to the right, so we frantically paddle in the opposite direction and aim for the left riverbank. The highway bridge is getting closer and despite our combined strength, cannot stop Joanne being sucked towards one of the main concrete bridge supports. Within seconds we realise that our speed has picked up considerably and that there is nothing we can do to avoid a collision. Peter has managed to get inside the cabin and I’m still dithering on the back wondering whether I have the muscle to push Joanne away from the bridge support to avoid an impact. As the bridge support fills my vision I realize it is a crazy notion and I turn my back to the disaster and hold onto the open doorway to save my life and manage to do so in a state of abject terror.
The crash does not happen. Although the bridge support sucked the water, and Joanne, towards it, the water passing between Joanne’s hull and the support acted as a cushion and actually prevented a collision. With adrenaline levels high and a desperate will to stay alive, we managed to get Joanne to the left side riverside about two miles south of the bridge and just six miles short of the Ohio River. It has started raining and it is now exactly an hour since the engine seized. We tie Joanne up and remove the engine from the transom for inspection. We both knew what we would find, neither of us needed to say anything. When we removed the lug screws from the lower transmission housing we discovered water instead of oil. We had specifically checked the oil level before we had started off and was told that it was sufficient for a season. It obviously wasn’t and we had a seriously damaged engine.
We were left with two choices: repair or buy a new engine, or abandon the trip here. The engine had cost 1,200 USD and that’s what we would be looking at if we had to buy another outboard. We had no idea what a repair - even if a repair was possible - would cost. Another worrying thing was, where and how long would this take? Peter set to with his iphone. Fortunately he was able to pick up a network signal. I was left… numb. Peter was occupied with trying to find a resolution and I had nothing to do but wait for the outcome and feel sorry for myself. I insisted that one of us left Joanne to find help; after all, we were plainly in the middle of nowhere. Peter persisted and although it seemed ages, he managed to get hold of a guy called Lewis from Cairo marina. He explained that they were a commercial marina and didn’t deal with small boats but promised to ‘ring around’. Peter eventually found a guy called Shaun who owned King Marine in Cape Girardeau, a good 40 miles away. Shaun stated that he could salvage a ‘bottom end’ from another outboard he had or repair the one we had. Either case, it would cost 850 USD. We had a quick discussion and agreed that we had no choice but to agree.
Lewis got back and told us that he couldn’t find a place to help us, but suggested the local fire brigade might help. They arrived soon afterwards in a powerful speed boat, but realised that there was no way that they were big enough to tow Joanne into Cairo. They agreed to take Peter into Cairo so that he could at least get the money for the repairs. Peter sped off into the distance between two burly firemen. I stayed behind feeling useless and frustrated.
Peter eventually phones me and tells me that he’s walking along the river edge towards Joanne and on his way to meet a mechanic from King Marine by the bridge just upstream. I learn that King Marine will take the bottom part of our engine to their workshop, repair it and have it back midday the following day. My spirits lifted instantly although I was troubled that we had lost 24 hours to this calamity.
Sooner or later the guy from King Marine, accompanied by Peter, came on board and removed the lower end of our outboard motor. He happily took it away and walked the couple of miles back to his car parked near the bridge. We decided to build a bonfire on the river bank and have a gin and tonic.
We ended up having more than one gin and tonic and enjoyed a particularly good evening together. The stars were amazing; all the constellations were so clear against the cloudy backcloth of the Milky Way. I reflected that the last time I saw something like this; I was lying on my back on the cool sands of Vama Veche, long before the townies arrived and destroyed it with their supermarkets, restaurants and hotels.
It was a very pleasant night and we retired determined more than ever to succeed in our adventure.
Sunday, 3 October 2010
Day 19 - By Ian
Day 19
Thursday 23 September 2010
We got up at 6.45am to a cold and misty morning and decided to investigate this strange jetty we had moored against the night before. The landing stage was ‘Y’ shaped although the shape lay on its right. Many of the wooden planks that would have served as the walkway were missing, making it quite dangerous to move around on in the dark. The wooden hut sat at the junction of the two jetties and all its small square windows were broken. I tried the door and it opened, so I went in. A swallow’s nest was attached to the ceiling and the bird droppings below had created a small stalagmite; testimony to how long this nest had been here. The building had obviously been an office for the fuel services that the landing stage provided, but I doubted if anything here had been serviced for at least three or four years now. Outside, the two dilapidated petrol pumps stood guard - like the strange robots we thought they were the evening before - staring ahead into the mist. Having completed our exploration and taken our photographs we slowly made our way out of the small cutting at 7am and joined the river proper.
Soon after, we were swept around the St Genevieve bend and noticed a grand sign advertising everything that a great marina could offer and decided to go for it. We were low on food and provisions so this sighting was a God send. However, as we were soon to find out, to reach the marina, meant turning into the Kasakaskia River, going upstream for about a mile and then going through a lock dam. We decided to try and find something else, fearing that we would spend too long to get there and back.
The town of Chester was our next opportunity, but we had to refuel the main tank when the engine finally cut out mid-river. After passing the very long island of Kasakaskia, we approached Chester but saw no signs of life and presumed that it was some way from the river. We did see a concrete boat ramp, but little else.
Whilst coming round Bishop Light, the USS Joanne managed 10.1 mph for the first time. We continued passed McLean Point, the town of Linholff and Gills Point. As we crossed the point, the Mississippi which had been smooth and quiet, suddenly changed. In front of our eyes it looked as if someone had used an immense furnace beneath the river to boil the water. It bubble menacingly and dared us to come further. We did, slowly. A very heavy strong wind caused quite a swell and slowed us considerably; our speed dropped to 6.5 mph. Despite the hurdle we had no option but to move on, and Joanne endured an hour long battering. It is not fun to be in a garden shed when the waves and wind rock it from side to side and the waves below seem to push Joanne easily above the water and let her drop violently on to the cruel waves below. There is only one thing worse - having the same experience, only at night when you cannot see a horizon and quickly become disorientated. However, despite our occasional fears, Joanne’s hull is solid and easily copes with everything the Mississippi has thrown at her so far (touch wood, bite my tongue three times, etc.) Her sturdiness is thanks to Peter’s design skills coupled with the experience and advice of others who have attempted and either succeeded or failed with the same adventure as ours.
At 2.15pm we passed under the bridge at Wittenburg with the states of Missouri on our right and Illinois on our left. We continued through Grand Tower, Birmingham, Sheffield (I start feeling a little homesick!) before reaching Hanging Dog Island. We got the binoculars out, but for the life of us, couldn’t see a dog suspended from anything! And no wonder! Soon after passing the island we came across Hanging Dog Bluff!
Later, we happened across an island called Cottonwood Bar. This island was about half a mile long and at least a quarter of a mile wide. I found myself dreaming about having my ideal home on this lump of rock which one day found itself surrounded by this mighty river. Although it would be modest (Cristina is a minimalist) it would be luxurious. It would of course have a large swimming pool with all the trappings. OK, I realise that the island is remote, so it will have to have its own heliport (must book those flying lessons). I would leave as many of the trees that have already taken root in place, after all, I have a duty to live alongside the indigenous animal and plant populations that will hopefully agree to my moving in.
Shit!
I wrench the steering wheel hard to the right to avoid the bank and hoped Peter hadn’t noticed. Peter was lying in his hammock, which he put up a couple of days before. It hangs from the front roof beam of the cabin and is tied off above the back door which has become a nuisance; if the hammock is down, it’s impossible to open the door. I see Peter has raised his eyebrows and realise to my dismay that he has, in fact, noticed my indiscretion. Like a teacher that has caught a mischievous student, he simply called out, ‘Pratt!’ Why does he always make me feel so guilty?
I notice the trans-national railroad is still following the riverside, although I haven’t noticed (or heard) any massive freight trains for awhile now. Eventually we come across the promising town of Moccasin Springs (the chart indicates that it’s a good sized town) but again see no signs of life – just a concrete boat ramp and nothing else, despite a sign promising a posh sounding yacht club!
Because Joanne is very sluggish and her speed has dropped considerably, we give her hull the once over. We discover that one of the corrugated plastic sheets covering the barrels to reduce drag has folded over itself in at least one place. It dawns on us that every time we encounter strong head winds combined with heavy swells, the plastic sheets get damaged and move out of position. The only way to repair this is to swim around and under Joanne, loosen the ratchet straps that hold the plastic sheets (and barrels) to the main frame of the hull, reposition the plastic sheets and retighten the ratchet straps. It takes more than an hour to adjust the sheets properly.
At 3.50pm, despite strong gusts of wind and a fast current, Peter manages to moor Joanne close to Honkers boat ramp at Cape Girardean. Some people are sitting below the levy watching us tie-up. A kind couple offer Peter a lift to refill our petrol containers and I busy myself with repairing the plastic sheets. Peter joins me in the water when gets back. It proves to be a good opportunity to have a proper wash. Despite its muddiness, the Mississippi’s water is soft and you can get a really good lather up! Because of the length of Peter’s hair (hippie), he has to use conditioner after his wash, so he normally washes and conditions his hair (sissy) before starting any repair work.
A little over an hour later, we set off again and I make cheese and onion sandwiches; a late lunch. Whilst I munch away, a couple of flies make a nuisance of themselves. Except for the first few nights, we haven’t really been bothered by mosquitoes – I’ll rephrase that; I haven’t been bothered by mosquitoes – but the flies are different. They are a constant irritation and persist despite aerosols and a very effective plastic swotter that I have become quite adept at using. I remember reading somewhere that flies only exist because humans are around. Apparently they would die off quickly without us. What is bugging me at the moment is how do they spot a floating shed in the middle of a bloody huge river? Furthermore, just how do they know it contains humans? I’m convinced that one fly from the group is assigned to do a reconnaissance and when it finds out that this shed contains Peter and me, it whistles loudly and gestures for the others to join it and make our lives as uncomfortable as possible. Anyhow, one fly annoyed me sufficiently for me to suddenly pick up the swotter and go on a bloody rampage. Less than five minutes later, the body count was more than a dozen. With great relish I attached the splattered carcasses to Harry and Fred’s webs (Fred has made a reappearance by the way).
We pass through Thebes before coming into a town called Commerce, where we discovered a small inlet off Riverview Drive which was lit by a garden light that belongs to a homely looking house further up the grass embankment. It was an ideal place to stop for the night, besides we were very tired, despite it being a little past 8pm. In fact, we were so tired that neither of us could be bothered to prepare anything to eat. Peter set the satellite navigation device so that if we drifted further than a set distance in any direction, it would set off an alarm. It is known as an anchor alarm and is useful if we slip anchor and start sailing off down the Mississippi whilst we are sound asleep! Whenever we anchor up for the night, we always set this alarm.
We drank a couple of beers and slipped into our sleeping bags. I was pleased that I kept my clothes on; it proved to be a bitterly cold night.
Thursday 23 September 2010
We got up at 6.45am to a cold and misty morning and decided to investigate this strange jetty we had moored against the night before. The landing stage was ‘Y’ shaped although the shape lay on its right. Many of the wooden planks that would have served as the walkway were missing, making it quite dangerous to move around on in the dark. The wooden hut sat at the junction of the two jetties and all its small square windows were broken. I tried the door and it opened, so I went in. A swallow’s nest was attached to the ceiling and the bird droppings below had created a small stalagmite; testimony to how long this nest had been here. The building had obviously been an office for the fuel services that the landing stage provided, but I doubted if anything here had been serviced for at least three or four years now. Outside, the two dilapidated petrol pumps stood guard - like the strange robots we thought they were the evening before - staring ahead into the mist. Having completed our exploration and taken our photographs we slowly made our way out of the small cutting at 7am and joined the river proper.
Soon after, we were swept around the St Genevieve bend and noticed a grand sign advertising everything that a great marina could offer and decided to go for it. We were low on food and provisions so this sighting was a God send. However, as we were soon to find out, to reach the marina, meant turning into the Kasakaskia River, going upstream for about a mile and then going through a lock dam. We decided to try and find something else, fearing that we would spend too long to get there and back.
The town of Chester was our next opportunity, but we had to refuel the main tank when the engine finally cut out mid-river. After passing the very long island of Kasakaskia, we approached Chester but saw no signs of life and presumed that it was some way from the river. We did see a concrete boat ramp, but little else.
Whilst coming round Bishop Light, the USS Joanne managed 10.1 mph for the first time. We continued passed McLean Point, the town of Linholff and Gills Point. As we crossed the point, the Mississippi which had been smooth and quiet, suddenly changed. In front of our eyes it looked as if someone had used an immense furnace beneath the river to boil the water. It bubble menacingly and dared us to come further. We did, slowly. A very heavy strong wind caused quite a swell and slowed us considerably; our speed dropped to 6.5 mph. Despite the hurdle we had no option but to move on, and Joanne endured an hour long battering. It is not fun to be in a garden shed when the waves and wind rock it from side to side and the waves below seem to push Joanne easily above the water and let her drop violently on to the cruel waves below. There is only one thing worse - having the same experience, only at night when you cannot see a horizon and quickly become disorientated. However, despite our occasional fears, Joanne’s hull is solid and easily copes with everything the Mississippi has thrown at her so far (touch wood, bite my tongue three times, etc.) Her sturdiness is thanks to Peter’s design skills coupled with the experience and advice of others who have attempted and either succeeded or failed with the same adventure as ours.
At 2.15pm we passed under the bridge at Wittenburg with the states of Missouri on our right and Illinois on our left. We continued through Grand Tower, Birmingham, Sheffield (I start feeling a little homesick!) before reaching Hanging Dog Island. We got the binoculars out, but for the life of us, couldn’t see a dog suspended from anything! And no wonder! Soon after passing the island we came across Hanging Dog Bluff!
Later, we happened across an island called Cottonwood Bar. This island was about half a mile long and at least a quarter of a mile wide. I found myself dreaming about having my ideal home on this lump of rock which one day found itself surrounded by this mighty river. Although it would be modest (Cristina is a minimalist) it would be luxurious. It would of course have a large swimming pool with all the trappings. OK, I realise that the island is remote, so it will have to have its own heliport (must book those flying lessons). I would leave as many of the trees that have already taken root in place, after all, I have a duty to live alongside the indigenous animal and plant populations that will hopefully agree to my moving in.
Shit!
I wrench the steering wheel hard to the right to avoid the bank and hoped Peter hadn’t noticed. Peter was lying in his hammock, which he put up a couple of days before. It hangs from the front roof beam of the cabin and is tied off above the back door which has become a nuisance; if the hammock is down, it’s impossible to open the door. I see Peter has raised his eyebrows and realise to my dismay that he has, in fact, noticed my indiscretion. Like a teacher that has caught a mischievous student, he simply called out, ‘Pratt!’ Why does he always make me feel so guilty?
I notice the trans-national railroad is still following the riverside, although I haven’t noticed (or heard) any massive freight trains for awhile now. Eventually we come across the promising town of Moccasin Springs (the chart indicates that it’s a good sized town) but again see no signs of life – just a concrete boat ramp and nothing else, despite a sign promising a posh sounding yacht club!
Because Joanne is very sluggish and her speed has dropped considerably, we give her hull the once over. We discover that one of the corrugated plastic sheets covering the barrels to reduce drag has folded over itself in at least one place. It dawns on us that every time we encounter strong head winds combined with heavy swells, the plastic sheets get damaged and move out of position. The only way to repair this is to swim around and under Joanne, loosen the ratchet straps that hold the plastic sheets (and barrels) to the main frame of the hull, reposition the plastic sheets and retighten the ratchet straps. It takes more than an hour to adjust the sheets properly.
At 3.50pm, despite strong gusts of wind and a fast current, Peter manages to moor Joanne close to Honkers boat ramp at Cape Girardean. Some people are sitting below the levy watching us tie-up. A kind couple offer Peter a lift to refill our petrol containers and I busy myself with repairing the plastic sheets. Peter joins me in the water when gets back. It proves to be a good opportunity to have a proper wash. Despite its muddiness, the Mississippi’s water is soft and you can get a really good lather up! Because of the length of Peter’s hair (hippie), he has to use conditioner after his wash, so he normally washes and conditions his hair (sissy) before starting any repair work.
A little over an hour later, we set off again and I make cheese and onion sandwiches; a late lunch. Whilst I munch away, a couple of flies make a nuisance of themselves. Except for the first few nights, we haven’t really been bothered by mosquitoes – I’ll rephrase that; I haven’t been bothered by mosquitoes – but the flies are different. They are a constant irritation and persist despite aerosols and a very effective plastic swotter that I have become quite adept at using. I remember reading somewhere that flies only exist because humans are around. Apparently they would die off quickly without us. What is bugging me at the moment is how do they spot a floating shed in the middle of a bloody huge river? Furthermore, just how do they know it contains humans? I’m convinced that one fly from the group is assigned to do a reconnaissance and when it finds out that this shed contains Peter and me, it whistles loudly and gestures for the others to join it and make our lives as uncomfortable as possible. Anyhow, one fly annoyed me sufficiently for me to suddenly pick up the swotter and go on a bloody rampage. Less than five minutes later, the body count was more than a dozen. With great relish I attached the splattered carcasses to Harry and Fred’s webs (Fred has made a reappearance by the way).
We pass through Thebes before coming into a town called Commerce, where we discovered a small inlet off Riverview Drive which was lit by a garden light that belongs to a homely looking house further up the grass embankment. It was an ideal place to stop for the night, besides we were very tired, despite it being a little past 8pm. In fact, we were so tired that neither of us could be bothered to prepare anything to eat. Peter set the satellite navigation device so that if we drifted further than a set distance in any direction, it would set off an alarm. It is known as an anchor alarm and is useful if we slip anchor and start sailing off down the Mississippi whilst we are sound asleep! Whenever we anchor up for the night, we always set this alarm.
We drank a couple of beers and slipped into our sleeping bags. I was pleased that I kept my clothes on; it proved to be a bitterly cold night.
Thursday, 30 September 2010
Day 18 - by Ian
Day 18
Wednesday 22 September 2010
We overindulged ourselves with a lay-in and didn’t get underway until 8.30am, but not before I made a complaint to the receptionist about the lack of a wireless internet connection. The look he gave me caused me to surmise that he heard this particular complaint frequently.
The weather was overcast but warm.
At 9am we arrived at our first lock of the day although interestingly this one wasn’t known as a number but as the ‘Mel Price’ lock. We were lucky and went through the lock quickly. We slowly made our way downriver past Dresser Island, Brick House slough and Ellis Island. Already the river was changing; less and less did it look like a recreational river where, if you could afford it, you showed off your motor yacht to a working river, where all you saw were barges, tugs and of course, the USS Joanne.
Shortly after passing Mobile Island, the great Missouri River joined the Mississippi from our right. It was 10.10am. We were able to feel the effect of this river for a short time before being directed into a very long canal that would take us parallel along the river to the river’s final lock – lock 27 near Keer Island. For the first time ever, we reached a speed of 9 mph. This was the equivalent of getting out of a rowing narrowness; we easily pass a barge train pushing 18 barges upriver. We get held up at lock 27 and slowly circle around waiting for the lock doors to open. Two workmen from a nearby mill are distracted by our presence and take time off to study us. We exchanged friendly waves. I’m distracted by a large dead catfish floating on the surface and soon after notice another. The barge train had already passed through with its first six barges and tied them up. Now we were waiting for it to come through with the remaining barges, reconnect them all and move off. Oh God it was so slow.
It wasn’t until 12.30pm before we could enter the lock. Before entering, I picked up the marine radio and called up the barge train that was just leaving. Peter looked at me quizzically. I continued on the radio, ‘If the captain of the towboat leaving lock 27 would care to pull alongside the USS Joanne, I have a couple of learner ‘L’ plates I would like to present you.’ Peter stood up, put his arms over his head and writhed in motion to his distress. All I could hear was him muttering things like, ‘Oh f***!’, ‘I don’t believe it’ and something about the coastguard and being thrown off the river. I replaced the radio and continued into the lock. When Peter finally looked at me, he saw a bright wide smile and realised I had pretended to be on the radio. I won’t tell you what he called me, but it was worse than Jerry’s – ‘c*** sucker’ and very tame in comparison! Interestingly, whilst we were waiting in the lock we heard the USS Coastguard obtain permission to squeeze into the lock with a upriver towboat.
A quarter of an hour later, we were out of the lock and the Coastguard spotted us. Peter had already found out that any small boats entering the lower Mississippi river were required to be inspected for river worthiness and the crew for competence. Although I was confident in Joanne, I was less sure with myself. As we made our way, sure enough the Coastguard’s small powerboat pulled up behind us with blue flashing lights. I remember thinking, ‘Wow! This IS fun!’ I throttled down and the Coastguard boat expertly kept pace alongside the rear left corner of Joanne. A young officer (I won’t go into clichés, but honestly, he didn’t look as if he had reached puberty!) introduced himself and told us it was their duty to ensure pleasure craft (that bloody expression again) complied with the law, etc. He checked whether we had life vests, registration documents and boat licence, navigational lights (front and back), fire extinguisher and anchor. Peter showed him all the items in turn. He asked whether we had an air horn in case of fog or emergency. Peter showed him, but he wanted to hear it as well. It took several minutes for the ringing in my ears to disappear.
I noticed the Coastguard officer was giving Joanne the once over and the driver of the powerboat gently eased his boat forward to get a better view of Joanne. I hoped they had a sense of humour and was rewarded with a big grin when the young officer grinned and told his colleagues that our raft was called the ‘United States’ Ship Joanne’. I was happier still when everyone on board the US Coastguard ship wanted to take photographs of Peter and me and of course the real star, USS Joanne! The young officer called out, ‘We would normally come aboard and do a formal inspection, but your craft is one of the better ones that we’ve seen, so well let it go.’ I was elated and yet a little sad; if they had thought Joanne looked good from the outside, they would have been equally impressed with the cabin. Never mind, this was another important milestone we had passed.
Half an hour later, we were in downtown St Louis and taking photographs of the city’s legendary trade mark, the magnificent Arch of St Louis. It was extraordinarily beautiful and seemed to embellish a city that stood tall and proud and was not ashamed to show it. The architect deserves all the praise in the world – it is truly beautiful!
St Louis boasts an impressive seven bridges: Eads Highway and Railroad Bridge, Martin L Luther Memorial Bridge, Mckinley Highway and Railroad Bridge, Merchants Railroad Bridge, Douglas Mac Arthur Bridge, Popular St Bridge and the Jefferson Barracks Highway Bridge. Not on view are the things that go from one bank of the Mississippi to the other, but underwater. Here, there are literally dozens of aerials, pipelines, sub power cables and sub telephone cables, all belonging to various companies that are responsible for their maintenance.
As we leave St Louis, we slowly travel downriver and pass through the towns of Kimmswick, Glen Park, Bushberg, Riverside, Herculaneum and Crystal City. At 6.45pm, near Beagles Island, the engine splutters and dies. It does it regularly, about every two and a half hours. It marks the time that we have to refill the main engine fuel tank and add the two-cycle oil. As Peter pours the petrol, I notice a bright green frog sitting on the handle of one of our bright red petrol containers. I supposed that he wasn’t attempting to hide from us and was enjoying some early evening sunshine. We both took photographs of Mr Frog and he seemed not to matter a fig. In fact, both of us got very close to him with our cameras and he happily looked down the lens and smiled as only frogs know how to smile.
We went back into the cabin and shortly afterwards obtained the best speed we had managed so far; 9.9 mph! The Mississippi river was a very different river now. We hadn’t seen a pleasure craft for quite a while. Dotted at regular intervals along the river banks were dozens of industries, mainly grain silos, but also small coke-fed power plants. It was easy to see how important the Mississippi was to the local economies up and down the river and how the indigenous populations relied on the river for employment.
Although it was nightfall, we were blessed with a full moon which bathed the river with an opaque light which seemed to make navigation easier than in daytime. We could make out buoys easily and suffered less eyestrain than we did in sunlight. We passed through the towns of Brickey and White Sands before coming across another ‘Turkey’ Island.
At 9pm Peter found the small cut in the river that led to what promised on the charts to be a marina. It had been difficult to see because of the darkness and the size of the cut opening – less than three meters wide, on a river at least a mile wide at this point. We turned into the cutting and slowly moved forward. It was quite eerie and we imagined that we saw lights indicating life through the bushes and trees that engulfed us. After a little while we made out what looked like a mooring stage and a simple wooden hut on the nearest part of the platform. As we got closer, two robot like figures seemed to be standing guard; one outside the hut and the other on the landing stage where we intended to pull alongside. The closer we got, the more convinced I was that they were a threat, although I couldn’t be sure what they were. I asked Peter to go in very slowly. These robots appeared to have eyes that, no matter what position you were in, were always focused on your own. The robot further from the shed had a tentacle from its right shoulder which appeared to hang over the side of the jetty, dip into the water before wrapping itself around its own body. Shit! What was it? Slowly we came level to the platform, although several meters away from it. We recognised it immediately… it was a petrol pump!
We moored up safely, had a beer and crept into our sleeping bags. The night had got cold fast, so we slept in our clothes. Another successful day. We were sure to complete this now. What could possibly stop us?
Wednesday 22 September 2010
We overindulged ourselves with a lay-in and didn’t get underway until 8.30am, but not before I made a complaint to the receptionist about the lack of a wireless internet connection. The look he gave me caused me to surmise that he heard this particular complaint frequently.
The weather was overcast but warm.
At 9am we arrived at our first lock of the day although interestingly this one wasn’t known as a number but as the ‘Mel Price’ lock. We were lucky and went through the lock quickly. We slowly made our way downriver past Dresser Island, Brick House slough and Ellis Island. Already the river was changing; less and less did it look like a recreational river where, if you could afford it, you showed off your motor yacht to a working river, where all you saw were barges, tugs and of course, the USS Joanne.
Shortly after passing Mobile Island, the great Missouri River joined the Mississippi from our right. It was 10.10am. We were able to feel the effect of this river for a short time before being directed into a very long canal that would take us parallel along the river to the river’s final lock – lock 27 near Keer Island. For the first time ever, we reached a speed of 9 mph. This was the equivalent of getting out of a rowing narrowness; we easily pass a barge train pushing 18 barges upriver. We get held up at lock 27 and slowly circle around waiting for the lock doors to open. Two workmen from a nearby mill are distracted by our presence and take time off to study us. We exchanged friendly waves. I’m distracted by a large dead catfish floating on the surface and soon after notice another. The barge train had already passed through with its first six barges and tied them up. Now we were waiting for it to come through with the remaining barges, reconnect them all and move off. Oh God it was so slow.
It wasn’t until 12.30pm before we could enter the lock. Before entering, I picked up the marine radio and called up the barge train that was just leaving. Peter looked at me quizzically. I continued on the radio, ‘If the captain of the towboat leaving lock 27 would care to pull alongside the USS Joanne, I have a couple of learner ‘L’ plates I would like to present you.’ Peter stood up, put his arms over his head and writhed in motion to his distress. All I could hear was him muttering things like, ‘Oh f***!’, ‘I don’t believe it’ and something about the coastguard and being thrown off the river. I replaced the radio and continued into the lock. When Peter finally looked at me, he saw a bright wide smile and realised I had pretended to be on the radio. I won’t tell you what he called me, but it was worse than Jerry’s – ‘c*** sucker’ and very tame in comparison! Interestingly, whilst we were waiting in the lock we heard the USS Coastguard obtain permission to squeeze into the lock with a upriver towboat.
A quarter of an hour later, we were out of the lock and the Coastguard spotted us. Peter had already found out that any small boats entering the lower Mississippi river were required to be inspected for river worthiness and the crew for competence. Although I was confident in Joanne, I was less sure with myself. As we made our way, sure enough the Coastguard’s small powerboat pulled up behind us with blue flashing lights. I remember thinking, ‘Wow! This IS fun!’ I throttled down and the Coastguard boat expertly kept pace alongside the rear left corner of Joanne. A young officer (I won’t go into clichés, but honestly, he didn’t look as if he had reached puberty!) introduced himself and told us it was their duty to ensure pleasure craft (that bloody expression again) complied with the law, etc. He checked whether we had life vests, registration documents and boat licence, navigational lights (front and back), fire extinguisher and anchor. Peter showed him all the items in turn. He asked whether we had an air horn in case of fog or emergency. Peter showed him, but he wanted to hear it as well. It took several minutes for the ringing in my ears to disappear.
I noticed the Coastguard officer was giving Joanne the once over and the driver of the powerboat gently eased his boat forward to get a better view of Joanne. I hoped they had a sense of humour and was rewarded with a big grin when the young officer grinned and told his colleagues that our raft was called the ‘United States’ Ship Joanne’. I was happier still when everyone on board the US Coastguard ship wanted to take photographs of Peter and me and of course the real star, USS Joanne! The young officer called out, ‘We would normally come aboard and do a formal inspection, but your craft is one of the better ones that we’ve seen, so well let it go.’ I was elated and yet a little sad; if they had thought Joanne looked good from the outside, they would have been equally impressed with the cabin. Never mind, this was another important milestone we had passed.
Half an hour later, we were in downtown St Louis and taking photographs of the city’s legendary trade mark, the magnificent Arch of St Louis. It was extraordinarily beautiful and seemed to embellish a city that stood tall and proud and was not ashamed to show it. The architect deserves all the praise in the world – it is truly beautiful!
St Louis boasts an impressive seven bridges: Eads Highway and Railroad Bridge, Martin L Luther Memorial Bridge, Mckinley Highway and Railroad Bridge, Merchants Railroad Bridge, Douglas Mac Arthur Bridge, Popular St Bridge and the Jefferson Barracks Highway Bridge. Not on view are the things that go from one bank of the Mississippi to the other, but underwater. Here, there are literally dozens of aerials, pipelines, sub power cables and sub telephone cables, all belonging to various companies that are responsible for their maintenance.
As we leave St Louis, we slowly travel downriver and pass through the towns of Kimmswick, Glen Park, Bushberg, Riverside, Herculaneum and Crystal City. At 6.45pm, near Beagles Island, the engine splutters and dies. It does it regularly, about every two and a half hours. It marks the time that we have to refill the main engine fuel tank and add the two-cycle oil. As Peter pours the petrol, I notice a bright green frog sitting on the handle of one of our bright red petrol containers. I supposed that he wasn’t attempting to hide from us and was enjoying some early evening sunshine. We both took photographs of Mr Frog and he seemed not to matter a fig. In fact, both of us got very close to him with our cameras and he happily looked down the lens and smiled as only frogs know how to smile.
We went back into the cabin and shortly afterwards obtained the best speed we had managed so far; 9.9 mph! The Mississippi river was a very different river now. We hadn’t seen a pleasure craft for quite a while. Dotted at regular intervals along the river banks were dozens of industries, mainly grain silos, but also small coke-fed power plants. It was easy to see how important the Mississippi was to the local economies up and down the river and how the indigenous populations relied on the river for employment.
Although it was nightfall, we were blessed with a full moon which bathed the river with an opaque light which seemed to make navigation easier than in daytime. We could make out buoys easily and suffered less eyestrain than we did in sunlight. We passed through the towns of Brickey and White Sands before coming across another ‘Turkey’ Island.
At 9pm Peter found the small cut in the river that led to what promised on the charts to be a marina. It had been difficult to see because of the darkness and the size of the cut opening – less than three meters wide, on a river at least a mile wide at this point. We turned into the cutting and slowly moved forward. It was quite eerie and we imagined that we saw lights indicating life through the bushes and trees that engulfed us. After a little while we made out what looked like a mooring stage and a simple wooden hut on the nearest part of the platform. As we got closer, two robot like figures seemed to be standing guard; one outside the hut and the other on the landing stage where we intended to pull alongside. The closer we got, the more convinced I was that they were a threat, although I couldn’t be sure what they were. I asked Peter to go in very slowly. These robots appeared to have eyes that, no matter what position you were in, were always focused on your own. The robot further from the shed had a tentacle from its right shoulder which appeared to hang over the side of the jetty, dip into the water before wrapping itself around its own body. Shit! What was it? Slowly we came level to the platform, although several meters away from it. We recognised it immediately… it was a petrol pump!
We moored up safely, had a beer and crept into our sleeping bags. The night had got cold fast, so we slept in our clothes. Another successful day. We were sure to complete this now. What could possibly stop us?
Day 17 - by Ian
Day 17
Tuesday 21 September 2010
We set off at 6.50am this morning and chugged through Winfield on our way to lock 25. We kept calling the lock on channel 14, but no one replied and we thought the radio had malfunctioned, particularly as no one else seemed to hear us. When we reached the lock at 7.30am, we were faced with the usual problem – it was occupied by a barge train coming our way. We were down to a small amount of fuel in the engine’s tank and nothing in our fuel containers. We couldn’t moor alongside the lock exit because the barge train needed the area to manoeuvre in when it left the dock. The dam on the left of the lock was obviously open because there was a strong pull on Joanne. It meant that we had to slowly circle the area until the barge train exited. We were very worried about fuel so we put a length of wood in the tank to gauge how much fuel we had. We reckoned on about 45 minutes worth. After an agonising wait, the barge train exited the lock and we went in. Peter asked for a radio check and explained that nobody answered us when we called. We were told that from the last lock onwards, the locks operated on channel 12; nice of the guys at the last lock to tell us!
Once underway, we passed Turkey and Peruque Islands before passing Sweden Island - all on our right. Eventually, we passed ‘Criminal Island Light’ before finding a small and dilapidated mooring site in the middle of nowhere. Appropriately it was called ‘Dogtown Landing’, obviously in honour of the yapping animal having spotted our intrusion. Peter approached a guy who appeared to be building quite a grand house and asked him where the petrol station was. I picked up two empty fuel containers and Peter told me to ‘turn right at the main road, walk one mile and turn left at the junction. The petrol station is a quarter of a mile on the left.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘That’s what he said.’
Off I went, turned right onto the (main?) road and happily walked along the single lane tarmac road with lots of potholes in it. On both sides of the road, for as far as the eye could see, were corn fields. On each side of the road was a small irrigation channel and as I sauntered along I could easily hear the wind rustling through the corn and frogs plopping into the water as they leapt out of my way. I could also hear children’s’ voices, but couldn’t quite make out what was being said. The voices were irresistibly hypnotic and I found myself being drawn into the corn field. There was nothing I could do to resist. I was suddenly reminded of one of Stephen King’s ‘wonderful’ novels, managed to pull myself together and although frequently looking over my shoulder, focused on the task ahead.
‘Three’ miles later (or 40 minutes later) I arrived at a junction and could easily see the gas station on my left. One hundred meters before I reached the gas station, a beat up white pickup drew alongside me and a guy with the strongest southern drawl I have ever heard, asked if I wanted a lift! Before I could explain that it was only 100 meters away and that I thought I could just about manage it on my own, he explained that he was the person Peter had spoken to at Dogtown Landing and needed to pop into town for something. He explained that he could drop me off at the garage and pick me up after he had finished in town. I agreed to the lift but explained that I would start making my own way back in case he was delayed or someone else offered a lift beforehand. I jumped into the front passenger seat and shut the door firmly. Suddenly the door window disappeared with a crack. Oh shit!
‘You shouldn’t have done that sir. My older brother ain’t gonna be pleased that you’ve gone and done that to his car.’
Double shit!
He got out of the car, in the middle of the road, and came over to where I sat. He had a vacant look and was expressionless. He pulled his shirt sleeves up his arms and with both hands lunged through the window. I simply froze in panic with my eyes instinctively closing tightly shut.
He manage to have the window back in place in a couple of minutes (well nearly in place) and said, ‘That should do it’, before getting back in the car and dropping me off at the gas station.
I filled the gas containers, spotted a bag of ‘M & Ms’, paid my money and walked off down the road towards the junction. I hoped the guy who dropped me off hadn’t really gone off to get his brother. I had no expectations of getting a lift; after all, I hadn’t seen a car in the 40 minutes it took me to get here.
‘You want a lift?’
I nearly chocked on a mouthful of chocolate buttons. A dirty red old red pickup had pulled up in front of me. I heard the driver tell the guy sitting next to him to ‘move the f*** over’. I hesitated. The passenger door was thrown open and hung there. I hesitated… again. The driver’s door squeaked open and this huge bear of a man got out and walked towards me. With the little fingers of both hands he took the full five-gallon gas containers and put them gently into the back of the pickup. I gulped and climbed into the vacant seat beside another bear shaped man with a Cheshire cat grin. I closed the door… very gently.
‘No. Not like that, like this!’
With that the guy leans over and grabs the door. I feel my life force being squeezed out of me. The door is closed firmly.
‘Where you from?’
‘England.’
‘I would love to go to England.’
Again the Southern drawl is very apparent and it’s clear that I’m in another, err. Country? We chat, well they do most of the chatting and it transpires that my fellow passenger is getting married to an Australian woman who he met over the Internet. Jokingly, I asked whether her name was. ‘Shelia’
‘How do you know that?’
‘A lucky guess!’
I asked whether they had been in touch with each other on Skype. Nope, but they had sent each other photographs. I wondered whether there was an equivalent of ‘The South’ in Australia and whether this would be, by any stretch of the imagination, a match made in heaven.
‘Wonderful! I hope you’ll both be very happy together.’
Before I knew it they had driven off the main road and pulled alongside Joanne’s mooring. At the same time, the guy who had originally given me a lift also returned, happily without his brother! As soon as we had filled the main tank, we were off. The dog sent us on our way in the same way as he had greeted us. Goodbye Dogtown Landing! It was 10.40am.
Eight miles downriver we spotted the River Bend Marina where we moored up and refuelled all our empty tanks, bought ice for the cooler and some provisions. Then we were on or way again. We continued downriver, passing Dardenne and Bolter Islands on the right and a small cluster of landing ramps scattered along the river edge before we see a large rowing boat near Eagle Nest Island, containing two men doggedly rowing in time with each other. A crude tree branch had been fashioned into a mast and boom. The boat was called ‘Emma’ and proudly displayed the Norwegian flag, which swaggered from side to side as if in recognition of its status. We waived to each other in greeting and in recognition of the endeavour we shared.
Soon after we pulled into Pole Star Marina in search of a reasonable place to rest up for the night, have a shower and a beer or two. We got talking to a guy called Dave Ludwig who happened to own the marina. He wanted to know all about our trip and showed a great deal of interest and support for what we had set ourselves. After advising us that Alton Marina was really the place we were looking for, he signed the lf side of USS Joanne and got his assistant to do the same.
At 4.45pm we pulled into Alton Marina, a grand place full of luxury motor yachts and other exotic and very expensive watercraft. With tongue-in-cheek we paid the mooring fee and expected to be shown a covered mooring next to an expensive yacht. We got a covered mooring but it was in row H, the only row without luxury craft. Well, they had a laundry, toilets and showers and more importantly, a wireless internet connection! We immediately tried to connect to the internet but although it said we were connected, we weren’t. The marina receptionist had asked the local supermarket to send a car to take us shopping so while we waited, we explained the internet problem and they promised to ‘fix it’. A friendly young lady drove us to the supermarket and waited for us to finish before running us back to the marina. On the way, she stopped off at a ‘hard liquor’ petrol garage (strange) for us to buy a bottle of gin.
Our food bin and drinks cabinet was now fully stocked. Peter went off to Walmart to get some stuff for the boat and I found the launderette. I inserted my four quarters and left for the showers. Forgive me but I did indulge myself. I won’t go into details but, if you haven’t taken your clothes of for more than a week and find yourself in a huge and beautifully equipped bathroom with soft towels, huge mirrors and different types of soaps, shampoo and conditioners, you can imagine. Ohhhhhhhh!
On the way back to Joanne, I checked on my laundry. The wash cycle had finished and I inserted another four quarters into another machine that promised to dry my clothes in an hour. Once on board I found an ice cool beer and settled into my executive armed swivel chair to catch up on my blogs. Still no internet connection though.
Peter returned around 9pm and sorted out his laundry and personal hygiene needs, which I noted were considerable, not unlike my own I suspected. He had done well at Walmart, we now had a ‘fish finder’, not that we were intending to do any fishing, but it is very useful as a depth gauge and we desperately needed one of those, particularly anchoring close to the river edge at the dead of night. Peter also bought another three fuel containers because petrol was going to be difficult to find close to the river the further we went south and a longer anchor rope. We were properly equipped for the lower river. This mile stone was important.
Shortly before 10pm we strolled into town to have something decent to eat and some nice cold beers. We went into Tony’s (Peter confided that he had had a beer here whilst waiting for a taxi to take him to Walmart earlier) and was about to settle down at the bar when we were told that they had finished serving food at 10pm. We went to a bar/restaurant next door and were told the same. We asked where we could eat and was, of course, directed to the Golden Arches where we tucked in to an ample Big Mc Meal with Coke. Delicious! When we left the ‘restaurant’ we were fortunate to discover a ‘locals’ bar owned and run by a guy called Jerry Spears. Jerry used to work on the barge trains (who didn’t?) and when he retired he took on this bar. We sat at the bar and he asked what we wanted to drink. Peter and I said in unison, ‘Anything that isn’t light!’ He produced two frosted beer mugs and a couple of locally brewed beers. They were scrumptious and definitely not light.
After the other customers left Jerry came to where we sat. ‘Where you from?’ We started chatting and soon moved on to politics and philosophy. During our discourse, I got to learn how swearing changed the further south you went, for example, (those of a quite disposition should look away now) there was no mention of ‘mother f***ers’; here everyone is a c**k sucker’. However, six beers later, I can confidently tell you that we had sorted our every major problem in the world and some other issues that the world has yet to face. If any world leader is reading this and is interested in our guaranteed ‘formula to save the world’, please let me know and deposit 10 million Euros (no make that pounds; no make that Euros) into my bank account (details on request).
I don’t know what time we went to bed tonight and I really couldn’t have cared less; but I was very, very happy and on top of the world! Additionally, the night was warm and for the first time I didn’t have to climb into my sleeping bag with all my clothes on!
Tuesday 21 September 2010
We set off at 6.50am this morning and chugged through Winfield on our way to lock 25. We kept calling the lock on channel 14, but no one replied and we thought the radio had malfunctioned, particularly as no one else seemed to hear us. When we reached the lock at 7.30am, we were faced with the usual problem – it was occupied by a barge train coming our way. We were down to a small amount of fuel in the engine’s tank and nothing in our fuel containers. We couldn’t moor alongside the lock exit because the barge train needed the area to manoeuvre in when it left the dock. The dam on the left of the lock was obviously open because there was a strong pull on Joanne. It meant that we had to slowly circle the area until the barge train exited. We were very worried about fuel so we put a length of wood in the tank to gauge how much fuel we had. We reckoned on about 45 minutes worth. After an agonising wait, the barge train exited the lock and we went in. Peter asked for a radio check and explained that nobody answered us when we called. We were told that from the last lock onwards, the locks operated on channel 12; nice of the guys at the last lock to tell us!
Once underway, we passed Turkey and Peruque Islands before passing Sweden Island - all on our right. Eventually, we passed ‘Criminal Island Light’ before finding a small and dilapidated mooring site in the middle of nowhere. Appropriately it was called ‘Dogtown Landing’, obviously in honour of the yapping animal having spotted our intrusion. Peter approached a guy who appeared to be building quite a grand house and asked him where the petrol station was. I picked up two empty fuel containers and Peter told me to ‘turn right at the main road, walk one mile and turn left at the junction. The petrol station is a quarter of a mile on the left.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘That’s what he said.’
Off I went, turned right onto the (main?) road and happily walked along the single lane tarmac road with lots of potholes in it. On both sides of the road, for as far as the eye could see, were corn fields. On each side of the road was a small irrigation channel and as I sauntered along I could easily hear the wind rustling through the corn and frogs plopping into the water as they leapt out of my way. I could also hear children’s’ voices, but couldn’t quite make out what was being said. The voices were irresistibly hypnotic and I found myself being drawn into the corn field. There was nothing I could do to resist. I was suddenly reminded of one of Stephen King’s ‘wonderful’ novels, managed to pull myself together and although frequently looking over my shoulder, focused on the task ahead.
‘Three’ miles later (or 40 minutes later) I arrived at a junction and could easily see the gas station on my left. One hundred meters before I reached the gas station, a beat up white pickup drew alongside me and a guy with the strongest southern drawl I have ever heard, asked if I wanted a lift! Before I could explain that it was only 100 meters away and that I thought I could just about manage it on my own, he explained that he was the person Peter had spoken to at Dogtown Landing and needed to pop into town for something. He explained that he could drop me off at the garage and pick me up after he had finished in town. I agreed to the lift but explained that I would start making my own way back in case he was delayed or someone else offered a lift beforehand. I jumped into the front passenger seat and shut the door firmly. Suddenly the door window disappeared with a crack. Oh shit!
‘You shouldn’t have done that sir. My older brother ain’t gonna be pleased that you’ve gone and done that to his car.’
Double shit!
He got out of the car, in the middle of the road, and came over to where I sat. He had a vacant look and was expressionless. He pulled his shirt sleeves up his arms and with both hands lunged through the window. I simply froze in panic with my eyes instinctively closing tightly shut.
He manage to have the window back in place in a couple of minutes (well nearly in place) and said, ‘That should do it’, before getting back in the car and dropping me off at the gas station.
I filled the gas containers, spotted a bag of ‘M & Ms’, paid my money and walked off down the road towards the junction. I hoped the guy who dropped me off hadn’t really gone off to get his brother. I had no expectations of getting a lift; after all, I hadn’t seen a car in the 40 minutes it took me to get here.
‘You want a lift?’
I nearly chocked on a mouthful of chocolate buttons. A dirty red old red pickup had pulled up in front of me. I heard the driver tell the guy sitting next to him to ‘move the f*** over’. I hesitated. The passenger door was thrown open and hung there. I hesitated… again. The driver’s door squeaked open and this huge bear of a man got out and walked towards me. With the little fingers of both hands he took the full five-gallon gas containers and put them gently into the back of the pickup. I gulped and climbed into the vacant seat beside another bear shaped man with a Cheshire cat grin. I closed the door… very gently.
‘No. Not like that, like this!’
With that the guy leans over and grabs the door. I feel my life force being squeezed out of me. The door is closed firmly.
‘Where you from?’
‘England.’
‘I would love to go to England.’
Again the Southern drawl is very apparent and it’s clear that I’m in another, err. Country? We chat, well they do most of the chatting and it transpires that my fellow passenger is getting married to an Australian woman who he met over the Internet. Jokingly, I asked whether her name was. ‘Shelia’
‘How do you know that?’
‘A lucky guess!’
I asked whether they had been in touch with each other on Skype. Nope, but they had sent each other photographs. I wondered whether there was an equivalent of ‘The South’ in Australia and whether this would be, by any stretch of the imagination, a match made in heaven.
‘Wonderful! I hope you’ll both be very happy together.’
Before I knew it they had driven off the main road and pulled alongside Joanne’s mooring. At the same time, the guy who had originally given me a lift also returned, happily without his brother! As soon as we had filled the main tank, we were off. The dog sent us on our way in the same way as he had greeted us. Goodbye Dogtown Landing! It was 10.40am.
Eight miles downriver we spotted the River Bend Marina where we moored up and refuelled all our empty tanks, bought ice for the cooler and some provisions. Then we were on or way again. We continued downriver, passing Dardenne and Bolter Islands on the right and a small cluster of landing ramps scattered along the river edge before we see a large rowing boat near Eagle Nest Island, containing two men doggedly rowing in time with each other. A crude tree branch had been fashioned into a mast and boom. The boat was called ‘Emma’ and proudly displayed the Norwegian flag, which swaggered from side to side as if in recognition of its status. We waived to each other in greeting and in recognition of the endeavour we shared.
Soon after we pulled into Pole Star Marina in search of a reasonable place to rest up for the night, have a shower and a beer or two. We got talking to a guy called Dave Ludwig who happened to own the marina. He wanted to know all about our trip and showed a great deal of interest and support for what we had set ourselves. After advising us that Alton Marina was really the place we were looking for, he signed the lf side of USS Joanne and got his assistant to do the same.
At 4.45pm we pulled into Alton Marina, a grand place full of luxury motor yachts and other exotic and very expensive watercraft. With tongue-in-cheek we paid the mooring fee and expected to be shown a covered mooring next to an expensive yacht. We got a covered mooring but it was in row H, the only row without luxury craft. Well, they had a laundry, toilets and showers and more importantly, a wireless internet connection! We immediately tried to connect to the internet but although it said we were connected, we weren’t. The marina receptionist had asked the local supermarket to send a car to take us shopping so while we waited, we explained the internet problem and they promised to ‘fix it’. A friendly young lady drove us to the supermarket and waited for us to finish before running us back to the marina. On the way, she stopped off at a ‘hard liquor’ petrol garage (strange) for us to buy a bottle of gin.
Our food bin and drinks cabinet was now fully stocked. Peter went off to Walmart to get some stuff for the boat and I found the launderette. I inserted my four quarters and left for the showers. Forgive me but I did indulge myself. I won’t go into details but, if you haven’t taken your clothes of for more than a week and find yourself in a huge and beautifully equipped bathroom with soft towels, huge mirrors and different types of soaps, shampoo and conditioners, you can imagine. Ohhhhhhhh!
On the way back to Joanne, I checked on my laundry. The wash cycle had finished and I inserted another four quarters into another machine that promised to dry my clothes in an hour. Once on board I found an ice cool beer and settled into my executive armed swivel chair to catch up on my blogs. Still no internet connection though.
Peter returned around 9pm and sorted out his laundry and personal hygiene needs, which I noted were considerable, not unlike my own I suspected. He had done well at Walmart, we now had a ‘fish finder’, not that we were intending to do any fishing, but it is very useful as a depth gauge and we desperately needed one of those, particularly anchoring close to the river edge at the dead of night. Peter also bought another three fuel containers because petrol was going to be difficult to find close to the river the further we went south and a longer anchor rope. We were properly equipped for the lower river. This mile stone was important.
Shortly before 10pm we strolled into town to have something decent to eat and some nice cold beers. We went into Tony’s (Peter confided that he had had a beer here whilst waiting for a taxi to take him to Walmart earlier) and was about to settle down at the bar when we were told that they had finished serving food at 10pm. We went to a bar/restaurant next door and were told the same. We asked where we could eat and was, of course, directed to the Golden Arches where we tucked in to an ample Big Mc Meal with Coke. Delicious! When we left the ‘restaurant’ we were fortunate to discover a ‘locals’ bar owned and run by a guy called Jerry Spears. Jerry used to work on the barge trains (who didn’t?) and when he retired he took on this bar. We sat at the bar and he asked what we wanted to drink. Peter and I said in unison, ‘Anything that isn’t light!’ He produced two frosted beer mugs and a couple of locally brewed beers. They were scrumptious and definitely not light.
After the other customers left Jerry came to where we sat. ‘Where you from?’ We started chatting and soon moved on to politics and philosophy. During our discourse, I got to learn how swearing changed the further south you went, for example, (those of a quite disposition should look away now) there was no mention of ‘mother f***ers’; here everyone is a c**k sucker’. However, six beers later, I can confidently tell you that we had sorted our every major problem in the world and some other issues that the world has yet to face. If any world leader is reading this and is interested in our guaranteed ‘formula to save the world’, please let me know and deposit 10 million Euros (no make that pounds; no make that Euros) into my bank account (details on request).
I don’t know what time we went to bed tonight and I really couldn’t have cared less; but I was very, very happy and on top of the world! Additionally, the night was warm and for the first time I didn’t have to climb into my sleeping bag with all my clothes on!
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Day 16 - by Ian
Monday 20 September 2010
It’s 6.30am and I’m not yet out of my sleeping bag, but something is wrong. I can’t quite figure it out yet, but I feel as if I’m sleeping on bare boards. Peter is already up and has just set off presumably to give me a lie in, but it has all gone wrong. I get up and discover that the blow-up mattress has got a small puncture and has slowly been going down all night.
Before I could moan about my misfortune, we had passed under New Quincy Highway Bridge and Quincy Memorial Highway Bridge and found ourselves at lock 21. We radioed the lock beforehand and they informed us that they had just admitted a barge train coming from the opposite direction. We were told it would take 90 minutes so we anchored up nearby and waited. Two hours later we had left the lock and on our way again.
Despite our slow start the weather was beautiful; sunny and warm and I was soon just wearing shorts. I noticed several small industries on the right-hand side of the river and things didn’t look bad, despite the recession. A little while later, we encountered several small clearings along the river bank hosting further clusters of homes on stilts. Again, many were several meters high and I have to admit that even if the river really did burst out, water level at its worst couldn’t rise by more than two or three meters and yet some of these houses were as much as five or six meters above the ground.
I was happily driving the USS Joanne and passed by another small island called Goose Island. At the time I was listening to Nina Simone singing, ‘I got it back and that ain’t good’. If you’ve not heard her sing, you’re poorer for not having done so. Whenever you look on the river charts, there’s an island. There are literally hundreds of them. Many unfortunate islands simply have a number, unlike the one we are passing now which has the exotic title of Turtle Island.
The sunlight is shimmering on the water in front of us and I’m forced to wear sunglasses. We went to pass under the Norfolk Southern Railway Bridge, but it was a little too low for us and the bridge keeper sounded a horn. We turned around and the bridge swivelled open to allow us to pass through. To be honest, there was a barge coming the other way and it is possible that the bridge opened for the barge, however, I like to think that when he saw such a majestic sight as the USS Joanne under full steam, the bridge keeper simply saluted us with his horn and the bridge opened as if to embrace our Joanne. A minute or two later and we passed under Highway 36 Bridge… I guess it’s not only islands that get labelled with a number then.
At 11.30am, we arrive at the town of Hannibal and despite its name, decide to stop for gas and provisions. Despite the hour it was ghostly quiet, as silent as the lambs. (Sorry – couldn’t resist!) As I walked up the ramp from the small boat harbour to the car park, I notice an old timer watching me. He came up to me and introduced himself as ‘George’. I asked him where the nearest gas station was and he pointed towards the town and said, ‘Eleven blocks straight up there’ I introduced myself and he asked the usual questions. When he found out what it was we were trying to achieve, his face broke into an enormous grin and he said, ‘I saw you go under the old railway bridge and said to myself, that’s the darnedest thing I’ve ever seen!’ Moments later Peter and I hoped into his car after we loaded our empty petrol containers into the boot. George was retired but had suffered a terrible accident a few years back. Whilst cutting down a tree it all went wrong; he lost all the fingers of his right hand to the chainsaw and his left leg to the tree. I couldn’t believe how cheerful the guy was with his lot. He was as proud as heck to tell me that, ‘the doctors said I’d never walk again, but here’s the proof’ and he tapped his artificial leg. I liked George a lot. When we were in the supermarket, it was George who wanted to push the trolley (I bought myself a tube of Rolos - delicious!). Eventually, George drove us back to Joanne and I invited him to come ‘aboard’. He was just bowled over with our workmanship and confided that he had always dreamed of doing what we were trying to do. ‘Come on’ I said, ‘You can do it. You have all the time in the world to do this.’ I followed George onto the ramp and he said, ‘Do you know what? I am going to do this! I’m going to do it with my nephew!’ George held out his uninjured hand and we shook hands warmly. Nobody on earth could have knocked that grin of his face. As I said, I liked George a lot!
Sometime after setting off again, we passed by a small town called Ilasco before we reached lock 22 and for a change, went straight through. Soon after, we passed by Gilbert Island, poor old Island number 448 (which by the power invested in me by HM Queen Elizabeth II, I renamed ‘Endeavour Island’) and then passed by 286 North and South Fritz Islands. Funny lot these Americans.
Just over 10 miles further on and we passed by the city of Louisiana and under the Louisiana Highway Bridge and Louisiana Railroad Bridge. Another 10 miles saw us going through lock 24 at Clarksville. We passed by Hamburg and aimed at mooring off in a small place called Winfield. I have no idea what time it was we stopped, except to say it was after 10pm and before midnight. Neither of us put it in the log. We were both shattered, particularly Peter whose hundreds of inflamed and angry mosquito bites had plagued him for three days now and robbed him of a good night’s rest. As we pulled into a quiet gap on the river’s edge, we noticed a car on the boat landing. As we got closer I was aware that someone in or near the car was taking several flash photographs of us. I could hear a walkie-talkie radio and presumed it was the police. It turned out to be the local fire brigade on an exercise and we exchanged greetings before they drove off and left us to the quiet of the night.
Another good day! I remember thinking, ‘Nothing can stop us now!’ as I climbed into my sleeping bag.
It’s 6.30am and I’m not yet out of my sleeping bag, but something is wrong. I can’t quite figure it out yet, but I feel as if I’m sleeping on bare boards. Peter is already up and has just set off presumably to give me a lie in, but it has all gone wrong. I get up and discover that the blow-up mattress has got a small puncture and has slowly been going down all night.
Before I could moan about my misfortune, we had passed under New Quincy Highway Bridge and Quincy Memorial Highway Bridge and found ourselves at lock 21. We radioed the lock beforehand and they informed us that they had just admitted a barge train coming from the opposite direction. We were told it would take 90 minutes so we anchored up nearby and waited. Two hours later we had left the lock and on our way again.
Despite our slow start the weather was beautiful; sunny and warm and I was soon just wearing shorts. I noticed several small industries on the right-hand side of the river and things didn’t look bad, despite the recession. A little while later, we encountered several small clearings along the river bank hosting further clusters of homes on stilts. Again, many were several meters high and I have to admit that even if the river really did burst out, water level at its worst couldn’t rise by more than two or three meters and yet some of these houses were as much as five or six meters above the ground.
I was happily driving the USS Joanne and passed by another small island called Goose Island. At the time I was listening to Nina Simone singing, ‘I got it back and that ain’t good’. If you’ve not heard her sing, you’re poorer for not having done so. Whenever you look on the river charts, there’s an island. There are literally hundreds of them. Many unfortunate islands simply have a number, unlike the one we are passing now which has the exotic title of Turtle Island.
The sunlight is shimmering on the water in front of us and I’m forced to wear sunglasses. We went to pass under the Norfolk Southern Railway Bridge, but it was a little too low for us and the bridge keeper sounded a horn. We turned around and the bridge swivelled open to allow us to pass through. To be honest, there was a barge coming the other way and it is possible that the bridge opened for the barge, however, I like to think that when he saw such a majestic sight as the USS Joanne under full steam, the bridge keeper simply saluted us with his horn and the bridge opened as if to embrace our Joanne. A minute or two later and we passed under Highway 36 Bridge… I guess it’s not only islands that get labelled with a number then.
At 11.30am, we arrive at the town of Hannibal and despite its name, decide to stop for gas and provisions. Despite the hour it was ghostly quiet, as silent as the lambs. (Sorry – couldn’t resist!) As I walked up the ramp from the small boat harbour to the car park, I notice an old timer watching me. He came up to me and introduced himself as ‘George’. I asked him where the nearest gas station was and he pointed towards the town and said, ‘Eleven blocks straight up there’ I introduced myself and he asked the usual questions. When he found out what it was we were trying to achieve, his face broke into an enormous grin and he said, ‘I saw you go under the old railway bridge and said to myself, that’s the darnedest thing I’ve ever seen!’ Moments later Peter and I hoped into his car after we loaded our empty petrol containers into the boot. George was retired but had suffered a terrible accident a few years back. Whilst cutting down a tree it all went wrong; he lost all the fingers of his right hand to the chainsaw and his left leg to the tree. I couldn’t believe how cheerful the guy was with his lot. He was as proud as heck to tell me that, ‘the doctors said I’d never walk again, but here’s the proof’ and he tapped his artificial leg. I liked George a lot. When we were in the supermarket, it was George who wanted to push the trolley (I bought myself a tube of Rolos - delicious!). Eventually, George drove us back to Joanne and I invited him to come ‘aboard’. He was just bowled over with our workmanship and confided that he had always dreamed of doing what we were trying to do. ‘Come on’ I said, ‘You can do it. You have all the time in the world to do this.’ I followed George onto the ramp and he said, ‘Do you know what? I am going to do this! I’m going to do it with my nephew!’ George held out his uninjured hand and we shook hands warmly. Nobody on earth could have knocked that grin of his face. As I said, I liked George a lot!
Sometime after setting off again, we passed by a small town called Ilasco before we reached lock 22 and for a change, went straight through. Soon after, we passed by Gilbert Island, poor old Island number 448 (which by the power invested in me by HM Queen Elizabeth II, I renamed ‘Endeavour Island’) and then passed by 286 North and South Fritz Islands. Funny lot these Americans.
Just over 10 miles further on and we passed by the city of Louisiana and under the Louisiana Highway Bridge and Louisiana Railroad Bridge. Another 10 miles saw us going through lock 24 at Clarksville. We passed by Hamburg and aimed at mooring off in a small place called Winfield. I have no idea what time it was we stopped, except to say it was after 10pm and before midnight. Neither of us put it in the log. We were both shattered, particularly Peter whose hundreds of inflamed and angry mosquito bites had plagued him for three days now and robbed him of a good night’s rest. As we pulled into a quiet gap on the river’s edge, we noticed a car on the boat landing. As we got closer I was aware that someone in or near the car was taking several flash photographs of us. I could hear a walkie-talkie radio and presumed it was the police. It turned out to be the local fire brigade on an exercise and we exchanged greetings before they drove off and left us to the quiet of the night.
Another good day! I remember thinking, ‘Nothing can stop us now!’ as I climbed into my sleeping bag.
Day 15 - by Ian
Sunday 19 September 2010
We wake early and it’s 7am when we get underway, despite heavy mist. It’s very difficult to judge how dense the fog is when it lays on the water. There is nothing distinctive to pick out like a tree or a house and there is no horizon to go by either. Fortunately once we get properly underway, the sun manages to penetrate through the haze and confidence returns.
Our speed is slowly increasing and I notice we are averaging about 6.5 mph now. At 8.20 the engine splutters and tells us it is running out of fuel. More often or not, we refuel on the river and this means drifting downstream whilst we empty a five-gallon plastic container of petrol into the main tank. Then we need to add 40 fluid ounces of two-stroke oil into the petrol tank. After this is completed we can start the engine and move off again. It takes about six minutes for this operation and is smooth enough on the majority of occasions. Sometimes, the USS Joanne runs out of petrol in awkward spots like immediately in front of an obstacle like a bridge or oncoming barge train. On those occasions we have been known for completing a refuel in less than 3 minutes!
On this part of the river there are numerous grain silos with long conveyor belts bringing the grain to the riverside. Usually there are six silos, each about 100 meters tall and the conveyors feed into giant hoppers that supply nozzles that in turn spew the grain into waiting barges. Similar setups along the river feed coal or coke into waiting barges that then supply the numerous small power plants generating electricity for the local grid. This is very much a working river and the abundant barge trains are testimony to the economic importance of the Mississippi river. It occurs to us that we are seeing less and less marinas and in consequence, fewer pleasure craft, despite this being the weekend.
We arrive at lock 18 at 10.35am and have to wait nearly an hour to take our place and be dropped the few meters to exit at the other end. Interestingly, operation of the locks and the maintenance of the navigation channels of the Mississippi are undertaken by the US Army Corps of Engineers and it seems strange to find all sorts of boats including dredgers, flying the corps flag and coat of arms.
At 12.45pm we stop at a small town called Burlington to buy petrol and some provisions. We can see the petrol station close to where we are moored and I take two empty containers to fill. I need to cross a double set of railway tracks to reach the road. There is no fence to separate the track from the public and no ‘closed’ crossings for vehicles. This was a major railroad evidenced by the extraordinarily long freight trains that we have been watching from the river for several days now. I had to think whether we have gone ‘health and safety’ bonkers in Europe. Anyway, I returned to Joanne with two heavy fuel cans which I drop off and then collected the last container to fill. As I got to the top of the ramp leading to our moorings, an elderly woman leaned out of the passenger window and asked whether I wanted a lift to the ‘gas’ station. I replied that it was just across the road and I would be alright (my English traits breaking through again!) Happily my answer was ignored and a door was opened for me. If this woman was old, her husband (presumably) was ancient. He had more winkles than a rhinoceros’s bum. We shared as much small talk as one could manage in the minute it took to get to the garage and they were kind enough to hang around until I had finished shopping for food and other items.
Whilst I was filling the petrol container, the husband came over and we started chatting. He told me that a few years ago, some of his friends bet him that he wouldn’t be able to water ski upriver to the ‘old cabin’. He accepted the bet, went home and put on a suit and tie before getting on the skis on the ramp. He chuckled as he told me that he not only made it to the old cabin, but made it all the way back again, where they released him. He proudly told me that his suit was as dry as when he had put it on. I found myself grinning and thinking ‘you are cool’. I thanked them ‘very much’ and they politely told me that it had been ‘their pleasure’ and wished us God speed on our journey. I remember thinking how incredibly nice Americans were, and so different to Europeans.
Anyway, at 1.15pm we were on our way again and Peter prepared lunch. Lunch normally consists of sandwiches, whilst breakfast is invariably a fry-up; eggs, bacon, sausage and mushrooms. Dinner is always hot and can range from pasta to another type of pasta – hold on; we have had a stew out of a can as well.
Shortly after 5pm, we moored up at Fort Mapison marina to top-up our petrol containers, buy ice and some two-stroke oil. I noticed a large sign advertising ‘hot chilli hot dogs and chips’ and bought two portions for Peter and me. I now know what Americans call ‘chips’ – crisps if you are from England, and chips if you are from anywhere else! It was delicious!
As we are moving down the river, I contemplate the situation regarding the river buoys. In daylight we have no problems; we can see that they are either red or green. At night, it is easier; they reflect red or green light. However, when the sunlight is in front of them, meaning the back of the buoys are in shadow, you cannot see what colour they are. OK, their colour is important. Travelling down river, we must keep red buoys to the left and green buoys to the right. Despite the river being more than a mile apart, the navigation channel is often less than 100 meters wide. If you wander off this course you are likely to ground your craft or beak it up on one of the thousands of underwater dykes that run along both sides of the river. Getting back to the colour problem in daylight, I noticed that the red buoys were conical and the green buoys were cylindrical. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t noticed this before. Well, better late than never!
On the river banks, we notice houses built on stilts. The stilts are either concrete or wood; I don’t think I noticed any metal stilts. Anyway, the height of the stilts ranged from a couple of meters to around five or six meters high. The type of houses supported by these pylons was diverse; some were normal family homes whilst others like small bungalows. I was reminded of science fiction ‘transformers’, objects that change from one article to another, which made these structures a little menacing. They were awesome. None had gardens or fences but had obviously been built with permission. Many of these plots of land contained huge trailers, enough to house a small family. Slowly I began to realise that these were holiday homes, places that people came for the weekends or a few weeks holiday during the year.
We have another awful wait at lock 19; more than an hour and a quarter to get through. We are loosing so much time going through locks at the moment; time which we have to add on to the day’ Our time limit is strict and we decide to ‘go for it’ and make up some ground (or should that be water?). We will drive all night if necessary and have agreed to take it in turns to catnap unless required to help out. I drive on till midnight, but not before Peter has unpacked and installed a sleeping hammock down the centre of the cabin. This is definitely Peter’s ‘special’ place and he spends most of the evening dozing in the hammock.
Peter takes over and I try out the hammock. It’s great to begin with but I find that I cannot sleep in a banana shaped position and blow up my mattress instead. Oh the joy of my warm sleeping bag. I manage to doze on and off and occasionally Peter requires me for something or other. In the main, I rest well.
Before I know it, I’m helping Peter to anchor up for the night. It’s 3.30am and we have managed to cover 120 miles! The place is Quincy, although we are both too knackered to find a dead body and investigate a murder.
Not a bad day at all!
We wake early and it’s 7am when we get underway, despite heavy mist. It’s very difficult to judge how dense the fog is when it lays on the water. There is nothing distinctive to pick out like a tree or a house and there is no horizon to go by either. Fortunately once we get properly underway, the sun manages to penetrate through the haze and confidence returns.
Our speed is slowly increasing and I notice we are averaging about 6.5 mph now. At 8.20 the engine splutters and tells us it is running out of fuel. More often or not, we refuel on the river and this means drifting downstream whilst we empty a five-gallon plastic container of petrol into the main tank. Then we need to add 40 fluid ounces of two-stroke oil into the petrol tank. After this is completed we can start the engine and move off again. It takes about six minutes for this operation and is smooth enough on the majority of occasions. Sometimes, the USS Joanne runs out of petrol in awkward spots like immediately in front of an obstacle like a bridge or oncoming barge train. On those occasions we have been known for completing a refuel in less than 3 minutes!
On this part of the river there are numerous grain silos with long conveyor belts bringing the grain to the riverside. Usually there are six silos, each about 100 meters tall and the conveyors feed into giant hoppers that supply nozzles that in turn spew the grain into waiting barges. Similar setups along the river feed coal or coke into waiting barges that then supply the numerous small power plants generating electricity for the local grid. This is very much a working river and the abundant barge trains are testimony to the economic importance of the Mississippi river. It occurs to us that we are seeing less and less marinas and in consequence, fewer pleasure craft, despite this being the weekend.
We arrive at lock 18 at 10.35am and have to wait nearly an hour to take our place and be dropped the few meters to exit at the other end. Interestingly, operation of the locks and the maintenance of the navigation channels of the Mississippi are undertaken by the US Army Corps of Engineers and it seems strange to find all sorts of boats including dredgers, flying the corps flag and coat of arms.
At 12.45pm we stop at a small town called Burlington to buy petrol and some provisions. We can see the petrol station close to where we are moored and I take two empty containers to fill. I need to cross a double set of railway tracks to reach the road. There is no fence to separate the track from the public and no ‘closed’ crossings for vehicles. This was a major railroad evidenced by the extraordinarily long freight trains that we have been watching from the river for several days now. I had to think whether we have gone ‘health and safety’ bonkers in Europe. Anyway, I returned to Joanne with two heavy fuel cans which I drop off and then collected the last container to fill. As I got to the top of the ramp leading to our moorings, an elderly woman leaned out of the passenger window and asked whether I wanted a lift to the ‘gas’ station. I replied that it was just across the road and I would be alright (my English traits breaking through again!) Happily my answer was ignored and a door was opened for me. If this woman was old, her husband (presumably) was ancient. He had more winkles than a rhinoceros’s bum. We shared as much small talk as one could manage in the minute it took to get to the garage and they were kind enough to hang around until I had finished shopping for food and other items.
Whilst I was filling the petrol container, the husband came over and we started chatting. He told me that a few years ago, some of his friends bet him that he wouldn’t be able to water ski upriver to the ‘old cabin’. He accepted the bet, went home and put on a suit and tie before getting on the skis on the ramp. He chuckled as he told me that he not only made it to the old cabin, but made it all the way back again, where they released him. He proudly told me that his suit was as dry as when he had put it on. I found myself grinning and thinking ‘you are cool’. I thanked them ‘very much’ and they politely told me that it had been ‘their pleasure’ and wished us God speed on our journey. I remember thinking how incredibly nice Americans were, and so different to Europeans.
Anyway, at 1.15pm we were on our way again and Peter prepared lunch. Lunch normally consists of sandwiches, whilst breakfast is invariably a fry-up; eggs, bacon, sausage and mushrooms. Dinner is always hot and can range from pasta to another type of pasta – hold on; we have had a stew out of a can as well.
Shortly after 5pm, we moored up at Fort Mapison marina to top-up our petrol containers, buy ice and some two-stroke oil. I noticed a large sign advertising ‘hot chilli hot dogs and chips’ and bought two portions for Peter and me. I now know what Americans call ‘chips’ – crisps if you are from England, and chips if you are from anywhere else! It was delicious!
As we are moving down the river, I contemplate the situation regarding the river buoys. In daylight we have no problems; we can see that they are either red or green. At night, it is easier; they reflect red or green light. However, when the sunlight is in front of them, meaning the back of the buoys are in shadow, you cannot see what colour they are. OK, their colour is important. Travelling down river, we must keep red buoys to the left and green buoys to the right. Despite the river being more than a mile apart, the navigation channel is often less than 100 meters wide. If you wander off this course you are likely to ground your craft or beak it up on one of the thousands of underwater dykes that run along both sides of the river. Getting back to the colour problem in daylight, I noticed that the red buoys were conical and the green buoys were cylindrical. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t noticed this before. Well, better late than never!
On the river banks, we notice houses built on stilts. The stilts are either concrete or wood; I don’t think I noticed any metal stilts. Anyway, the height of the stilts ranged from a couple of meters to around five or six meters high. The type of houses supported by these pylons was diverse; some were normal family homes whilst others like small bungalows. I was reminded of science fiction ‘transformers’, objects that change from one article to another, which made these structures a little menacing. They were awesome. None had gardens or fences but had obviously been built with permission. Many of these plots of land contained huge trailers, enough to house a small family. Slowly I began to realise that these were holiday homes, places that people came for the weekends or a few weeks holiday during the year.
We have another awful wait at lock 19; more than an hour and a quarter to get through. We are loosing so much time going through locks at the moment; time which we have to add on to the day’ Our time limit is strict and we decide to ‘go for it’ and make up some ground (or should that be water?). We will drive all night if necessary and have agreed to take it in turns to catnap unless required to help out. I drive on till midnight, but not before Peter has unpacked and installed a sleeping hammock down the centre of the cabin. This is definitely Peter’s ‘special’ place and he spends most of the evening dozing in the hammock.
Peter takes over and I try out the hammock. It’s great to begin with but I find that I cannot sleep in a banana shaped position and blow up my mattress instead. Oh the joy of my warm sleeping bag. I manage to doze on and off and occasionally Peter requires me for something or other. In the main, I rest well.
Before I know it, I’m helping Peter to anchor up for the night. It’s 3.30am and we have managed to cover 120 miles! The place is Quincy, although we are both too knackered to find a dead body and investigate a murder.
Not a bad day at all!
Day 14 - by Ian
Saturday 18 September 2010
‘Wake up Dad, we’ve got company’. I rub my eyes and see that my watch says 7am. I hear Peter talking with Chris and Tom and by the time I have crawled out of my sleeping bag, they have tied their kayak alongside the USS Joanne. They had welcomed our suggestion the night before, that we give them a lift down river. They had planned on having a rest day today anyway, so what better way to do it and gain some valuable river miles at the same time.
Ten minutes later and we had set off. Chris and Tom marvelled over Joanne. They loved her! This of course raised our spirits further and Peter delighted in telling them all the technical aspects of our raft. Soon breakfast was underway. Fortunately Chris was a vegetarian so I ended up with an extra ration of bacon… or was it Peter? Anyhow, a typical English breakfast was supplemented by a typical American breakfast – pancakes. And very nice they were as well!
At 8.30am we arrive at lock 14 to find it occupied by a barge train and it isn’t until 9.20am before we are able to leave the lock and continue on our journey.
Our guests stated that they hoped to reach New Orleans by the end of November and were averaging about 25 miles a day. Chris and Tom had been good friends since school. As I drive, I listen to Peter as he talks about his travels around the world and I confess to feeling a little envious of his experience of a world I had yet to see and was unlikely to do so. Talk soon moved to what each others’ next adventure would be. Peter talked about cycling from the UK to the Black Sea and both Chris and Tom seemed keen on visiting Europe. I reflected on how this was probably the last ‘big’ adventure that I was likely to embark on and that I had to come to terms with the fact that I had other commitments and responsibilities that I needed to spend more time on. Besides, I had experienced many other adventures in my lifetime and was content with what I had made of my life so far and passionate about what I could achieve in the future.
At 12.50pm, after passing through lock 15 (I nearly crushed the kayak against the lock wall as we entered – sorry guys!), we stopped in a place called Davenport where we bought some provisions. When we set off again, we all agreed that we were hungry and wanted lunch. Chris suggested making a ‘trail mix’, a mixture of nuts, seeds and dried fruit. It was one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever eaten and I felt a little guilty when I kept dipping my hand into the bowl and coming out with a GBH (great British handful). Chris seemed pleased that everyone enjoyed the filling feast. It was the first time I had eaten something like this as a meal and it was delicious!
Two hours later we stopped in a place called Muscating to buy fuel. We moored near a large green area and discovered that a medieval Gaelic fete was taking place. The Welsh dragon was proudly on display near a display tent and the bagpipes could easily be heard. Tom joined Peter on the trek to the gas station leaving Chris and I chatting on the boat. He asked me how we were getting on and whether we had fallen out yet. I mentioned our ‘bad’ day the day before and we both agreed that these sorts of days were inevitable. However, after philosophising for a while, we concurred that the opportunity to learn from these experiences strengthened relationships. There… we had set everything straight, or rather determined that a smile was a curve that set everything straight (thanks Catherine!) Chris summed it up with a broad smile, ‘Heh, if it wasn’t going to be hard, we wouldn’t be doing it, right?’ We high-fived and I replied, ‘Dead right, bro.’ F***! I’m turning into an American already!
We set off 20 minutes later and in a while saw the famous Mississippi pelicans, some of which had taken time off on their migratory route south to occupy a small treeless island in the centre of the river. I was reminded of Lake Kikuyu in East Africa, with the many thousands of flamingos standing one-legged on the waterside, seemingly turning the water blood red with their reflections. This was not on that scale but it was easy to imagine a similar number of these peculiar birds flooding the banks of this river at the height of their migration.
It’s had been a strangely mellow day, despite our company. I noticed that both Chris and Tom took turns to ‘disappear’; spending their alone times either outside of the cabin or in their kayak, tied alongside. There was no doubt that both of them were knackered and the strain showed in their weathered faces. Having said that it was equally clear that they were enjoying a day off!
Around 4.40pm we came across lock 16. Chris and Tom had decided that this is where they wanted to part company and find somewhere to camp for the night. We entered the lock separately and took our final photographs of each other as we left the lock. It seemed odd that we were both heading for the same destination and yet was travelling there is such contrasting ways.
As the light faded, our two stowaways climbed out of the shadows and busied themselves by moving their food into their separate larders. Fred and Harry have been with us from the moment we set off from Minneapolis, although they have made themselves scarce until the evening, probably because they think that we might throw them overboard if discovered. Harry is obviously very hungry because he is eating a head as he drags the body to his temporary store. Of course, Fred and Harry are spiders. Harry lives in the front right hand corner of the cabin whilst Fred lives in the back left hand corner. Both have elaborate webs although Harry seems to do better than Fred, being twice the size of his compatriot. Peter is overjoyed with his two friends, because Peter hates mosquitoes! In fact if you could see the hundreds of mosquito bites covering both of his legs, you would understand. Each mosquito bite on his legs looks like an active volcano, red and burning hot. I’ll spare you the details of how the puss seems to boil to the surface of the crater and slowly dribble down his legs, because it would probably make you feel sick! But it does drive him insane because he knows he shouldn’t scratch them, but… arrrgggg!
Because Peter can’t sleep because of his mosquito bites, we keep driving into the night and finally go through lock 17 at 23.55 pm. It’s another hour before we finally find a mooring in a place called New Boston.
We blow up the air mattresses and climb into our sleeping bags. We are knackered and I’m asleep before I can say, ‘Jac…’
‘Wake up Dad, we’ve got company’. I rub my eyes and see that my watch says 7am. I hear Peter talking with Chris and Tom and by the time I have crawled out of my sleeping bag, they have tied their kayak alongside the USS Joanne. They had welcomed our suggestion the night before, that we give them a lift down river. They had planned on having a rest day today anyway, so what better way to do it and gain some valuable river miles at the same time.
Ten minutes later and we had set off. Chris and Tom marvelled over Joanne. They loved her! This of course raised our spirits further and Peter delighted in telling them all the technical aspects of our raft. Soon breakfast was underway. Fortunately Chris was a vegetarian so I ended up with an extra ration of bacon… or was it Peter? Anyhow, a typical English breakfast was supplemented by a typical American breakfast – pancakes. And very nice they were as well!
At 8.30am we arrive at lock 14 to find it occupied by a barge train and it isn’t until 9.20am before we are able to leave the lock and continue on our journey.
Our guests stated that they hoped to reach New Orleans by the end of November and were averaging about 25 miles a day. Chris and Tom had been good friends since school. As I drive, I listen to Peter as he talks about his travels around the world and I confess to feeling a little envious of his experience of a world I had yet to see and was unlikely to do so. Talk soon moved to what each others’ next adventure would be. Peter talked about cycling from the UK to the Black Sea and both Chris and Tom seemed keen on visiting Europe. I reflected on how this was probably the last ‘big’ adventure that I was likely to embark on and that I had to come to terms with the fact that I had other commitments and responsibilities that I needed to spend more time on. Besides, I had experienced many other adventures in my lifetime and was content with what I had made of my life so far and passionate about what I could achieve in the future.
At 12.50pm, after passing through lock 15 (I nearly crushed the kayak against the lock wall as we entered – sorry guys!), we stopped in a place called Davenport where we bought some provisions. When we set off again, we all agreed that we were hungry and wanted lunch. Chris suggested making a ‘trail mix’, a mixture of nuts, seeds and dried fruit. It was one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever eaten and I felt a little guilty when I kept dipping my hand into the bowl and coming out with a GBH (great British handful). Chris seemed pleased that everyone enjoyed the filling feast. It was the first time I had eaten something like this as a meal and it was delicious!
Two hours later we stopped in a place called Muscating to buy fuel. We moored near a large green area and discovered that a medieval Gaelic fete was taking place. The Welsh dragon was proudly on display near a display tent and the bagpipes could easily be heard. Tom joined Peter on the trek to the gas station leaving Chris and I chatting on the boat. He asked me how we were getting on and whether we had fallen out yet. I mentioned our ‘bad’ day the day before and we both agreed that these sorts of days were inevitable. However, after philosophising for a while, we concurred that the opportunity to learn from these experiences strengthened relationships. There… we had set everything straight, or rather determined that a smile was a curve that set everything straight (thanks Catherine!) Chris summed it up with a broad smile, ‘Heh, if it wasn’t going to be hard, we wouldn’t be doing it, right?’ We high-fived and I replied, ‘Dead right, bro.’ F***! I’m turning into an American already!
We set off 20 minutes later and in a while saw the famous Mississippi pelicans, some of which had taken time off on their migratory route south to occupy a small treeless island in the centre of the river. I was reminded of Lake Kikuyu in East Africa, with the many thousands of flamingos standing one-legged on the waterside, seemingly turning the water blood red with their reflections. This was not on that scale but it was easy to imagine a similar number of these peculiar birds flooding the banks of this river at the height of their migration.
It’s had been a strangely mellow day, despite our company. I noticed that both Chris and Tom took turns to ‘disappear’; spending their alone times either outside of the cabin or in their kayak, tied alongside. There was no doubt that both of them were knackered and the strain showed in their weathered faces. Having said that it was equally clear that they were enjoying a day off!
Around 4.40pm we came across lock 16. Chris and Tom had decided that this is where they wanted to part company and find somewhere to camp for the night. We entered the lock separately and took our final photographs of each other as we left the lock. It seemed odd that we were both heading for the same destination and yet was travelling there is such contrasting ways.
As the light faded, our two stowaways climbed out of the shadows and busied themselves by moving their food into their separate larders. Fred and Harry have been with us from the moment we set off from Minneapolis, although they have made themselves scarce until the evening, probably because they think that we might throw them overboard if discovered. Harry is obviously very hungry because he is eating a head as he drags the body to his temporary store. Of course, Fred and Harry are spiders. Harry lives in the front right hand corner of the cabin whilst Fred lives in the back left hand corner. Both have elaborate webs although Harry seems to do better than Fred, being twice the size of his compatriot. Peter is overjoyed with his two friends, because Peter hates mosquitoes! In fact if you could see the hundreds of mosquito bites covering both of his legs, you would understand. Each mosquito bite on his legs looks like an active volcano, red and burning hot. I’ll spare you the details of how the puss seems to boil to the surface of the crater and slowly dribble down his legs, because it would probably make you feel sick! But it does drive him insane because he knows he shouldn’t scratch them, but… arrrgggg!
Because Peter can’t sleep because of his mosquito bites, we keep driving into the night and finally go through lock 17 at 23.55 pm. It’s another hour before we finally find a mooring in a place called New Boston.
We blow up the air mattresses and climb into our sleeping bags. We are knackered and I’m asleep before I can say, ‘Jac…’
Sunday, 26 September 2010
Mile marker 0 / 952
The Mississippi is mainly divided up into three sections. There are the headwaters where you can only really take a canoe or kayak as you need to be able to carry your boat over the dams. There is the Upper Mississippi which is controlled by the lock and dams and there is the Lower Mississippi which is free flowing, much deeper and controlled mainly with dykes. The mile markers we have been living by have been counting down to the town of Cairo since we left Minneapolis. It’s here that the Mississippi joins the Ohio river and becomes the Lower Mississippi and the markers start from 952 and start counting down to the Gulf of Mexico.
It was with some excitement that I pulled anchor on Friday morning in a town called Commerce at mile marker 40 and headed down the Upper Mississippi for what would surely be the last time. I was excited to work off the unused new Lower Mississippi chart book, I was excited to see how much we would speed up when the Ohio joined us and I was unsure how I would feel when the markers went up to 952 after finally getting to 0.
Engineering is a superstitious game. There is a fear that if you express confidence in a system you will curse it. Over the years I have noticed that just when you say that anything technical is working well its will go horribly wrong any minute. Confidence is any machine is a sign that you have allowed yourself to forget what can go wrong and prevent it before it does so it’s especially true that with all things technical, confidence precedes a fall. That’s why it was such a rare pleasure I allowed myself, with a big grin to think that we were going to do this with time to spare. We were catching up miles fast. I was imagining a night off in Memphis and I was imagining the pleasure of telling all those who said it couldn’t be done where to stick it. Then, at least two hours early we ran out of petrol.
When we run out I usually have an idea it’s about to happen but I had only filled the tank an hour before, it didn’t make any sense. I checked the tank, it was full. So I started the engine again, with a pull cord as the battery was flat from the night before. The engine started after a couple of go’s and I went to put it in gear. We immediately stalled. There must be something wrapped around the propeller I thought so I reached into the water to have a feel and to my horror the prop was completely seized up. It was then I noticed fifteen barges and a tow boat heading straight for us.
At first it seemed quite obvious that the barge train was headed to pass us on our port side so we could get to the shore. Dad started to paddle with a pole and I threw a bucket and rope to pull us in. All the time radioing the barge train and getting no response. They clearly knew we were then and that we were in distress as they had started slowing down but it takes two miles to stop one of these boats and we were less than a mile away. Then they turned and started heading the other way. I told dad to start paddling the other way and the barge had turned. His response was something along the lines of ‘screw them we’re going this way’ but it was quite obvious that we needed to start heading back into the middle of the river or get run down by a 20,000 ton ship. For a while we were paddling in different directions. This was not a good time to be stubborn. At last dad saw the light as we started to make our way out into the river again. The barge was going to pass us safely but then I saw another danger. We were headed straight for the pillar of the bridge and it looked clear that we were going to hit it side on hard. We both held on tight, this was going to hurt. There was no point in paddling, it was too late for that if we did someone could fall off when we hit. Miraculously the curved front of the pillar created a current that moved us away, we passed about two feet away and drifted a mile downstream before dropping anchor and swinging into a bank. Just after passing us the barge captain called us on the radio and said “you want to be on channel 13 to talk to the big fellas” I felt like yelling back “you need to be on the internationally recognised calling channel 16 to talk to a boat in distress” followed by a less than polite comment about his parents being cousins but I thought better of it and was at least glad to know why all the barges had not been talking to us for the last two days. They change radio channels so often I can’t keep up.
I looked on the GPS. There was a road about half a mile away but it was blocked off by bushes. The bank was a mess of driftwood and exposed tree roots in soft mud and sand. There were no signs of civilisation apart for the bridge in the distance. We took the engine out of the water to take a look but I already had a pretty good idea what had happened and I knew it was not going to be easy to fix. On an outboard engine you have a gear at the bottom to connect the vertical drive shaft the horizontal propeller shaft. This is called the lower unit and this whole gear box is full of oil. When we checked it it was full of water. This was not good. I had been warned about this happening but when we checked the oil in Minneapolis we were told that we would be good all the way down. Is should last a full boating season so one month was fine. Clearly not with this engine. The lower unit was completely ceased.
I started looking on the phone for marine repair places. We were only six miles from Cairo (pronounced kerro) a huge strategic point where the Ohio meets the Mississippi, there surely would be a boat shop there, they could send out a boat and we would be on our way. I searched online and found nothing. I called an industrial dock service Cairo Marine and the first thing they said was “you broke down in the wrong town”. Cairo Marine only had big tow boats the kind driven by the aforementioned guy with the related parents. That would tear us apart but he was willing to have a phone around for us. As I look at then page where I wrote all the phone numbers down that afternoon I cannot find his name which is a shame because I would very much like to thank him. He called back some time later to tell me that the Fire Department were going to come out with a boat to tow us back to town. Once again the spirit of American hospitality had saved us. There are times when I really love this country.
That morning Liane (my girlfriend) had told me on the phone that a friend of hers, Lane who was from Cape Gerardeau only a fifty mile north of here. Apparently she was pretty well connected and would arrange a fantastic night for us if we stayed there. If only I had the info the day before we could have, we stopped there for petrol but decided to press ahead another ten miles. I called Liane and asked her to help me find someone who might be able to help us out of this mess and pointed by search engine at Cape Geraudeau instead. There I found Shaun of King Marine who had a lower unit but wanted $850. This was not good. Shortly afterwards the Fire Department arrived with a small aluminium launch and 115hp of engine but the cleats they had on the boat were not built for towing a boat and they could only take one person. I jumped in with them and we headed off down the river to Cairo so fast dad couldn’t even get the camera out.
115 hp on a 10’ launch boat is a lot faster than 35 hp on a 18’ shed. We must have been going at 60 mph. Bobby Dover was with the Fire Dept. and was pretty proud of his boat and clearly enjoyed driving it. I would too, it was a lot of fun. Bob, his grandfather used to work on the barges until he got sucked under one day. He was dead for 45 minutes before they could revive him and he never worked on them again. Now he says he just helps people out on the river. Bobby went over to get him when he heard about us. I felt like I was in good hands and I was. As it turns out Bobby Dover isn’t from Cairo Fire Dept. He’s from the next town but Cairo didn’t have a boat so he came. He took me to the Police station first and the woman behind the desk pretty much said ‘it’s not our problem’ so he stormed out muttering something about them not knowing their jobs and we went next door the Fire Department and that’s where the fun began.
Cairo, like just about everywhere else on the lower river seems to be in great decline. There are signs everywhere of a time in the past when a great industrial society was founded along this river but now the only real activity you see are the barges. There are as at last as many disused factories on the river as there are active ones. Obviously with the number of rivers that are accessed through the lower Mississippi there is more barge traffic than ever but it’s not stopping, just passing through and places like Cairo can only watch them pass and remember the days when they used to stop. It’s tragic to see whole cities fall especially when the inhabitants have been so kind to us. Unfortunately though, for the most part they all said the same thing “you broke down in the wrong town”.
All I really needed was cash and a lift back to the boat. I could pretty much sort it out by going to the ATM and hitching back but Bobby had other ideas. The way he saw it, we needed help and helping people was the job of the emergency services. This would not happen in England and of that I am ashamed. We were welcomed into the fire station by the chief who was there on his own and were shortly joined by his mother. In-spite of the situation we spent the next half an hour laughing about god only knows what and eventually an auxiliary fireman comes to take me to an ATM and back to the boat in a fire truck. This is unbelievable! On the way I speak to Shaun at King Marine who says he will send someone down to meet me. It’s at least an hours walk from the nearest road to the boat so I have plenty of time to talk to the young engineer who came down. He likes hunting, girls and dreams of going to Europe, especially Paris. I tell him to do it, go to Europe but skip Paris. Paris is no place for someone who has grown up with the kind of hospitality I had been shown here.
He gets the lower unit off the engine and leaves us with a promise to come back tomorrow as soon as possible. We take stock of our situation and decide that it might be time to cook up some food and open the bottle of Gin that we picked up in Alton a few days ago. I cooked a stew and Dad built a fire on the river bank. We took our time over things for the first time in two weeks. Suddenly there was no rush. The sunset was one of the most spectacular I have ever seen, one of those ones that just keeps getting better and be both took allot of photographs.
That night Dad and I had a really good chat. There is something primal about a campfire and with just the two of us and a bottle of gin for company we were forced to discuss the minor bickering that had been plaguing the trip. We settled all our differences and although it would surely set us back at least 24 hours and allot of money we decided it was the best thing to happen to us on the trip. We could not have gone on as we were. Stranded there we were forced to deal with every aspect of the problem and we came clean about every little irritation, the products of two equally stubborn men trying to achieve a difficult task in an enclosed space. It was a very good night.
In the morning I was awoken at 8am by a root squeaking against the wood on Joanne. I had planned on sleeping later but even so 8am seemed like a lie in. We had a breakfast of bacon and mushroom sandwiches and nursed our hangovers. The bottle of gin on the table was empty and I could not remember going to bed. The air was clear between us; we had had enough of bickering. Dad set too on some home improvement but my head was far too hazy for that. I went on a scouting mission to see if anything of use could be found on the river bank. I managed to find a much needed boarding plank so we can get on and off the boat when mooring off to a river bank that does not have a proper mooring which is just about everywhere on the lower Mississippi. It’s heavy and awkward but it’s also essential.
At about 2pm the engineer arrived with the new lower unit. It took about an hour to get it on and get the engine in place and we were off. A full 24 hours. All the time we spent on the upper river getting ahead was lost in one hit. Our overnight stop in Memphis was definitely not going to happen. But that time was there because we knew we needed to have fun once in a while and last night was definitely fun.
So after 24 hours stuck in on a mud bank losing about 100 miles we were once again heading down river. We now have to make an average of 110 miles a day but that is absolutely achievable in the current of the lower river. But we still need luck; anything on this river needs luck.
Thursday, 23 September 2010
Day 13 (By Ian)
Friday 17 September 2010
We were up by 6.45 am and away at 7.15. Because of Peter's 'clumsiness' the day before, I get to drink the first coffee of the day using the only mug we now have. I take my time and imagine Peter's suffering as I slowly sip my coffee, sip by sip, by sip…
Unusually, I make breakfast and insist that Peter sits at the table to eat his while I drive and eat mine. (You see I'm not that bad after all!) As usual I do the washing up and tidy up by putting the overnight things away. As I wash the blade of the very large kitchen knife, the cleaning sponge slips and I cut the top of my right ring finger quite badly. At least it doesn't look out of place and reflects a similar wound on my little finger. Looking at my hand again, I notice another cut on the knuckle of my right thumb, a blister at the base of the thumb, a blister in the palm of my hand and… very, very dirty fingernails – despite my best efforts at personal hygiene.
Each thing has its own place now. The blow-up plastic mattresses are deflated, rolled up and stowed in their rack on the left hand side and at the back of the cabin, behind the table. My suitcase is in the same area whilst my sleeping bag hangs from the back wall next to the door, whilst Peter's sleeping bag hangs on the back wall behind the driving position. My pillow (cushion) goes on my swivel office chair behind the table and in front of my sleeping bag. Peter's pillow goes on top of my suitcase and behind my sleeping bag to stop it falling off the suitcase. Our towels hang on rope to the right of the front door and our wash bags sit on a shelf above the towels. The cooler box sits on the floor in front of the driving position together with a large plastic tub which holds all the cutlery, crockery, pots and pans. On the other side of the table is Peter's chair (his rucksack goes behind this chair). The cooker (double burner) is on a shelf on the left side of the front door. That's the inside.
At the back, outside the cabin, we have two 5 gallon water containers and three 5 gallon gas (petrol) containers, excluding the 6 gallon tank that feeds directly into the outboard engine. At the front, outside the cabin, is the anchor and life ring. Oh, I forgot, we also have inside the cabin, two life vests, an air horn, a fire extinguisher, satellite navigation system and marine radio. This is to ensure our safety. As it happened, we were also going to get a gun (for our safety), but I considered the one foot (very, very sharp) kitchen knife adequate. After all, I haven't picked it up again since it attacked me and nearly took off the top of one of my fingers!
I look up and see a large barge train slowly coming towards us. I remember that just a couple of days ago, Peter and I would have both been alert and worried about these huge craft that occupy so much space on the river. Now we know where they want us to be and have built up a healthy respect for them.
By 10.10am, Peter is convinced that the outboard engine is not charging the battery and he fears that the motor's alternator may have failed. Twenty minutes later we pulled into a public mooring in a place called Salula. It's a quite place and an older couple are sitting on camp chairs close to the landing and busy watching what these strangers are up to. A few minutes later we are joined by a couple of topless… older men who ask us what we are indeed up to. We buy some petrol and food before jumping into the river and swimming under and around the boat to reposition the corrugated plastic sheets on the right side of barrels. The water has a yellow colour to it and has about a four inch visibility, meaning just a 'four inch crocodile warning'. A thought goes through my mind – if a crocodile is swimming at 8mph how long will it take to cover four inches. I suddenly shudder and wonder if the water is as cold as I think it is. Shit! I left the knife in the cabin!
During the afternoon we pass by some other small towns. On this part of the river, these towns have similar architecture. The large buildings all have the same large, tall rectangular windows. Everything looks - well ordinary. There's no character as such, certainly no personality and I have the feeling that this town is going nowhere fast. It has been abandoned by all except the handful of people whose lives are still intrinsically bound to the decay that surrounds them.
Late afternoon, the river opens up to about two miles across. We are greeted by a strong head wind and we are still 30 miles way from our daily target. We pass the Princeton Marina on our right and I can't help notice the rich sitting on the marina terrace, sipping their cocktails and looking down on these two unknown idiots below.
I can imagine their conversation…
'Look dear! Somebody's lost their garden shed!'
'Well I'll be darned, there's a couple of guys trapped inside!'
'Do you think they know what they are doing dear?'
'Sure as hell do, they've got a darn outboard on the backside!'
Peter and I realise that we are now facing a swell (waves) at least three foot high which are breaking over the hull of USS Joanne, coming through the door and flooding the cabin. We decide to head for the marina and take refuge there. To reach the marina, we have to turn hard right, placing the side of our cabin (8 foot long by 7 foot high) directly against the wind. The force of the wind tilts the cabin over to the other side just as a series of metre high waves break across our side, further lurching Joanne violently over to the right. Everything that was not screwed or tied down is floating around us. I'm frightened.
Peter takes hold of the wheel and manages to turn Joanne around and towards the harbour. Twenty minutes later we are safely tied up to a landing platform and notice that it is a bustling place with people from all walks of life eating, drinking and being merry. Peter wonders off to get permission to moor Joanne overnight. I'm secretly overjoyed and keep looking up at all the people on the terrace – company; people to talk with, to share stories with! Peter returns with good news and we decide to go onto the terrace and have a beer.
We were instant celebrities and a few people buy us a beer. We are recommended the grilled catfish which we devour shortly afterwards. We also meet two guys from New York City, Chris and Tom who are kayaking down the Mississippi and have been on the go for several weeks now. We share our experiences and find that we have so much in common because of our Mississippi experience. We like each other instantly and the conversation is easy.
We chat with Mary and Peter who live nearby and kindly offer to shelter Chris and Tom in their garage. I suspect that the 'garage' will be somewhat luxurious but I'm not envious and have actually begun to like sleeping on board, despite it all being so cramped. We also speak with Jim. What we all have in common is the river, actually the Mississippi river. I know that Peter and I have developed a great respect for this river and know we have many more challenges ahead before we can finally say that we have 'conquered' her. And yet, I have a strong felling that if this river helps us reach our goal, 'conquer' will be an inappropriate expression.
I find myself being drawn to the edge of the terrace to stare down at our little wooden raft, lit by the light of the moon and the marina lights. I remember building her, carrying each part of her from the road, down 49 stairs to the riverside and the houseboat where we lived until we set off on our epic journey. I know every square inch of her. She hides no secrets from me and neither me from her. And Joanne has got Peter and me here safely, not without challenges, but she has done her job marvellously. I feel my chest rise with pride. Yes, she may well be a floating shed, but a shed like no other – unique as the two people who created her and are now intricately bound up in the very soul of her.
My God! I'm getting emotional about a bloody shed!
I fear we drink a little more than we should have, but I'm overjoyed to have met so many wonderful people. I know we shall never meet again, but once was all it needed to bond with these people simply because we all share a passion for this extraordinary river.
We were up by 6.45 am and away at 7.15. Because of Peter's 'clumsiness' the day before, I get to drink the first coffee of the day using the only mug we now have. I take my time and imagine Peter's suffering as I slowly sip my coffee, sip by sip, by sip…
Unusually, I make breakfast and insist that Peter sits at the table to eat his while I drive and eat mine. (You see I'm not that bad after all!) As usual I do the washing up and tidy up by putting the overnight things away. As I wash the blade of the very large kitchen knife, the cleaning sponge slips and I cut the top of my right ring finger quite badly. At least it doesn't look out of place and reflects a similar wound on my little finger. Looking at my hand again, I notice another cut on the knuckle of my right thumb, a blister at the base of the thumb, a blister in the palm of my hand and… very, very dirty fingernails – despite my best efforts at personal hygiene.
Each thing has its own place now. The blow-up plastic mattresses are deflated, rolled up and stowed in their rack on the left hand side and at the back of the cabin, behind the table. My suitcase is in the same area whilst my sleeping bag hangs from the back wall next to the door, whilst Peter's sleeping bag hangs on the back wall behind the driving position. My pillow (cushion) goes on my swivel office chair behind the table and in front of my sleeping bag. Peter's pillow goes on top of my suitcase and behind my sleeping bag to stop it falling off the suitcase. Our towels hang on rope to the right of the front door and our wash bags sit on a shelf above the towels. The cooler box sits on the floor in front of the driving position together with a large plastic tub which holds all the cutlery, crockery, pots and pans. On the other side of the table is Peter's chair (his rucksack goes behind this chair). The cooker (double burner) is on a shelf on the left side of the front door. That's the inside.
At the back, outside the cabin, we have two 5 gallon water containers and three 5 gallon gas (petrol) containers, excluding the 6 gallon tank that feeds directly into the outboard engine. At the front, outside the cabin, is the anchor and life ring. Oh, I forgot, we also have inside the cabin, two life vests, an air horn, a fire extinguisher, satellite navigation system and marine radio. This is to ensure our safety. As it happened, we were also going to get a gun (for our safety), but I considered the one foot (very, very sharp) kitchen knife adequate. After all, I haven't picked it up again since it attacked me and nearly took off the top of one of my fingers!
I look up and see a large barge train slowly coming towards us. I remember that just a couple of days ago, Peter and I would have both been alert and worried about these huge craft that occupy so much space on the river. Now we know where they want us to be and have built up a healthy respect for them.
By 10.10am, Peter is convinced that the outboard engine is not charging the battery and he fears that the motor's alternator may have failed. Twenty minutes later we pulled into a public mooring in a place called Salula. It's a quite place and an older couple are sitting on camp chairs close to the landing and busy watching what these strangers are up to. A few minutes later we are joined by a couple of topless… older men who ask us what we are indeed up to. We buy some petrol and food before jumping into the river and swimming under and around the boat to reposition the corrugated plastic sheets on the right side of barrels. The water has a yellow colour to it and has about a four inch visibility, meaning just a 'four inch crocodile warning'. A thought goes through my mind – if a crocodile is swimming at 8mph how long will it take to cover four inches. I suddenly shudder and wonder if the water is as cold as I think it is. Shit! I left the knife in the cabin!
During the afternoon we pass by some other small towns. On this part of the river, these towns have similar architecture. The large buildings all have the same large, tall rectangular windows. Everything looks - well ordinary. There's no character as such, certainly no personality and I have the feeling that this town is going nowhere fast. It has been abandoned by all except the handful of people whose lives are still intrinsically bound to the decay that surrounds them.
Late afternoon, the river opens up to about two miles across. We are greeted by a strong head wind and we are still 30 miles way from our daily target. We pass the Princeton Marina on our right and I can't help notice the rich sitting on the marina terrace, sipping their cocktails and looking down on these two unknown idiots below.
I can imagine their conversation…
'Look dear! Somebody's lost their garden shed!'
'Well I'll be darned, there's a couple of guys trapped inside!'
'Do you think they know what they are doing dear?'
'Sure as hell do, they've got a darn outboard on the backside!'
Peter and I realise that we are now facing a swell (waves) at least three foot high which are breaking over the hull of USS Joanne, coming through the door and flooding the cabin. We decide to head for the marina and take refuge there. To reach the marina, we have to turn hard right, placing the side of our cabin (8 foot long by 7 foot high) directly against the wind. The force of the wind tilts the cabin over to the other side just as a series of metre high waves break across our side, further lurching Joanne violently over to the right. Everything that was not screwed or tied down is floating around us. I'm frightened.
Peter takes hold of the wheel and manages to turn Joanne around and towards the harbour. Twenty minutes later we are safely tied up to a landing platform and notice that it is a bustling place with people from all walks of life eating, drinking and being merry. Peter wonders off to get permission to moor Joanne overnight. I'm secretly overjoyed and keep looking up at all the people on the terrace – company; people to talk with, to share stories with! Peter returns with good news and we decide to go onto the terrace and have a beer.
We were instant celebrities and a few people buy us a beer. We are recommended the grilled catfish which we devour shortly afterwards. We also meet two guys from New York City, Chris and Tom who are kayaking down the Mississippi and have been on the go for several weeks now. We share our experiences and find that we have so much in common because of our Mississippi experience. We like each other instantly and the conversation is easy.
We chat with Mary and Peter who live nearby and kindly offer to shelter Chris and Tom in their garage. I suspect that the 'garage' will be somewhat luxurious but I'm not envious and have actually begun to like sleeping on board, despite it all being so cramped. We also speak with Jim. What we all have in common is the river, actually the Mississippi river. I know that Peter and I have developed a great respect for this river and know we have many more challenges ahead before we can finally say that we have 'conquered' her. And yet, I have a strong felling that if this river helps us reach our goal, 'conquer' will be an inappropriate expression.
I find myself being drawn to the edge of the terrace to stare down at our little wooden raft, lit by the light of the moon and the marina lights. I remember building her, carrying each part of her from the road, down 49 stairs to the riverside and the houseboat where we lived until we set off on our epic journey. I know every square inch of her. She hides no secrets from me and neither me from her. And Joanne has got Peter and me here safely, not without challenges, but she has done her job marvellously. I feel my chest rise with pride. Yes, she may well be a floating shed, but a shed like no other – unique as the two people who created her and are now intricately bound up in the very soul of her.
My God! I'm getting emotional about a bloody shed!
I fear we drink a little more than we should have, but I'm overjoyed to have met so many wonderful people. I know we shall never meet again, but once was all it needed to bond with these people simply because we all share a passion for this extraordinary river.
Day 12
Thursday 16 September 2010
'Dad! Dad! We're in serious trouble!' Peter is out of his sleeping bag looking out of the cabin window. The noise is deafening and mechanical. It sounds like it is just outside the cabin, but which side I cannot tell because it seems to be all around us. I leap out of my sleeping bag and I'm instantly blinded by a piercing whiteness that causes me to freeze, like a rabbit caught in the headlights of its executioner. I can hear chomping sounds, it's definitely coming towards us and I can easily make out a huge mouth which opens and reaches out towards us, saliva drooling out of both corners of its devilish jaws. I manage to get myself outside of the cabin and look towards the monster. It looks back at me with its one bright and intense eye, just as its metal jaws lift out of the water and spits a bucket full of river silt into a large barge tied alongside the dredger. It is only 50 meters away, but it sees us and turns to its left. It has left us both shaken.
Peter and I decide to get underway, it's 6.30am. Peter does the washing up but losses my coffee mug overboard.
It's cold and overcast and the sun is fighting a loosing battle to spread some light on the lunacy below. We have worked out that we need to do at least 70 miles for each day that we are on the upper river and 110 miles per day on the lower river if we are to reach New Orleans in time. We average just over 6 miles per hour on the upper river at the moment which means that we are going to have to be on the go about 11 ½ hours each day. 'On the go', doesn't include stops for locks, petrol, food and other provisions, etc. It's going to be hard.
At 6.45am we reach our first lock and we're out of luck – a barge train has just entered the lock from the other side. We wait 45 minutes for the barge to leave and just 10 minutes to get in and out of the lock. It's so frustrating. Every time we are delayed at a lock means that we have to extend our day in proportion to keep to our daily mileage target. One of the lock keepers is complimentary about USS Joanne and it lifts our spirits – he tells us that it should be strong enough to complete the trip.
I'm driving and as usual life ticks by in time to the regular mileage markers and other landmarks: 0840 hrs – mile 610, 0846 hrs – mile 609.3, 09.02 hrs – mile 607.5, 09.21 hrs – mile 605 (you get the picture) until we reach 11.39 hrs – 'pulled into a marina for petrol'. It's so exciting!
It's beginning to do my head in. There's no time to look at the scenery, it's important to know where we are on the map; all these calculations are important. As Peter points out, how will we know what our fuel consumption is if we don't know how many miles we've travelled on a 5 gallon container of petrol. Of course, he's right. It's also important to know exactly where on the river we are so that we don't get lost. Here I get a little confused: we have a satellite navigation system with maps for the Mississippi Missouri rivers. I thought these really clever inventions told their owners exactly where they are. If so, why am I recording the time for every mile or so on a map? Peter has a lot more sailing experience than I could dream of and is very competent and confident on water (a beautiful little red spider has just walked over my keyboard and paused on my 'K' key – I hope he/she didn't make a pee pee as we say in Romania!) and knows what he's talking about. In which case I should be persuaded to do what is required. I'm not, well I try, but I have to take of my glasses, read the mileage number from a post on the side of the river with a pair of binoculars, change one pair of glasses for another and turn the map the right way up to see where it is that I have to put the time. By the time I have done that, one or two things have invariably happened: I've drifted so far of course that I have to violently swing the garden shed around (Peter always notices) or I've forgotten what the bloody mileage number was! Peter always notices that as well!
As I just mentioned, at 11.39 hours we pulled into a marina for petrol. We also got the telephone number of a place that carried out repairs to propellers and the like. The previous day, Peter had been swimming around the boat doing some repairs and adjustments to the corrugated plastic sheets around the barrels. To our horror, the prop blades had been badly damaged. We could only surmise that it was the result of our encounter with the mudflat the night before.
I took the opportunity to stick two pictures and another picture of a tree that my granddaughter Megan had drawn for me to take on my travels. It cheered me up and I wrote on the wall, close to the pictures, 'Megan's corner'.
About 1pm we went straight through lock 11 and at 4.10pm entered Dobugue Marina to replace our broken propeller. The guy who did this turned out to be a 'good egg' as I would have said, or a 'diamond geezer' as someone else might have said. In any case, we left the marina less than an hour later, after he had taken lots of photographs of USS Joanne and her proud owners, and I reckoned that we had gained at least 0.3mph with our $120 new propeller! (I'm sure it was faster than that but I'm not in the mood for being complimentary – about anything.
I'm more tired than I can remember ever being before and the slow pace down the river, together with our exposure to environmental stressors like the wind, engine noise, vibration and cold is producing a kind of hypnosis. I know my reactions are impaired, but there's somehow nothing I can do about it; 17.07 hrs – mile 578.5, 17.32 hrs – 575.6, 17.46 hrs – 573.9. I'm a zombie.
Everything each of us does appears to be annoying the other. We regularly snap at each other during the day, although we still manage to apologise quickly afterwards. Peter is as tired as me. We have done so much together in these last few days, forgone so much sleep and expended so much energy. We should be feeling exuberant – but we're not; we're knackered and tetchy.
We approach a large iron railway bridge which stretches across the river. It is early evening and the sun has dropped. As I'm driving towards the bridge I see a sign which tells boats to 'pass on the channel side to avoid underwater ledge.' I kept looking at the sign, but couldn't make any sense of it. Even the words didn't seem to be in the right order. I asked Peter for help. He gave me directions and I did the opposite, I headed for the part with the underwater ledge. Peter shouted at me and told me to turn away from the bridge. As I turned, he just stood there incredulous of my stupidity and with his hands out wide, kept saying. 'I don't understand you. I don't understand you. That was it, I exploded. This time no apologises were immediately forthcoming and I went into a sulk behind the wheel.
I didn't want to be on this bloody floating shed. I wanted off and I wanted off now.
We dropped anchor around 8.30pm, close to lock 12. We just hugged each other and congratulated each other for reaching our 70 miles daily target for the first time. We had two beers together and just crashed out.
I knew this could not happen again. We both shared 4.8 square meters and would have to do so for another few weeks. Somehow we had to get this together and get back to being the friends we were before we started. As Churchill was quick to remind, 'This is our darkest hour… ' Somewhat dramatic, but it suited my mood.
'Dad! Dad! We're in serious trouble!' Peter is out of his sleeping bag looking out of the cabin window. The noise is deafening and mechanical. It sounds like it is just outside the cabin, but which side I cannot tell because it seems to be all around us. I leap out of my sleeping bag and I'm instantly blinded by a piercing whiteness that causes me to freeze, like a rabbit caught in the headlights of its executioner. I can hear chomping sounds, it's definitely coming towards us and I can easily make out a huge mouth which opens and reaches out towards us, saliva drooling out of both corners of its devilish jaws. I manage to get myself outside of the cabin and look towards the monster. It looks back at me with its one bright and intense eye, just as its metal jaws lift out of the water and spits a bucket full of river silt into a large barge tied alongside the dredger. It is only 50 meters away, but it sees us and turns to its left. It has left us both shaken.
Peter and I decide to get underway, it's 6.30am. Peter does the washing up but losses my coffee mug overboard.
It's cold and overcast and the sun is fighting a loosing battle to spread some light on the lunacy below. We have worked out that we need to do at least 70 miles for each day that we are on the upper river and 110 miles per day on the lower river if we are to reach New Orleans in time. We average just over 6 miles per hour on the upper river at the moment which means that we are going to have to be on the go about 11 ½ hours each day. 'On the go', doesn't include stops for locks, petrol, food and other provisions, etc. It's going to be hard.
At 6.45am we reach our first lock and we're out of luck – a barge train has just entered the lock from the other side. We wait 45 minutes for the barge to leave and just 10 minutes to get in and out of the lock. It's so frustrating. Every time we are delayed at a lock means that we have to extend our day in proportion to keep to our daily mileage target. One of the lock keepers is complimentary about USS Joanne and it lifts our spirits – he tells us that it should be strong enough to complete the trip.
I'm driving and as usual life ticks by in time to the regular mileage markers and other landmarks: 0840 hrs – mile 610, 0846 hrs – mile 609.3, 09.02 hrs – mile 607.5, 09.21 hrs – mile 605 (you get the picture) until we reach 11.39 hrs – 'pulled into a marina for petrol'. It's so exciting!
It's beginning to do my head in. There's no time to look at the scenery, it's important to know where we are on the map; all these calculations are important. As Peter points out, how will we know what our fuel consumption is if we don't know how many miles we've travelled on a 5 gallon container of petrol. Of course, he's right. It's also important to know exactly where on the river we are so that we don't get lost. Here I get a little confused: we have a satellite navigation system with maps for the Mississippi Missouri rivers. I thought these really clever inventions told their owners exactly where they are. If so, why am I recording the time for every mile or so on a map? Peter has a lot more sailing experience than I could dream of and is very competent and confident on water (a beautiful little red spider has just walked over my keyboard and paused on my 'K' key – I hope he/she didn't make a pee pee as we say in Romania!) and knows what he's talking about. In which case I should be persuaded to do what is required. I'm not, well I try, but I have to take of my glasses, read the mileage number from a post on the side of the river with a pair of binoculars, change one pair of glasses for another and turn the map the right way up to see where it is that I have to put the time. By the time I have done that, one or two things have invariably happened: I've drifted so far of course that I have to violently swing the garden shed around (Peter always notices) or I've forgotten what the bloody mileage number was! Peter always notices that as well!
As I just mentioned, at 11.39 hours we pulled into a marina for petrol. We also got the telephone number of a place that carried out repairs to propellers and the like. The previous day, Peter had been swimming around the boat doing some repairs and adjustments to the corrugated plastic sheets around the barrels. To our horror, the prop blades had been badly damaged. We could only surmise that it was the result of our encounter with the mudflat the night before.
I took the opportunity to stick two pictures and another picture of a tree that my granddaughter Megan had drawn for me to take on my travels. It cheered me up and I wrote on the wall, close to the pictures, 'Megan's corner'.
About 1pm we went straight through lock 11 and at 4.10pm entered Dobugue Marina to replace our broken propeller. The guy who did this turned out to be a 'good egg' as I would have said, or a 'diamond geezer' as someone else might have said. In any case, we left the marina less than an hour later, after he had taken lots of photographs of USS Joanne and her proud owners, and I reckoned that we had gained at least 0.3mph with our $120 new propeller! (I'm sure it was faster than that but I'm not in the mood for being complimentary – about anything.
I'm more tired than I can remember ever being before and the slow pace down the river, together with our exposure to environmental stressors like the wind, engine noise, vibration and cold is producing a kind of hypnosis. I know my reactions are impaired, but there's somehow nothing I can do about it; 17.07 hrs – mile 578.5, 17.32 hrs – 575.6, 17.46 hrs – 573.9. I'm a zombie.
Everything each of us does appears to be annoying the other. We regularly snap at each other during the day, although we still manage to apologise quickly afterwards. Peter is as tired as me. We have done so much together in these last few days, forgone so much sleep and expended so much energy. We should be feeling exuberant – but we're not; we're knackered and tetchy.
We approach a large iron railway bridge which stretches across the river. It is early evening and the sun has dropped. As I'm driving towards the bridge I see a sign which tells boats to 'pass on the channel side to avoid underwater ledge.' I kept looking at the sign, but couldn't make any sense of it. Even the words didn't seem to be in the right order. I asked Peter for help. He gave me directions and I did the opposite, I headed for the part with the underwater ledge. Peter shouted at me and told me to turn away from the bridge. As I turned, he just stood there incredulous of my stupidity and with his hands out wide, kept saying. 'I don't understand you. I don't understand you. That was it, I exploded. This time no apologises were immediately forthcoming and I went into a sulk behind the wheel.
I didn't want to be on this bloody floating shed. I wanted off and I wanted off now.
We dropped anchor around 8.30pm, close to lock 12. We just hugged each other and congratulated each other for reaching our 70 miles daily target for the first time. We had two beers together and just crashed out.
I knew this could not happen again. We both shared 4.8 square meters and would have to do so for another few weeks. Somehow we had to get this together and get back to being the friends we were before we started. As Churchill was quick to remind, 'This is our darkest hour… ' Somewhat dramatic, but it suited my mood.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)