Day 10

Day 10 - By Ian


Tuesday 14 September
Finished the catch-up blog at 12.15am, but lost our unsecure network connection before I could upload it! Called it quits and went to ‘bed’. ‘Bed’ is a blow-up plastic mattress, which we have to deflate every morning for space reasons. I remember Peter telling me that the raft could take up to four people – like heck! We can hardly lay out two mattresses!
Woke up several times during the night. Despite socks, a pullover and ‘long Johns’; I’m freezing. Bury my head deep into the sleeping bag. We’re both awake at 6.45am and I cannot stop laughing as I watch Peter running around outside desperately trying to find a toilet. The poor guy is jumping from one foot to another trying to hold everything in. I point out a tree, but it’s clear he needs more privacy than a tree. The inevitable happens and everything comes out! The tree had to do after all. Just as quickly, we slip out of the ‘private’ marina before anyone realises we’ve been there. As we leave I pick up another unsecure network and manage to upload the catch-up blog… at last!
Half an hour later and we’re approaching lock 4 and after a short wait we’re through. For a change, I make coffee and breakfast – a fried egg and some rations of bacon. Doesn’t look took good, but tastes like heaven! (I notice Peter puts a hell of a lot of ketchup on his breakfast and wonder if breakfast is as tasty as I think it is!)
We’re low on fuel so decide to refuel midstream. Refuelling means filling the main petrol tank on the back of the boat (actually, USS Joanne resembles a floating garden shed) with petrol (sorry – gas) from one of three portable petrol containers that we regularly fill as we go along. Because our engine is two-stroke, we have to put in additive (something like oil) into the petrol. The whole thing takes a couple of minutes and we’re then on our way again.
Today, I’m determined not to do any construction work. I want to be more relaxed and take in some of this amazingly beautiful scenery that quietly passes us by. In places, the adjoining hills are a couple of hundred meters high but undulating, like the molars of some huge and ancient dinosaur. The hills are covered in trees displaying irregular shades of green. The morning sun highlights what is not in shade, as if someone had used a fluorescent marker pen to colour in the leaves. Every now and again, we’ll see a row of houses alongside the river edge. No big mansions here, with gardens running down to elaborate boat houses that are bigger than my apartment. No, these houses belong to normal folk, quietly getting on with their own lives. Every house is different, just like the families that live in them. Small commercial buildings try to hide amongst these homes and obviously provide economic relief to the village and it’s community.
Along the bank of the Old Man River, runs a railway track. Believe me, the trains that use this track are more than a hundred wagons long and are pulled by three huge locomotives operated by Canadian Pacific. Some of the wagons have the Canadian symbol (Canadian flag with the word ‘Canada’ below) and I’m continuously being reminded of the ‘Moosehead (Canadian Embassy’s bar in Bucharest, where I play darts in the Bucharest Dart’s league). I’m also reminded that I’m missing the first few games of this winter’s league season, because I’m on this trip.
‘Lock coming up!’
We radio ahead to the lock and they fill it up in time for us to drive straight in. The last two locks have been quite shallow as opposed to our earlier locks which had about a 20 meter drop. We’re out of lock 5 in no time. Now where was I… oh yes! Darts! I play for the Canadian team and have done so for as many years as I can remember. We play every Thursday evening during the autumn and winter months. The league has grown quickly and we have to have two divisions; A & B. The A team (Alpha) is for those who play darts because they want to win, whilst the B team (Boozers) is for those who want to… The Northern Flights (my team) plays in the A division, OK, we play in the B division.
We pass by one of the many river dredgers that keep shipping moving along the Mississippi river. Big flat boats, with a mechanical digger on the deck and an equally large barge on the side. Like a giant caterpillar, with its jaws opening and closing, thrusting forward and snaking up and down as it devours all in front of it.
Surprisingly there are very view bridges on this part of the river at least. Not too far ahead we see a river train slowly crawling towards us. They are huge! Three barges wide and six in length, a single tug boat pushes these 18 barges along at about 5 mph. The wake behind the tug is worth keeping away from. Some of the tug captains give us a wave and some are indifferent, simply getting on with another day’s work. I suppose they have seen home made rafts before and have become complacent. We want to shout out, ‘Heh! Do you know what we are trying to do? Do you know what we are going through to do this?’
A little while ahead, we see a mooring, signalling a small town ahead and tie up for supplies and petrol. We spot an American eagle (white head and black Body) above us, catching a ride on a benevolent thermal. We have decided to write ‘www.themississippichallenge.com, with daily blog’ on the sides of our floating garden shed. A permanent marker does the job nicely! A guy comes along and we get chatting. Soon we are joined by another guy who is considerably older. He introduces himself and then says, ‘Are you in the police?’ I’m open mouthed. ‘Yes, I’m retired though. But how did you know?’ The guy looks at me and says, ‘I recognised you.’ ‘But I come from England’, I say. ‘That’s a long way’, he replies. He then wants to talk about police pensions. I have no idea how this guy could possible have recognised me and soon I find I don’t care anymore. God! How good it is to see people and to small talk with them! I remember that the last time I saw or heard the news was the day before my birthday. Anything could have happened and we’re oblivious to it. I find it mildly comforting!
I stick some pictures on the cabin wall that my granddaughter, Megan, drew and gave me before we set off for the airport on Day Two. I name the cabin wall, ‘Megan’s Corner!’
The first guy returns whilst Peter is hunting for some petrol in town. He’s talking on his mobile and then hands it to me – it’s the local reporter. He asks me the usual questions and promises to put a piece in the local paper. He tells me he will follow our progress on the Internet. I feel like asking whether he could ‘lend’ us an Internet that we could use.
Peter returns and we set off again. We see locks 6 and 7 and exchange quick words with the lock keepers. It’s always the same, ‘Heh guys, where’re you heading?’
‘All the way!’
‘Did you build this yourself?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good luck!’
I’m always left wondering whether that means, ‘You need all the luck in the world mate, because you’re going to need it!’
We’re listening to the soundtrack of ‘Good morning Vietnam’ - great for a journey like this, and I love Robin Williams as he quips his way through. Magically, as I’m wondering about the beauty that surrounds me, Louis Armstrong sings, ‘What a wonderful world’. I have to agree.
I unpack the food that Peter bought from the local (expensive) Co-op. Fresh vegetables, garlic, tomatoes, olive oil, bacon and some fruit. We are in for a great dinner later! The light is beginning to fade and my watch tells me it’s 7.30pm. We’ve travelled 53 miles so far today, not bad considering the stops. The river speed is also increasing slowly, meaning that we we’re starting to travel faster. We will carry on for awhile yet before we call it quits for the day.
When the light fades, either Peter or I stand at the front of our floating shed and point a powerful torch ahead and to each side. We’re looking for red buoys on the left and green on the right. The idea is to keep between the two if we don’t want to damage the hull because of underwater dams and silted sand banks. We’ve got it to a fine art now. We discover when we get to the place on the map showing where the marina we intended to stay the night no longer exists. We head off to a campsite two or three miles down river and can’t find it, so we drop anchor close to a small town. No unsecure Internet connections here. We’ll have to post this blog in the morning. Peter is preparing dinner now and the smell of onions fills my nostrils. We open our first beer of the day and share a toast.
We’ve done 66 miles today.


Ian