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?