10/5/2016
Another early morning departure. We had anchored, once again, in a muddy river bottom, so Kristi had a mess to clean up. The hose you see is our “raw water washdown”. It pumps water from around us so we don’t use our good water for things like anchor and deck rinsing.
Once we headed out into the strong Mississippi current we would be committed. There could be no stopping, so we made a Security call on the VHF as we left Little River Diversion to warn any boating traffic on the Mississippi that we were about to appear. No problem, since it turned out no one else was around, and we made our way downstream.
By now we were seeing eagles all day, but each one was still a thrill. We love seeing these majestic creatures in their natural habitat. “I guess he’d be a poorer man if he never saw an eagle fly.” – John Denver.
Still on the Big Muddy for a bit, Tom continued to argue with the river over who was steering the boat. So much so that we started to think something was wrong with our steering, or Tom.
With fast current comes high turbulence and steering was a full time job. While countering the swirling water, we also had to watch out for debris, sometimes whole trees; and deadheads, almost invisible floating just under the water. Channel markers get moved out of position and even do a magical disappearing and reappearing act!
The upside to all that current is speed! We were doing 218 miles of Mississippi River in just two half days and a full day. Notice the Speed Over Ground (SOG) at 12kts (13.8mph)!
Around noon we made a sharp left turn onto the Ohio River. Suddenly steering was easy again, and our speed dropped to 6-7kts due to a gentle current flowing against us.
We decided to stop at Metropolis. We read about a good anchorage between the casino and bridge, near an old boat launch. Perfect, we thought, we can land the dinghy and go see the big Superman!
What we found was a homeless camp next to the ramp, so we decided not to leave either boat unattended. After anchoring bow and stern, to insure that we wouldn’t swing into shore or out into the river we were treated to another beautiful sunset. With the mighty Mississippi behind us, we were looking forward to some easy cruising and beautiful scenery ahead.
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