Southbound

October 24 & 25

Rev from Here’s to Us took this shot of WB in one of our locks together.

As I stated in my last post, Hoppies being one of the “must stops” on the Loop, was not exactly a luxurious stop. Photo below is a power hook up. You can see the judicious use of electrical tape.

Pretty darn gloomy day. Only a 4 hour run to the wall on the Kaskaskia lock. If the sun was out the color of the trees would really pop.

Rock quarry

Can’t really make out this array of barges anchored out in the middle of the river very well. Five wide and 6 long. At the briefing held last night at Hoppies we learned that tows between New Orleans and St. Louis can have as many as 43 barges because there are no locks or dams between those 2 cities. Largest array of barges I have ever seen is 15.

Check out the caves at the top of the cliffs in the following photos.

Another quarry

Our speed through the water was almost 9 MPH.

Because of the push of the current we were actually moving over 15 MPH! The current will pick up as we get closer to the Ohio River.

After about 4 hours we reached our destination 50 miles down river at the confluence of the Kaskaskia River and the Mississippi. We pulled off the big river into the Kaskaskia and tied up to the wall at the dam. It started raining as we tied up to the wall. Then it started pouring…Bloody Mary’s that is!

Forecast was for rain the rest of the day so we decided to have our very own Lebowski Fest.

Sam showed up in appropriate attire.

Multiple Causasians (The Dude’s term for a White Russian) were enjoyed during the movie.

As the day progressed at our wall tie up another 8 boats came in and tied up. By 5pm there was no more room at the inn.

Off the wall and underway to a popular anchorage called Little Diversion. We wanted to make sure there was room for us.

Had a little sunshine briefly at the start of the day.

Did not last.

Gotta look pretty closely at the water. Spinning eddies like underwater tornadoes swung us around quite a bit.

We always keep a sharp eye on our chartplotter for the AIS signature of tow arrays around the bend of a river. Saw this guy coming.

After hailing the captain and asking him which side he wanted us to pass him, I had to hail him again and ask him how often he gets hailed as “Lewis-ville”? Not often his response. I suggested he put the bumper to ’em if they did. He Loved it.

This is one muddy river.

As we approached we thought this was a bridge. Overehead pipeline.

This was a tow array we passed with an array of 7 X 4 barges. That’s 7 barges long and 4 barges wide for a total of 28. HUGE!

These are the “roller” waves the tug puts out. In order to push the weight of 28 loaded barges the tug has to really amp up the power and the wake behind it is unbelievable.

Short video of WB pushing through the 3 and 4 foot waves behind the tow. Never seen waves like that on a river.

Beautiful bluffs.

After 5 hours and 70 miles we made our anchorage at Little Diversion just south of Cape Girardeau, Il. Saltie got here before us and anchored using a stern anchor also. When anchoring in an anchorage with very little current it is wise to deploy a stern anchor. Let out a lot of chain on your bow anchor, throw out an anchor off the back of the boat and then move forward taking up chain off the bow while letting out line off the back of the boat, setting the stern anchor. We did something a little different so that we could keep Saltaire, Here’s to Us and WB together for cocktails. After dropping our anchor, Here’s to Us pulled alongside and behind us, dropped their bow anchor and then backed up to the side of us. So their bow was at our stern. Saltaire then tied up on the other side of WB.

Our run today. We averaged over 14 MPH at our normal cruise which would put us around 9 MPH. We were flyin’!

Wheels up at 7 AM for the long run to Paducah, Kentucky. After 14 months on Whisky Business we will be back in Kentucky.