We are settled in for the night in a slough just off the Mississippi and Ohio River junction. I just went up to check the anchor and it is like we are in another world down here. There is absolutely not one light visible other than our anchor light and the only sounds are from the light ripples hitting the bow. This is what I love about the river getting away from the world like this!! We might as well be anchored on the dark side of the moon.
We are about 70 miles short of where I wanted to be today. We got an early start this morning as planned but the fog was so bad we couldn?? t see the navigation markers so we had to anchor for two hours while it cleared. This caused us to be late for our fuel stop at Kidd River causing another hour delay. Additionally the Tug traffic is unlike anything I have seen above St. Louis. There is a lot of traffic and some of the tugs are twice the size of what we see back home. When you come up on one of these guys they own the river everyone yields. They take command of everyone around them asking other tugs to pull over and wait until they clear the turn. Its impressive how everyone works together. The consequence is we have to work with the captains and slow down and sometimes just float while two tugs pass each other. All this put us 3 or more hours behind schedule as we arrived at the Ohio river and I realized as I feared earlier in the morning that we would not make it off the Ohio and up into the Kentucky Lake before dark. The Ohio is running very fast at flood stage speeds. According to the gas attendant at Kidd last night two barges broke free and hit a bridge shutting down the Ohio river and highway for several hours. I don?? t want to get caught on that river at night!! Our backup plan was to pull into this chute behind Angelo Towhead at Mile 1.3 on the Mississippi. We weren?? t sure if there was enough water to get in so we eased Daddy in and found plenty of water over 9 feet glad we did this.
The boys are doing good we miss them terrible. Mom and Dad are over now eating with them. Charlene and I are able to log into our private web cam in the living room from the boat and can see the boys sitting at the kitchen table with mom and dad. That made us both feel a lot better.
Tomorrow we will be up early again and hope to make up a little time if we can safely do it.
Log:
Date 2006-11-07 Time 05:19:02 Drizzle and Dense Fog Air 47 Water 54
Date 2006-11-07 Time 05:55:31 Gen 645.2hrs Fuel Starboard 176.5 Port 171.1 Gen Switched to pull from Starboard
Date 2006-11-07 Time 06:27:58 Engine Start
Date 2006-11-07 Time 07:00:15 Back into Kaskaskia River and anchored at mouth. Fog too thick to see navigation markers on the river to be safe we went back to wait for the weather to turn.
Date 2006-11-07 Time 07:57:52 Looks better going to give it a try
Date 2006-11-07 Time 10:51:12 Kidd River Fuel dock tied up and waiting
Date 2006-11-07 Time 12:05:15 Fueled and on the way
Date 2006-11-07 Time 15:21:41 Anchored out for the night behind island at the 1.3mm on the Mississippi.