Day 35 up river to the Little River Diversion Canal

     Today, we spent an hour or more clearing debris off of the anchor line before we could pull up the anchor. We had a strong current at our anchorage last night and before going to bed had a large tree with several long branches snag on our anchor line.  We finally got it freed but when we woke in the morning we had another entanglement including two trees that had to be 30' long.  It took over an hour to get everything freed but we succeeded and ended up departing at 7:20 am for a 43.5 mile trip to another anchorage for tonight. Today is the big test to see what king of average speed (over the ground) that we can expect going up the Mississippi River.

     We passed Cape Girardeau, MO, which is well hidden behind a tall concrete dike. There is not much to be seen over the wall, and there are no services, except for a commercial fuel dock about 2 miles up river from the town. The fuel dock does not take boats over night, offers only diesel fuel with 24 hours advance notice and is open only Monday to Friday.

     The city did have this beautiful new bridge over the river (photo at right). As we were to discover, most of the civilization along the river in this area is on the Missouri (or west) side of the river. On the Illinois (or east) side there is plenty of farming but relatively few towns.

      We did have railroad tracks along one or both sides of the river for most of the day (photo at left). The tracks were not very high above the river level so they might be subject to flooding. Speaking of flooding, we are in a part of the river where there is currently a long stretch of high water moving down stream. As the water level goes up, the river picks up more debris so we have both been rather busy watching for logs. We do not make a big effort to avoid small pieces of debris since our bow wave pushes them aside. Large logs are usually easy to spot and avoid, but it is the partially sunken logs (aka dead heads) that concern us the most. Our general rule of thumb is that if a piece of debris is not bobbing up and down in the ripples on the water then there is likely to be a much bigger piece of it hidden below water... That said, I do still try to avoid as much as possible, but the turbulence in the water makes it difficult. As soon as I think that I have turned enough to miss something, then we hit some turbulence and end up heading right for the debris. Well, all of this keeps it interesting to say the least.

     We have passed many grain shipping terminals, but this one (photo at right) looks like it also had a flour mill attached to it. The flour would be transported by train (or truck) while grain would be transported by barges loaded via the conveyor system at the left.

     I suppose that it is the geologist in me, but I was fascinated by this huge gravel quarry along the Missouri shore (photo at left). The quarry was over a half mile wide at the river and looked like it extended a mile or more back to the upper left in the photo.

     The crushing and sizing operations took place right along the river, and there were 3 different docks for loading gravel (photo at right).

     A further indication of the magnitude of this operation was the extensive barge staging area with so many tow boats waiting for a tow. Well, like I said, I guess that I will always have some geologist in me.

     We arrived at the Little River Diversion Canal anchorage at 3:30 pm.  I hurriedly took the photo at the right that shows some of the turbulence at we approached the turn off into the Little River Diversion Canal. Once we were safely off the river and into the canal, we found that this anchorage has nowhere near as strong of current as last night. The really good news is that we haven't seen any debris other than small twigs. We are keeping our fingers crossed for tonight.

      The photo at the left shows an aerial view of the canal where we anchored. The brown water in the upper right is The Mississippi River flowing to the lower right. There is a bridge just out of view to the lower left so you see the entire space for anchoring. Terry took Lucky to shore  via the kayak, which made Lucky very happy.




    We arrived at the anchorage about 3:30 pm, and we had departed this morning at 7:20 am so we made an average speed of 5.3 miles per hour! This was really good news as the average speed exceeded both of our estimates (and/or hopes)! Our speed through the water may have been as high as 9 mph, but our speed over the ground was always changing between 3.2 and 7.1 mph due to the opposing current. We were able to get a good average by consistently following the shortest course from the inside of one bend in the river to the inside of the next. We also kept as close to shore where the current is less whenever possible. Hugging the shore required constant monitoring of the depth in addition to dodging the debris so we were both busy most of the time. Going down river, it is easy since you just follow the deepest and fast part of the river because in that direction the fast current is your "friend".  However, avoiding the current as much as possible is much more difficult, but from our (in my opinion) higher average the extra effort paid good dividends.

       Tomorrow is our longest day of this grouping of 4 days going up the Mississippi River. and we have identified an alternate anchorage 15 miles sooner if needed. So, we will be attempting to improve our skills at going up river if possible. But first, a long, good nights sleep is in order...