Day 20 to Bobby's Fish Camp

     The anchorage last night was perfect.  We ran the generator for the afternoon/evening for the AC and cooking for dinner, but then we turned it off at bedtime for a quite night after it had cooled down outside.  One of the big breakthroughs of last night was that Lucky used the artificial turf to do her business!  Yeah!!!! This also means that we are not going to take her to shore this morning so one of our first tasks is to load Terry's kayak back in its mount on the flybridge rail. It weighs about 60 pounds, but we lean over the edge of the wings (or extensions) along the side of the flybridge and lift her up with bow and stern lines. Then we pulled up the anchor at 6:27 am (picture at right) and are now headed to Bobby's Fish Camp which is 68.6 miles and one lock upriver.  

     There is fog over the water so we are watching the chart plotter carefully for the AIS symbols of barges, while watching the river for logs. We can see both sides of the river so we opted to keep the radar off for now since with the trees so close along our sides the radar basically only see ahead to the next bend in the river.  The Coffeeville Lock is shortly before the marina and therefore at the end of the day.  We will be going up river against the flow plus there is still a (very) mild tide. So as we departed the anchorage, there is some unknown factor about just how fast we will actually be travelling. It took several hours for the fog to completely burn off, but there has been almost no traffic on the river.

     We have been watching on the web as some flood waters moved down the Tombigbee River from Demopolis, Alabama about 150 miles up river. The flood waters are now in the area that we stayed in last night and up river for much (all?) of today's route. The picture at the right shows some recent erosion on the bank of the river. The recent flood waters were at least this high, and we are travelling up river about 100 feet from shore. The water depths here have consistently registered 20+/- feet. This would include about 8 feet of flood water above normal river level according to the US Corps of Engineers data. Without the flood water, we would be at the edge of the navigable (for barges) channel, and there would be an additional 30+ feet of river bank (just guessing) in the photo.

     We arrived at the Coffeeville Lock and Dam about 4:00pm and were locked right through with essentially no wait. The lift here is normally 34 feet, but it "seemed" less than that amount, which if true would be due to flood water down stream. The Lockmaster was most accommodating, which really helps since there is still a lot of water coming over the dam (at right in photo). The high current below the dam makes "hanging out" waiting for the lock much more difficult.

      Then after just over 2 miles past the lock we arrived at Bobby's Fish Camp for a 2 night stay. Since I am supposed to be "rigorously honest", I will say that I did a very poor job of docking. We are docked on a floating dock parallel to the river, and docking should have been very simple. I brought the boat into the dock with the bow into the current, but for some unknown reason, I brought the stern to the dock first. The Admiral looped a line over a cleat, and then she went forward to do the same at the bow. However, the bow, which had been about 2 feet from the dock, got caught by the current and I could not stop it from swinging around away from the dock... In the process I managed to rip out the cleat on the dock that we had been tied to. The next approach to the dock was bow first into the current, and once the bow line was secured the stern drifted in the current right over to the dock. I knew better the first time, but I guess that it was just one of those "brain farts"...

     There was one other Looper boat that came in after us, here they are moored behind Lucky Us on the main dock (photo at right). I did not tell them why there was no cleat where they wanted to tie their bow line...

     Tomorrow is a rest day at Bobby's Fish Camp. We have been pushing fairly hard since leaving Gulfport, MS in order to cross Mississippi Sound and Mobile Bay in relatively low winds, and we have accomplished this so we will take a rest day tomorrow. It is not a very luxurious place but rather a basic fishing camp. However, the restaurant gets rave reviews from Loopers for its fried, freshly caught catfish. So, after taking Lucky for a fairly long walk, we are heading to the restaurant.

   Guess what? It's going to be another night where bedtime comes early...

Day 19 Dog River Marina and up the Tombigbee River

     Today we head up the Mobile Ship Channel pass Mobile, Alabama. We got underway at 6:25 am, but three other boats also headed up the Tombigbee River beat us away from the dock by a half hour. They were going to be going much faster so we would have fallen behind quickly anyway. The winds have remained in the 8-10 mph range so we had a very leisurely trip to Mobile.



 
      There we entered the Tombigbee River, and from here we will be in the river system until Chicago, IL about a thousand miles away. Mobile is a pretty town, but when you drive through here on I-10 you do not see much of the city or its busy port. This is especially true since the Interstate goes through a tunnel under the river. The photo is as we are about to enter the Port of Mobile at the head of Mobile Bay and extending up the Tombigbee River.

     The activities in the port are many, including a cruise ship terminal. This terminal has the distinctive shape of a passenger ship. You can see some of the downtown skyline in the immediate background of the port. Pretty neat looking!

     The rest of the post for today is going to be more like LIFE magazine was with lots of pictures and not a lot of text... The reason for a lot of the pictures is Grandson Will (age 6) who likes these kinds of pictures.

     The photo at the left shows the sub sea pipeline laying ship Deep Blue in a floating dry dock. We also had seen 3 of this type of ship in the commercial port at Gulfport, MS, but we never got a clear view of them.

     The Bright Horizon is a heavy lift freighter that is also in a floating dry dock. You can see the bulbous bow sticking out that would normally be below the waterline.

     We also saw at least four ships in various stages of construction, such as the huge work boat (?) in the photo at left.

     The last photo of new construction shows two new littoral combat ships being completed for the US Navy. This type of ship is the latest design with a very low profile on radar as you can probably tell from the very smooth, angled exterior of the ship.

     So far all of the photos of the port have been of shipyard activity, but Mobile is also a busy commercial port. The port seems to be the home to several very heavy lift crane ships (self-propelled barges?) that are used to assemble oilfield production platforms on site. The various parts of the platform are built on shore and slid onto barges and transported to the site. These cranes them lift the components, which may cost a billion dollars or more, into place on the platform.

     There are also several container terminals in the port. This one happens to be empty at the moment, but this enables you to see the whole unloading system. Once a ship is in place the booms are lowered into the horizontal position to load/unload the containers. 

     The heavy lift cargo ship Grand Concord is shown in the photo at the left. She is very high in the water and her cranes seem to be in the stored position, which may mean that she has finished the process of unloading her cargo.

     After passing through the port area, we spent a few miles going through a very swampy area that may be part of the delta that formed where the Tombigbee River flowed into the mead of Mobile Bay. The only sight of "civilization in this area was a railroad track that was along the west bank of the river for part of the way. This area is probably flooded often by either the river or storm surge up Mobile Bay. Not a very pleasant place to be...

     We reached our anchorage for the night in the very late afternoon. We are in an old, largely unused channel of the Alabama River that comes into the Tombigbee River. The main present day channel of the Alabama River is several miles down river. There is just enough flow in this old channel to keep the boat straight in the channel with only an anchor from the bow. The Tombigbee River is up as much as 8 feet above its normal level due to flood waters from upstream. You can see (photo at left) the branches of shrubs and trees sticking up out of the water.

      There are a few places where the stream bank is just barely above water. The current in the main channel has been about 3 to 4 mph, which is then the speed at which the flood waters move downstream. As you can see, both Lucky and the Admiral are wearing their life jackets. Poor Lucky! This is her first ever ride in a kayak! She is having a lot of "firsts" on this trip, but in this case, her reward for sitting very still will be some ground with hopefully grass where she can do her business...



     While the intrepid kayakers were off seeking high ground, I found a nice comfortable place to wait for their return... We were actually running the generator with the air conditioning turned on, but this was both comfortable and very scenic.

     While this was happening, the Admiral had set up a whole chicken to roast on the rotisserie so we ate well for dinner. Fortunately we were still close enough to Mobile to get their TV channels live over the air. The old channel of the Alabama River was barely over 150 feet wide so the trees on shore blocked the view for the satellite dish. Life on a boat sure can be tough. ha, ha

     Well, it has been a long day and sleep is going to come early. It has cooled off enough that we no longer need the AC so it will be much quieter all night.

Day 18 Gulfport, MS to Dog River Marina

     We pulled out from our slip at 6:25 am and we headed for the fuel dock. The Small Craft Warning flag at the entrance to the Small Boat Harbor had ben taken down over night, and the winds were reported as 6 mph as predicted. There were even patches of blue sky (photo at right). They have a 24 hour fuel service, but you have to call during off hours so that the security man can be there. I have been moving fuel from the forward fuel tank on each side to the rear tanks during the past several days. In order to try to run on the cleanest fuel possible, we run off the rear fuel tanks only. When we buy fuel we fill the forward tanks only, and then as we use fuel in the aft tanks, we move fuel from the forward tanks through a special filter to remove any water and particles 2 microns and larger. The filtering/dewatering process is called "fuel polishing" in boat jargon. As far as we know, we have never bought "bad fuel" with lots of dirt and/or water, but it never hurts to take a little extra care... Each of the main engines has three fuel filters that repeat this process so we are hopefully well protected.

    

       We filled the forward tanks with 246.0 gallons of diesel fuel, and we left the fuel dock at about 7:15 am. Today our destination is 85.6 miles to Mobile, AL.  Specifically, we have a reservation at the Dog River Marina. Speaking of dogs, we have drugged Lucky with half a Dramamine (there are two kinds, and we had to get the one that the vet recommended).  We are crossing our fingers... 

     In honor of our early departure, here is a photo (at left) from Day 16 of an actual sunrise over the Gulf of Mexico at our marina as the actual sunrise was hidden by clouds today.. Those of you who know me at all will know that I was not up and walking the dog at 6:30 am on a non-boating day. The kudos for the picture go to the Admiral.

    The next photo shows just a hazy view of Mobile Bay in Alabama. At this point we have travelled 555.1 miles from League City, and upon entering the Mobile Ship Channel we are now "officially" travelling our second Great Loop adventure... From this point we will go about 10 miles north in the ship channel and then head west about 4 miles to Dog River Marina.

     As you know, we had several extra days in Gulfport waiting for the strong SE wind to die down on the Mississippi Sound and Mobile Bay. We had started in 6 mph breeze, and the wind did slowly go up to (maybe) 10 mph, but our cruise was pretty enjoyable.  It turns out that we had to do a second dosing of seasick medicine for the dog and that seemed to make all the difference in the world.

     Dog River Marina is just off Mobile Bay on the (very far) south side of Mobile. There are virtually no amenities either on site or in the general area. Also, we had only an intermittent cell phone service and no internet. Thank goodness for the satellite TV system. In terms of civilization we were so near and yet so far...

     Here is a photo of Lucky Us all set for the night with an early departure scheduled in the morning while the winds on Mobile Bay are still favorable.

Day 14-17 One rest day turns into 4...

    After a tiring trip to Gulfport, MS from New Orleans, we had decided to take a day of rest in Gulfport. Well, the strong ESE winds of 18 to 20 mph kept up so we have been forced to delay our departure for 3 days so far. Gulfport is a really good "walking" town with all kinds of amenities within 2 miles of the boat. Lucky has enjoyed lots of long walks... My Fit Bit has measured from 5 to just over 8 miles per day. On many of the walks we did a half mile of beach walking, but it was not a great deal of fun for me when we were exposed to the full brunt of the wind. Try as I might, I could not trick Lucky into getting hit by a wave... We are less that a mile from the old downtown, which was hard hit during hurricane Katrina in 2005, but has come back nicely with 15+ restaurants with half or more open for dinner. There is also some fun shopping, including Ken's Hardware and Marine Supply. The name is really a misnomer as it is mainly a marine hardware and supply store. It was a fun place to browse, and of course, we did walk out with a medium sized box of goodies.

     We are staying at the Gulfport Small Boat Harbor, which was also the host for the second and final weekend of a boat show. Most of the boats were of the trailerable variety and were displayed on land. However, there were also a number of larger boats displayed in the water. The trailerable boats ranged from kayaks and jet skis up to 43.5 feet with four 300 hp outboards. The "Mad Trax" pictured at the right seemed to have only been on display, but it would make quite an off-road, swamp vehicle with the machine guns... Well, we are in Mississippi...


     We took a look at a new 30 foot trailerable "trawler" that was part of the in the water display. We are thinking that we will probably down size our boat in a "couple" of years. We had the time and opportunity to give this one an in depth look, and now we have the start of a data base for some future decision. Our present boat is large enough that there are very few compromises due to size of space available. Going from a fully equipped galley with an oven, three burner stove, 12 cubic foot double door fridge, double sink, etc. to a 4 cubic foot fridge, a one burner cooktop that is intregrated into the stainless steel, single sink... The list of compromises goes on, but with a smaller boat we would be doing more weekend cruising than 355 day long trips around the Great Loop.

   We ate out once a day, and in the process we found a really good Mexican restaurant. The population is changing, and as we get further east and/or north, good Mexican food gets much harder to find. It was so good that we went back again today.

     We also went to a matinee show  on Sunday at the Gulfport Little Theater. They performed "The Producers", which is a musical comedy by Mel Brooks. The quality of the acting and singing was excellent! It was easily the best production that we have seen in quite a few years. On our first Loop we went to at least 10 different local theaters, which are always fun, but Gulfport easily topped that list.

     It certainly did not hurt that they had a real, purpose built theater with excellent acoustics and a large, knowledgeable audience. Anyhow Terry and I were very happy and it shows (photo at left).

Day 13 New Orleans to Gulfport, MS

    The weather reports looked much better this morning. By much better there is still the possibility of some rain but no thunderstorms, and the wind is supposed to be 7-9 mph out of the southeast. The wind velocity is paramount since we will be spending much of this trip out in the Mississippi Sound, which is pretty much open to the Gulf of Mexico. Thus, it can and does get rough in the Sound, which we will be out in for much of the next two travel days until we get to Mobile Bay, which itself is large enough to get very rough with winds in the right direction. After Mobile Bay, we will be headed up the river system to Chicago, Illinois. In the river system our biggest concerns will mainly be flooding. I guess that there are always some unknowns....

     Lucky and I took one final "farewell" walk around the marina before our departure. This is the main building, which is pretty much elevated on stilts, except for the Laundromat, bathrooms/showers and several offices on the ground floor. We had dinner after we arrived on Day 8 and last night in the restaurant/bar on the second floor, which overlooks the small basin in the foreground.


     Our immediate neighbors in the marina were three "Floating Villas", which are shown in the photo at the right. These are now part of the rental pool, but I think that they were (or are?) originally for sale. They have lots of windows and nice decks, but they are at an angle to the dock such that their rectangular footprint takes up a lot of valuable space in a marina.


     The last photo from New Orleans shows Lucky Us all ready to depart for the 67.6 mile trip to Gulfport, MS. We got off at 9:20 am and headed back south to rejoin the GICW and head East. We had travelled abut a mile before we had to wait about 25 minutes before we could get an opening of the L&N railroad bridge. The bridge is at the end of a switch yard, and in order for a train to switch tracks in the yard they have to go onto the bridge until the last cars clear the switches so that they can then reverse back across the bridge. Not very efficient, but we just have to live with it...

     After clearing the bridge, the next 20 miles were in the GICW in a ditch cut into the swampy Mississippi River Delta. At least it is a very protected part of the trip. So protected in fact that it is difficult to judge the velocity of the wind... All indications were that the wind was higher than the predicted 7-9 mph, but the only way to find out for sure was to continue on until we got to the open Mississippi Sound. Well, you guessed it! The winds were more like 15+ mph, which is well within our "safe zone", but this means that we will spend the last 40 miles or so slogging through 2 to 2.5 foot waves with the occasional 3 footers. The good news was that we were headed more or less into the waves, which minimizes the rolling (side to side) motion of the boat. Unfortunately, Lucky did not fare too well in the rocking motion. The poor thing was sick several times, but she is a trooper and took it all in stride. After a while Terry took her down below to sleep on the dinette seats. Being lower and more in the middle of the boat does lower the motion (one of those length of the pendulum things that we all should have learned about in high school physics...).

     We arrived at the Gulfport Small Craft Harbor at 5:45 pm. In the last 6 miles we made several turns to line up with the ship channel, and this put us in a situation where the seas were more on our beam (side), which makes for an uncomfortable ride as we rolled from side to side. Lucky Us is not unique in my experience as most power boats seem to roll a lot in beam seas, but this is absolutely no consolation at the time. Initially, we had to dock at the fuel dock where the office is located and call for the night watchman to come and take our money, assign a slip, etc. The good news is that he did meet us at the slip and was a help in trying lines. The wind made the docking process less than ideal so having a knowledgeable extra pair of hands was actually a big help. As usual, Lucky was happy to get ashore and find some real grass...

     The final photo is across the marina with the separate commercial harbor in the background. There are three cable laying ships in port, and there is a large Dole terminal as well as a container terminal. In the final mile approaching the harbor the main channel splits into two channels with one going to the commercial port and the other into the small craft harbor so we are isolated from the wakes and noise from the big ships.

     Tomorrow we plan on a day of exploring the area on foot. The downtown area has more restaurants than when we were here last, and there is a great marine hardware store which will require some serious browsing. Also, after looking at various weather predictions, it looks like our initial plan to spend 2 nights here might need to be extended if we want to wait for the winds to subside. This is an excellent town in which to spend extra time. The town has a logical street pattern, and the downtown area is thriving with lots of restaurants and even casinos, which are all within walking distance. The movie theater and big box stores are further out but there is a bus system for that if needed. More will be revealed...

Days 9-12 Resting in Nawlins...

     We are taking a planned break in New Orleans, and I will be taking a welcome break from the blogging. Don't get me wrong. I love the blog, and as I said before, we find it useful as a reference/reminder for who, what, where and when. However, it does take me several hours per day, and this is often at the end of a long and busy day. Plus, I have the invaluable help from my chief editor Lucky...

   I am at best a poor typist, but my typing is not any faster/better with all of this "help" from Lucky.

     Significant events during our "rest" include:

- We took the marina shuttle to the French Quarter (on Day 9, Sunday) where we met Marne and Mark and walked around viewing several Zydeco bands and various sidewalk art exhibits as part of the last day of a big festival. We then had a marvelous dinner (broiled shrimp for me) before they kindly drove us back to the Marina. They are friends from our times at Texas A&M University at Qatar, and she now works at Tulane University here in NOLA.




- Terry rode about 4 miles on her (electric) bike to a Winn-Dixie grocery store. She came back loaded down with fresh meat and vegetables (organic, of course). We are continuing to follow the Whole 30 food plan fairly closely. We have done this plan since last June 1, and after one month of strict adherence, you are allowed to re-introduce some items as fits the plan. Thus, we have been able to continue to follow the plan so far on our Loop.

- We have done lots of "little" jobs on Lucky Us. In particular, Terry has continued to organize our "stuff". Some of her jobs were not so small, including adding molding around the color printer to keep it in place during rough seas. She also screwed a L-bracket onto a bookcase to hold it up against the wall (again a rough seas precaution). Added grommets and snaps here and there...

-We rented a car from Enterprise for 24 hours, which enabled some additional shopping as well as going to two different movie theaters. We also shopped at Target, Ace Hardware and West Marine.  We were able to use accumulated points for the rental car so it only cost us $7 in fuel.  This was a bonus!  Regarding the movies, we saw "The Boss" with Melissa McCarthy (funny but crass), and "Hello, My Name is Doris" with Sally Fields (funny and kind of whimsical).

-We have finally diagnosed issues related to our two primary bilge pumps, and at West Marine we bought a new bilge pump (1500 gallons/hour) and a new float switch. Larger bilge pumps typically are installed with a separate external float (on/off) switch. This lowers the cost over all-in-one units, but it also makes the wiring more complicated. As luck would have it, on one bilge pump the switch was bad and on the other it was the pump... I also took the opportunity to clean the bilge a bit. There are always accumulated small items down there, such as small pieces of wire, wood, and assorted screws, nuts and bolts. This is part of the due diligence since these items could potentially jam a pump. For accumulated oil and diesel fuel, we use a liquid bilge cleaner. This is a seemingly never ending but important project...

-the never ending process of fuel transfer and polishing with about 4 hours of pump/filter time today.

-And of course, Terry didn't want me to forget to mention the continued process of laundry, cooking, and cleaning.

- One interesting sight was this 7 foot long alligator swimming in the central lagoon of the marina. I don't think that Lucky saw him, but he definitely edged closer when she was standing on the edge of the seawall. Hmmmmm lunch...












-Lucky Girl has enjoyed this stop too with lots of long walks including visiting a dog park area where she can run around unleashed and visit/play with other dogs.  We are not really sure she knows how to really play with other dogs but she tries. As a side benefit, my Fit Bit has been busy as I have been doing just over 5 miles walking per day during our break and well over half of that has been with Lucky. She has also been a major reason why my active minutes have been over 50 per day. She seems to be enjoying her extended stay at the dock, but she still growls and snaps at me when I try to take her on that one final (very short) walk just before bed??? 

Note: An earlier version of this blog had this listed as Days 9-11, but a band of heavy rain and thunderstorms came through, and we wisely decided to sit that one out for an extra day (i.e. Day). The forecast for tomorrow is "iffy" at the moment, but we will continue to monitor several weather sources...

Day 8 Houma to New Orleans, LA

    Yes, we slipped away from our mooring on the wall at Houma City Marina at 6:25 am, and now we are in Nawlins, NOLA, the Big Eazy, etc.. We plan to stay here for 3 nights to rest, buy supplies, see movies and enjoy the city.

     When we left Houma this morning.  We only had 70 miles to travel but it includes two busy locks on either side of the Mississippi River.  On the West side of the river their are usually two options but a bridge repair has one lock unable to operate so we only have the southern lock (Algiers Lock) available.  This means, that after exiting the lock into the Mississippi River we will have to go up river (probably at about 4-5 miles per hour against the current) to get to the Industrial Canal and our second lock.  We expect the journey up river alone to add 1 to 1-1/2 hours to the trip.  When the Admiral called the Algiers Lock (our first lock) on the phone a few days ago, they claimed that they will not make pleasure craft wait more than two hours so we assume that means about a three hour operation including the actual locking process.  Then we have the Industrial Lock on the East side, which is known for their Southern Hospitality (NOT).  We don't expect to have to wait as long at this lock but you never know.  After that we have two busy railroad bridges that have  also held us up in the past.  All this to say, that even though our Chart Plotter has us arriving around 3 pm we could easily arrive as late as 10 pm +/-. 
      The scenery from Houma to the western edge of New Orleans is pretty much the as other parts of the coastal plain that we have been travelling through the past couple of days. One sight in Houma that I found interesting was this close up view of a small tug in a floating dry dock. The boat was so short that is was sideways inside the dry dock. This gives  an excellent view of what the hull shape is below the water line. The bottom curves up at the bow and is flat until the stern 1/4 of the boat where the propellers and rudder are located. This geometry helps to protect the running gear (i.e. the props and rudders). From port to starboard (left to right) across the boat the bottom is flat. A "flat" bottom would not be a seaworthy design for an open body of water (e.g. the Gulf of Mexico, but it works quite well on the rivers and waterway. If the boat had a v-shaped bottom, it would have to have a much deeper draft (depth) to have the same amount of buoyancy. the daft of a vessel is important in shallow waters where these tow boats generally operate. 
     One other fun thing was passing this ship's bow and the pilot house on the dock alongside the waterway. I know of several instances on the great Lakes where people have had the bow pilot house section of a lake freighter scheduled for scrapping cut off and transported to make a lakefront home. So, anyone out there looking for a unique waterfront getaway, this might be your chance...
     Here is the Admiral with Lucky and both are bundled up in the chilly breeze. The temperature is just in the mid 50s with high humidity. Also, we were travelling into the light southeast breeze. The net effect is that you feel "cold" just sitting there. Well, in all honesty Lucky did not have any say in the matter as she was just assumed to need a cover. It didn't seem to have any positive or negative effect on her ability to fall asleep quickly.



     Approaching New Orleans, we encounter the first of a system of dikes/levees that surround and protect the city from floods and storm surges off the Gulf. We pass through a very large flood gate across the waterway, and also see the pumps (inside the taller structures on the right) that help to remove water from inside the protected area. Floods on the Mississippi can originate many miles up stream, but heavy local rains can dump a foot or more of water in 24 hours. Immediately after passing through the gate (i.e. the gap dead ahead), the waterway splits into two with one branch heading SE to the Algiers Lock and the other heading NE to the Harvey Lock.
       We continued along the waterway to the Algiers Lock, and we were told by the Lockmaster that we would be included in the second lock through. We had been optimistic when we arrived since there were only three tows waiting for the lock and one was actually in the process of loading into the lock. So, we began the "dance" of station keeping while waiting for our turn to lock through. The picture at the left shows the gate of the lock that had closed behind us.
    We were already in the process of being raised 9.1 feet to the level of the Mississippi River. This picture shows the towboat Cindy R with her four barges that are two wide by two long. We would not normally be allowed in the lock with barges since so many of the barges are red flagged, which means that they are carrying a hazardous cargo. However, these dry cargo barges do not carry hazardous cargo (and they are empty as well). There were also two other power boats in with us, including the oyster boat on the left.
       After exiting the lock, there is only about 150 yards until we are in the Mississippi River proper, but in the mouth of the channel between the lock and the river proper there is a whirlpool generated by the river. Thus, things get exciting very quickly. We checked in with New Orleans Marine Traffic on channel 12, and he gave us instructions to stay along the west (our port) side of the channel until a down bound tow passed and then to cross over to the east side. The river here is very busy with both barge and ship traffic. One of the funny sights was two tractor tugs moored stern to stern, which made it look like a tug of war between them (pun intended). Tractor tugs are a relatively new type of highly maneuverable harbor tug.  They have a "saucer" like hull with one of two different types of propulsion. One is a z-drive where the propeller unit looks like the lower unit on an outboard motor that sits underneath the hull and is able to rotate 360 degrees in a full circle. The other type is a rotating, round, horizontal plate at the base of the hull. Extending perpendicular to the edge of the plate are 4 to 6 blades that can change orientation at any location as the plates rotate in order to maximize the contribution of each blade to the propulsion in any direction. Both of these drives are very efficient, but they are vulnerable to debris in the water. Thus, they are protected by an array of pipes that act much like a baseball catchers mask. On any given tug there are two to four of these drive units, which also serves to maximize the leverage that the tug has as it pushes or pulls a ship from any direction of the tug relative to the ship.
     As directed, we crossed over to the east side and continued up river. We then passed a crane barge loading scrap metal for export. It is interesting to note that cranes on this heavy lift ship could load the ship by itself. Possibly some sort of union thing going on here (?). Anyway, here we go again... Export cheap scrap metal and then import it back as a car, TV, or whatever.





     After we had travelled about 4 miles up river, we approached the turn off for the Industrial Lock. This was our closest approach to downtown New Orleans so here is a picture. Sorry, but it is totally back lit by the Sun... However, we will get to see the French Quarter up close since the marina has a shuttle to that area.






     Once inside the Industrial Canal it is only a few hundred yards to a bascule bridge just before the lock in the direction that we are travelling toward the lock. We were given instruction by the Lockmaster to moor on this wall until a tow exited the lock. Looking behind us on the wall (photo) is a small sport fisherman and a oyster boat barely visible behind him, both of which were with us earlier in the Algiers Lock.

     The next photo is looking forward at the bascule bridge, which is only a matter of a few feet in front of the lock. After the tow exited the lock and passed through the bridge, we had permission to enter the lock. But wait... We still had to call the bridge to request an opening. Why? Surely, this could all be done in one call on the radio, but the bridge is state owned while the lock is federal so they probably don't talk to each other (officially at least)... Anyway, in the lock we went back down just as we had gone up to enter the river.

     After we exited the Industrial Lock we had a few miles and two railroad bridges to pass through. One bridge went up ahead of us for another boat and stayed open for us, while the other one was already in the up position. So, this part of the trip went very smoothly. I said earlier that we only had about 70 miles to travel, which should have taken about 8.5 hours with no waits for locks or bridge openings. However, we pulled into our mooring along side this floating dock about 12.5 hours after we had started. Disappointed? Hardly, our timing was within our best case scenario and best of all, we made the whole trip in daylight. About three years ago when we made this similar trip, we arrived several hours after sunset...
     We decided to go to the marina restaurant for dinner, and we were treated to a live performance by a Zydeco group. They also did a lot of really old classic rock & roll like Fats Domino. I'm certainly not am expert on Zydeco, but the Rock and Roll was really very good.
It probably is no coincidence that this group played Zydeco music since the big weekend music festival in New Orleans features Zydeco music. Anyway, I had broiled red potatoes and 18 broiled shrimp


Gonna sleep well tonight!