October 21, 2017, Saturday
The Mississippi River begins its winding journey to the Gulf of Mexico at Itasca State Park in Minnesota as a minor 18-foot wide knee-deep river with an average flow rate of 6 cubic feet per second. From Itasca, the Mississippi River flows north to Bemidji, Minnesota where it turns east, and then south near Grand Rapids. A hundred miles downstream from New Orleans it empties into the Gulf of Mexico with an average flow rate of over 600,000 cubic feet per second. According to the US Geological Survey, the length of the river is 2320 miles, we are traveling only 217.9 of those miles. We entered the river at the junction of the Illinois and Upper Mississippi Rivers, mile marker 217.9, and will end the Mississippi portion of our journey at mile marker 0.0 of the Lower Mississippi, at the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, a small portion of the river and our overall journey, but still challenging with its array of barges, fast current, and never-ending mass of debris.
We were up before sunrise and left the Kaskaskia Lock wall at first light. At Fern’s briefing one of her tips was; “Anchor in a protected area, away from runaway barges, we haven’t had any for several years but you can never be too careful.” As we turned to port leaving the Kaskaskia River to reenter the Mississippi we heard a U.S. Coast Guard announcement that there were several runaway barges reported at mile marker ninety-four. Fortunately, that was downstream of us and if we came across them they would either be floating ahead of us or stuck on the bank. By the end of the day, we saw two on the bank, one on a sand-bar, and three that had settled against another set of barges.
Our normal cursing speed is 6.5-7 knots.
But on the Mississippi, we are running 9.5-11 knots.
Today’s sun shimmered on the water and the sky was a dazzling blue, great for picture taking but very difficult for spotting the multitude of logs floating towards Andiamo.
Just south of Cape Girardeau, MO we crabbed our way into the Castor River Channel Division and anchorage in 20-feet of water. The reviews of this anchorage indicated mosquitoes would be quite abundant so we prepared the evening evasion. However, even with both the temperature and the humidity in the eighties they never arrived, which made us very happy.
We spent the evening decompressing, watching Arizona State devastate Utah 30 to 10, visiting with friends and family via text and phone, and preparing for tomorrow. Tonight we are at mile marker 48.8 on the Mississippi River and, if all goes well, we will leave the Mississippi River tomorrow and start up the Ohio River.
