And we're off to cruise full-time.

September 29-30, 2015

Well, we intended to blog about our preparations as we went along, but somehow we always had other things to do.  We will try to catch things up in later posts.  We also want to apologize for not having any pictures for this post, but we are still figuring out wifi access while traveling on the river.  We have taken a number of pictures and will post some soon hopefully.

We completed our preparations (we hope) and cast off our lines on Tuesday, September 29.  Rob worked his last shift on September 15, and now has 2 months of paid time off.  At the end of this period, he can decide whether or not to go ahead and retire.  Naomi was supposed to work through September 18, but got the 17^th & 18^th off due to a slow schedule both days.  We had set October 1 as our target date to leave, but since we were concerned about forecasted decreasing river levels, we worked hard to finish up the final preparations so that we could leave earlier.  We originally thought to leave on Sunday, September 27th, but pushed that back to the 29^th so that we could finish tying up loose ends at home.

Our friend, Butch, drove us to our boat at Polestar Marina, St Charles, MO, on Monday, September 28.  He also drove us around so that we could take care of our final provisioning of perishable food, such as milk, bread, etc.  We wanted to get an early start, so we turned in early.

Around 5:30 a.m., Tuesday morning, Naomi took Sasha for a shortened morning walk, since we wanted to cast off as soon as there was enough light.  Rob started the engines, powered up the electronics, and took down the lines.  Two of our dock neighbors, Jim & Mary were up, gave us final reassurances, and saw us off.  Naomi backed the Lorelei IV out of her slip, spun her around, and headed out Polestar’s entry channel one last time.  High water earlier in the summer had left some silt in the entry channel, which both narrowed it and made it more shallow, but since we had done a shakedown cruise a few days earlier, we knew we could make it through.

Out of our slip one last time (pic courtesy of Jim & Mary)

Going out of Polestar's entry/exit (pic courtesy of Jim & Mary)

Not as scary as it looks...really (pic courtesy of Jim & Mary)

Our goal for Tuesday was to make it to Hoppies Marine Service, MM (Mile Marker) 158.8, to top off our fuel and to dock for the night.  It is only about 63 miles from Polestar Marina, but we had 2 Locks to go through as well.  
 

The Palisades, picturesque bluffs at the start of our trip

Our Lady of the River, where the local Blessing of the Fleet takes place

 At Lock and Dam 26 (Mel Price), we were through in 50 minutes, because we only had to wait for 1 tow to lock through ahead of us.  We were the only boat in the 1200 foot lock chamber.  At Lock and Dam 27 (Chain of Rocks), however, not only were several tows waiting on both the northbound and southbound sides, but there was apparently some sort of maintenance going on.  A tow with a crane on a barge platform came out of the smaller chamber and went into the bigger chamber.  In the meantime, 2 more recreational boats arrived and joined us in dance of trying to hold in place against the current.  Finally, the barge with the crane was backed out, and we were all told to proceed to the smaller chamber on the right descending bank.  We were all positioned against the wall with our lines around bollards, but another recreational boat was coming to lock through , so we waited a few more minutes until it arrived and got into position as well.  All told, it took us 2 hours, 10 minutes to lock through.

Chain of Rocks Lock

After we exited the lock chamber, we continued down the Chain of Rocks canal to re-enter the Mississippi.  Shortly after we merged back into the main channel, 2 of the faster boats got up to speed and passed us.  The first boat never slowed at all and passed fairly close since the channel wasn’t very wide at that point.  It was a Sea Ray that threw off a pretty good wake, so even though Naomi tried turning into it, we rocked and rolled a bit, and a few things tumbled around.  The 2^nd boat slowed as it passed us and made sure it was a fair distance away, so getting across its wake was much more smooth.  There was also a bit of wave action generated from the rebound of the wakes off of the banks and bridge pilings, so it was probably about half a mile before the water became more smooth again.  A short while later, we did hear someone on the radio tell the fast boats to be sure to slow down in work areas and around Hoppies!

The remainder of the day was pretty routine.  When we met tows with barges, we asked which side to pass on if it wasn’t obvious to us.  The first tow captain actually took the time to explain to us that he wanted us on the “one whistle, which means port to port.”  We have been impressed with the politeness of most tow captains, as well as their willingness to share river knowledge when needed.

We arrived at Hoppies around 4 p.m., but didn’t actually get docked until closer to 4:30, because a couple of other boats needed fuel, and Fern wanted to dock us for the night at the fuel dock.  We were just in time for her famous daily river briefing, which was very informative as everyone has always said.  Everyone had pen and paper to write down the information, and she patiently repeated things when asked.

A view of Hoppies from the river

A view of Hoppies from shore

Naomi had taken Sasha for a short walk before the briefing since she had not been to shore to do any “business” all day.  After the briefing, we took a longer walk into and around the small town of Kimmswick, MO.  There are a number of craft and specialty shops, but most close by 4:30 or 5.  There are also number of log buildings from the 1800’s, which are always interesting to see, even if only from the outside.

Many arts, crafts, and specialty shops for those who dock early enough

Kimmswick, MO log structure

Log home

For Jaki

Cool sign

Then it was back to the dock for a dinner of grilled hamburgers and chips, before we headed off to an early bedtime after our long first day.  There was a pretty good rain to lull us to sleep.  During the night, since there is no protection from passing barges, we found out why the dockhands were so particular in making sure we had enough lines and fenders out.

On Wednesday morning, it was up again at 5:30 a.m. for Sasha’s morning walk.  Then on with routine of starting things up and casting off lines.  Fern had told us all to cast off all lines except for one in the middle in order to use the current to turn out before letting the last line go.  We apparently did not cast off the lines in the right order, because we started turning out before we were ready.  We figured out that we needed to start at the stern of the boat and work our way forward, and then we turned out and got underway just like we knew all along what we were doing!

Our goal for today was to reach Little Diversion Canal, MM 48.8, which is generally a good protected anchorage.  It is about 110 miles from Hoppies, but there are no locks to go through!  There are, however, several places where the river makes tight turns and the water can have unpredictable currents, so Fern advised us to be sure that we did not try to go through these points at the same time as tows.  We didn’t have any issues with this really, but at the 2^nd sharp bend, we noticed that we were quickly catching up to a tow that we had assumed would be through before we got there.  Rob radioed the tow captain and was told to pass on his port side.  The captain must have noticed that Rob was hugging the green buoys, so he told him to “steer straight for my bow…don’t worry, I won’t run ya over.”  We think that with the unpredictable currents, he didn’t want us to get into trouble since the river seemed to get shallow fast on the other side of the green cans.  After we passed him, we realized that he was slowing up to off-load on the left descending bank just before the bend.

There were some slight currents around the tight bends, but nothing like we had experienced when we brought the Lorelei upriver to St Charles.  At that time, the river level was high, so the water was faster and the currents were more pronounced in these areas.

The remainder of the trip was pretty peaceful and uneventful.  We got more things put away and organized, and even started putting the pet netting up.  Sasha will be glad when it’s done, because then she will be able to roam the deck more freely.  We will be glad when it’s done, because then we won’t have to worry so much about her falling overboard.

Tow traffic was heavier as we got closer to Little Diversion Canal since it is close to Cape Girardeau.  Fern told us to take care when coming out of the canal in the morning, because the channel – and tow traffic – runs right in front of the mouth of the canal.  She also told us we might need to throw out a 2^nd anchor to keep ourselves from swinging in the wind, but we must have missed the particulars on which way we should anchor.

Getting anchored at Little Diversion Canal

Barges pass close to entrance

 After we got into the canal, we went in about halfway to the railroad bridge, dropped our anchor, and back down on it to set it.  All good so far.  Then we noticed we were swinging and drifting forward over our anchor, so we decided to drop a 2^nd anchor off the stern.  Anyone watching would have known that this was the first time we tried this maneuver.  First, Rob pulled up the slack in the anchor line and then had me back down on it again.  Then he threw out the stern anchor and had me pull forward to see if it would set – nope.  It only had about 30 ft of line on it and the depth was 12-13 ft, so he tried adding more line – nope again.  So he put the dinghy in the water, during which time, we swung broadside in the canal.  Since the boat seemed to want to drift further into the canal, we decided to swing the boat the rest of the way around and to drop the anchor with the dinghy – still no luck getting it to hold.  Next Rob tried using the dinghy to set the anchor – no way at all!  Finally, he decided that the Danforth style anchor was not going to hold and switched to our 2nd Bruce anchor.  He took it out with the dinghy and set it without any trouble at all.  Meanwhile, the boat decided to switch to drifting toward the mouth of the canal instead of away from it as before, so I had to pull up the slack to keep us from drifting over it.  Then I had to run back to the helm to back down to where Rob was ready with the 2^nd anchor line.  Fortunately, the length of the 2 lines was almost perfect, so I only had to take up about 10-15 ft of slack on the front anchor to make both anchors fairly tight.

Thank goodness Sasha wasn’t desperate to go to shore.  We took her to a nice sandy beach across the river, where she played hard at chasing and catching her Frisbee.  She didn’t, however, do any potty activities no matter how much we encouraged her to go.  For some reason, when Rob wanted our old dog, Ginger, to potty, he told her to “Hurry up”, so this has become our potty phrase.  Sasha knows when we tell her to “Hurry up”, she is supposed to go potty.  Sometimes, I think she squats just to appease us, even though she doesn’t really have to go.  But this evening, Nothing.

After we cooked supper and Sasha ate some food, she started whining at us like she needed to go out.  Now we don’t really have her trained to go potty on the boat yet, although she did pee on a carpet mat once on the trip up to St Charles, so we were concerned that she would have trouble.  She did continue to whine at us, but did NOT “Hurry up” the numerous times we took her out on deck.  Finally, she must have really been desperate, because she did finally pee a river (well, ok, a small stream).  Since the anchorage is calm, and the dinghy is so easy to deploy, we are planning to take her to shore in the morning before we head out.  But we will continue to work on the training, out of necessity if nothing else, because it won’t always be practical to take her to shore.