#7
I've crossed (by bridge) the Miss often. Until I was on it, I never got the full effect. We felt very small that afternoon. We were all 4 in awe of what we were seeing.
Our speed increased by 4+mph. For the first time we had debris & huge eddies added to our watch duties. Zone man decided getting the boat home ASAP was the cure to his predicament. He quit following the channel markers and adopted the straight line approach. All this accomplished was a big eddy grabbing the boat & pushing the boat OVER the top of a red buoy. KAPLUNK, rattle, rattle, squeak!! The full length of the houseboat, out & onto the skiff. It caught the skiff on only one side of its hull & because its weight was not enough to fully submerge the buoy, the skiff lifted & came very close to capsizing. Saint ted655 came unglued. The Golden Rule was suspended & the fur flew! I turned into Popeye, I stoods all I could stoods. Looked like airplane tickets would be bought in Memphis!
The Ohio (for us anyway) had offered no really neat places to moor @ night. We seemed to be out of sync. When we passed a good spot, it was too early. We just pulled over, away from the channel & spent the nights. Now it became imperative that we find better mooring @ night! The size of some of the debris & the amount made it dangerous to moor anywhere but on the "inside" of something. A jetty, sandbar, island, even an abandoned barge.
Our first night on Big Muddy was behind a nice neat stone jetty. Genset running smoothly, ice machine cranking out the next days ice supply & XM satellite radio playing. "Some" had their feelings hurt but Life was Gooood for the remaining 3 of us, the hotdogs & pork-n-beans tasted great. We were "lit up" many times that night. Laying in my bunk I came to understand the affection a sailor has for his/her ship. It is your home, without it you have nothing, you are nothing. Other boats (on lakes) were temporary diversions that you drove home from. The difference was "just" sinking in.
|