Day 9 - Sunday, November 4th, 2007

Barnacle II Cruise Day 9 – Sunday, November 4th, 2007
Leaving Carr Cutoff mooring area

We had a good night at anchor last night. The lock on the other side of the land barrier woke each of us up at least one time during the night. Every couple of hours or so a tow would come through to the lock. So the lock’s horn would sound, the tows spotlight would sweep and its horn would sound. Depending on which way our boat was swinging from the anchor, either Barn & Vic or Kenn & I would be clipped by the spotlight. But still it was one of the best nights we’ve had at anchor.

Based on switching back to standard time this morning, we were all awake at 5:15 and running through our morning routine of coffee, engine checks, fuel tank checks, etc. We had a 2-ft. layer of fog on the water in our anchorage, but motored out of it back into the Mississippi at 6:00.

When we got out to the river channel, we were socked in by full fog. Barney went on full instruments with radar, while Kenn and I verified everything visually. There were times we only had 50 feet of visibility. The fog had lifted almost completely by 7:30. There was a little residual haze left, but with the sun shining brightly, it would burn off fast.

We’re starting to see a few houses along the east bank here and there…the first we’ve seen since Natchez, 85 miles back.

We had bumped up our speed by 200 RPM yesterday and burned a lot more fuel. In actuality, we only gained .5 knot per hour, so it wasn’t worth the fuel we spent. Seems the best efficiency is at 1400 RPM, averaging 12 knots. We only lose 4 to 4.5 nautical miles a day, which we have enough daylight to make up for. The boat has a better feel at this speed; it doesn’t feel like she’s straining and everything is much quieter.

Mile 270.5 – Marked on the GPS chart as Cajun Condos…it was 2 huge multi-story grain bins converted into housing. Part of one bin had been cut away for a garage with an inset deck above it. Too cool for words. Got lots of pictures, so maybe I can upload a good one to the blog site when I get good signal again.

10:30 – 25 miles upriver from Baton Rouge at Profit Island Cutoff. We should be at the fuel dock by 1:00 PM. They have water and trash pickup there, too. We were down to ¼ tank of water this morning, so we’ve been conserving with our dishwashing, clean-up, etc.

We think we can still make over 100 miles today, even with stopping and refueling. Hopefully, that will be the case. We need all the help we can get tomorrow to get to New Orleans and through the Industrial Canal lock by 4:30 when they close it for 2 hours for rush hour traffic over the Bascule (lift) bridge.

12:30 – Tied up at a fuel barge in Baton Rouge, 2.5 miles below the I-10 bridge. They have ice, so we took heavy garbage bags up on shore to scoop ice out of their ice maker. Vickie and I will have cold water now until we get to New Orleans tomorrow night.

We were treated well by the ‘tank man’, a gracious young black man by the name of Lionel. He tossed us a Sunday paper to read at anchor tonight. We refilled the water tank with a fire hose, which didn’t take too long, but we brought the river level up a foot or two with the overflow.

Lionel gave us a tour of the pushboat attached to the fuel barge. They have a small office for paperwork (with an X-box if they get bored), the engine room, bathroom with full shower, full kitchen with a huge chest freezer, a 27” flat screen (where he was watching the Saints and the Jags when we pulled up). He said he pulls seven 12-hour shifts, then he’s off 4 days, alternating days and nights after each 7-day shift week. When he’s on nights, he sometimes never gets a customer, so he can catch some sleep. He has a 9-month old boy that he was showing us pictures of, and he had just come back from a week-long cruise to Cozumel with this wife. He said that was the only time he would ever do that since it felt so much like work to him.

We were back in the channel at 2:00, and had confirmed a couple of places where we could possibly anchor tonight. Two were ones that I had spotted as possibilities in reviewing the charts last night, and they will all be within 100 miles of New Orleans which will help with tomorrow’s run.

The river is turning into what I thought it would be between Baton Rouge and New Orleans…very, very busy. There are pushboats and barges, tows and cargo ships everywhere. All of the captains and river pilots that we’ve talked to today have been friendly. A pilot on one of the cargo ships even knew where Applegate Cove and Sallisaw, OK were located. He said that he had family in eastern Oklahoma. As we passed on the ‘two-whistle’ (starboard to starboard, or driving on the left as in England), he walked out of the bridge deck and waved at us from about 20 stories up.

By 4:30 we were anchored securely in a cut-off from the Mississippi River channel, behind an island called Bayou Goula Towhead. We are at approximately mile 195 on the river system. The lock at the entrance of the Industrial Canal in New Orleans is at mile 93. Based on how far we traveled today, if we get our anchor up and leave this cut by full daylight, we should get to the lock between 1:00 and 2:00 tomorrow afternoon.

We’ve got a 1 knot current in the chute, which is better than the 4 knots or so in the river. It’s enough to hold the boat straight behind the anchor without setting a stern hook. The wind would have to come out of the southwest at a steady clip to even move us around on the hook, and it couldn’t dislodge us from the anchor as well as it’s set. The drawback is that we’ve got a haze & smoke in the air from farmers burning off cane fields, pulp mills and other manufacturing plants.

We’ve checked the anchor several times since dark and everything is holding as expected. We’re waiting on Barney’s steaks, then we’ll all make it an early night. The time change has worked a number on all of us today.