Great Loop Day 053 Oct 20, 2016. Hoppies Marina to Kaskaskia Lock Wall.
Hoppies Marina, Kimmswick, MO to Kaskaskia Lock Wall.
The Mississippi River will always have its own way; no engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise. -Mark Twain
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Day 53 Thursday, Oct 20, 2016. Easy 41.5-mile trip from Hoppies Marina. 2 nights at Hoppies is all one needs. Great place for a minimalist. Or if you want to be a pioneer. Rustic and rural. Best to use the facilities on your boat. This morning the toilet up the rampway back inside a storage building had no toilet paper. Luckily I noted that yesterday and brought my own. The sign behind the toilet reminded you not to throw toilet paper in the toilet, it's septic. The wastepaper basket as expected was half full.
Temps were in the mid-50s, glad it wasn't in the 80s. At least it had a door, but no latch, no lock, and it’s a good thing you can hear people walking over the water and mud on the old carpet on the storage building floor. It rained all night and was heavy at times. The river rose some 3- 4 ft. The mud bank that was there yesterday was underwater. The dock we're on floats with the river water. There was a sandy/muddy beach area some 100ft long just north of the gangplank to get off the dock going up the bank slope with a wide canyon in the sand. Apparently, last night's rains eroded part of the bank.
After a quick chat with Dave of Mystic and Scott from the catamaran Mucho Gusto found 9 am a good time to leave. The skies were cloudy with no hint of rain. Left the bimini up, and took down the rain panel which once again served me well overnight in the heavy rain. No rainwater in the cabin.
Scott and Rhonda getting ready to leave the marina.
Boiled water to fill the thermos. We plan to anchor for the next 4- 5 days and drinking/cooking water becomes very important. There are 6 gallons in jugs onboard. Would be embarrassing to ask for a cup of water from my buddy boaters.
Beth got this photo the morning of our departure and the water level had risen substantially. The muddy shoreline was all gone. There was a stiff current inside the dock where I was tied up. I’m that last boat near the end.
I am ready to shove off. The Sea Marie is inside between the dock and shore. With the river up, I could easily turn the bow around toward shore if I choose. But backing out into the river seemed a no-brainer. Released the 2 spring lines and 2 of the stern lines were only being held by the bow line as the river current kept the boat against the dock. Motor warmed up in neutral I release the bow line and jump back in the cockpit. Well, wouldn't you know? The current caught the bow swinging it around toward the shore. Guess I'll turn around after all. A little forward throttle and around she goes. Just got to make sure my stern doesn’t smash into the dock as I turned around. The other sailboats were on the outside dock and cleared it. Now they are going cross river as I turned around the dock and headed cross river to avoid a wing dam now underwater near the dock. No problem. Scott's catamaran without her mast leads the way. Scott had shipped his 50 ft mast to Mobile with some other sailors in Chicago. His boat was equipped with AIS and can track the tows ahead and then call on the VHF radio to alert us.
Mickey instinctively knows what to do, he hides below.
Fern told us in our briefing a couple of days ago to watch out for the whirlpool at mile 130. She told us of a sailboat that got caught and suddenly spun around. The trick is to power thru it. Scott and Dave were going faster than me and were ahead in a short time. Dave texted me about the whirlpool as they made it thru. I looked ahead at the surface of the river for signs of swirling water. There it is!
I had my Lowrance chart plotter on the depth and sonar to find what was under there to cause this whirlpool. Going at 9.5mph I felt in total control and the boat was responding normally to the current. As I approached the swirling ripples the bow suddenly took a course to port 30 degrees, and the auto tiller immediately responded to correct. Then just as suddenly the bow veered to the right about 30 degrees. Then continued another 30 degrees. The auto tiller is again course-correcting. If I had been going slower the boat would have veered more than 45 degrees then the rudder would catch the counter-current and spun me around. I checked my Lowrance bottom reading. I can go back about a minute to see what the bottom looked like. There on the screen was the reason. I've been in the water 35- 40ft deep all of a sudden the bottom dropped to 60 ft or more then the side came back up. A huge hole where the water volume goes into and out of this hole to create the swirling rapid above.
13 miles to go. The chart shows a daymark on the shore just before the Kaskaskia River. There it is! just passed an old rusting barge onshore. Thanks to GPS for getting me here. I see Scott and Dave's boat ahead and called on channel 14 to the lock ahead to make sure I can dock. Come on in! was the response and in calm water.
After getting settled in I was invited over to Scott and Rhonda’s catamaran for docktails with Beth and Dave. Beth baked some pumpkin muffins for the first time on board the Mystic. Everything smells and tastes so much better made on a boat!
So until next time Fair winds and gentle seas.
On the Kaskaskia Lock wall
Now you know why I don’t do many videos. I get a bit tongue-tied.
Mucho Gusto docked on the wall. Did you know their catamaran was 20 feet wide? It’s 2 feet less than the length of my sailboat!
