Day 11: Saturday, September 15, 2012

Underway: 7:35 am      Motor Off: 5:58 pm      Miles Traveled: 50      Stayed At: Anchor

First Things First: First shipwreck – a half sunk old rusty barge; first 16 barge tow – 15 barges in front and one extra along the side of the tug; first time motoring with dinghy on deck (deflated); first hunters shooting geese along the river (right at us); first 400 mile mark at 9:14 am on 9/15; first bottle of sunscreen used up; first hot lunch (leftover rice and taco meat warmed up with melted cheese and chips –that might have to be a new favorite); first 50 mile day.

Mile 455 to Mile 405: Sunny, calm and warm. Is this getting boring yet? We have been incredibly lucky with the weather so far to have such nice traveling conditions. Gift #1. In addition to the beautiful weather, we received another nice gift today. The tug Joseph Patrick Eckstein was coming upstream to Lock 17 and had the right of way to start the process of entering the lock but was extremely nice and slowed a little so the lock master could allow us in the upstream pool to lock down. This saved us close to two hours of waiting since it was a big tow. Thank you Captain. You made our day (and our blog). Gift #2.

We have a lot more technology on this trip compared to our 2002 trip. On our last trip we had an older Ibook (ebay) that we didn’t really use and a Magellen Meridian Marine handheld GPS (ebay) and that was it. No cell phone, no Ipad, and only one source of GPS. We liked the handheld GPS so much we brought it with on this trip and use it everyday primarily for speed information but it also confirms where we are on the Mississippi River chartbook we are using (doesn’t need regular recharging). We also have a GPS hotspot ($100 for a Dual GPS unit typically used by pilots) which sends out a signal using Bluetooth so we can use it with our laptop, phone or Ipad. We are syncing it with a $49 app on our Ipad – I-Navx – and river charts we downloaded ($10 for all the rivers we are going to be on). We can see exactly where we are in full color and watch a little arrow move slowly down the electronic chart. Its amazing that, only 10 years after our last trip, we can have most of the capabilities of a multi-thousand dollar proprietary commercial chart plotter for about $160! We have no excuse for getting lost. We also have GPS in Mike’s new smartphone and even our camera has a GPS receiver which let’s you tag photos with location information. Now, if I could just find that doo-hickey I was looking for…

We are anchored in Rush Chute near Yeater Island just upstream from Burlington Iowa. Should be a quiet, peaceful night. Gift #3. We did 50 miles today (plus a detour to town and back) – great cruising conditions and limited options to dock or anchor kept us going to Burlington.

In Passing: Passed by Burnt Pocket Island (I wonder what the story is behind that island name), Benton Bay (bay, lake, slough, chute – what’s the difference?), Hawkeye Drain, Bogus Island and Keg Island.