Day 22: Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Underway: 7:30 am      Motor Off: 5:30 pm      Miles Traveled: 58      Stayed At: Anchor

First Things First: First thunderstorms while traveling during the day; first time really wet (we got more than 2” of rain in series of 4 or 5 storms).

Mile 118 to Mile 60: After camping out for a day at Kaskaskia Lock we left early even though it looked like there would be a pretty good chance of rain off and on all day. Bruce decided to stay and wait for a better weather day – he made a good choice. We didn’t hit anything severe but had to pull over to anchor and wait out several squalls with rain and thunder. Plus we got wet. We’ve had such nice weather this trip, we weren’t totally prepared when rain caught up with us (you can’t outrun a front moving at 30 mph when you travel at 8.4 mph no matter how much wishing and hoping you do). This is one downside of being on such a small boat – there is no good place to put wet people or stuff. Just pile it up and hope for better weather the next day.

Although we didn’t have phones or internet all day, one cool piece of technology which helped today was our EyeTV. It’s a little device about the size of a thumbdrive that you plug into your computer to get HDTV stations in the area. We were able to pick up a weather station in Cape Girardeau that showed the radar view for the area – lots of yellows and reds which helped us decide to wisely stop for the day when we did.

We were hoping to get to Cape Girardeau to tie up to the local fuel dock for the night and get our mail in the morning but we ran out of daylight about 8 miles short. We needed to find a safe anchorage outside the main channel and everyone we went by that looked good on the chart was now a sandbar or too shallow or to close to the channel. Finding a safe and secure anchorage is a challenge. Most of the boaters we are traveling with do not anchor out very often. It would be easy if not for invisible wing dams, stump fields, dead trees, shallow water, sand bars, wind and current. On the Mississippi below St. Louis there are hardly any coves, sloughs, islands or channels which are good potential anchorage spots – just a never ending series of wing dams – most well above the water this summer and surrounded by shallow water and sandbars.

After a stressful day dodging tows and storms we ended up tucked in a small space between two wing dams – one advantage of Aurora is that we can sneak into some pretty small and shallow spaces. Minutes after we got the bow anchor down, the strongest front of the day moved rapidly over us bringing heavy rain, lighting, thunder and wind gusts up to maybe 40 mph. After about 15 minutes testing our anchor, the wind died and the rain gradually let up revealing an amazing full horizon to horizon rainbow and beautiful sunset.

We set a stern anchor to hold us steady in the swirling current – before doing so, Aurora was swinging through a series of big loops. Not a fun ride when trying to eat or sleep. The second anchor held us rock steady.

Even though tomorrow will be a long day, we are excited to finally find out what kind of treats and treasures will arrive in the mail tomorrow. We can’t wait.

In Passing: Hat Island, Big Muddy Island, Hanging Dog Island, Swiftsure Towhead