Day 11 - One Whistle or Two Whistles
Miles cruised 112, fuel purchased $0, dockage $0We had a very quiet night tied to the lock wall at Kaskaskia. The other two boats that were on the wall with us took off about 7:30 am and we shoved off at 8:30 am. The Panda Bear has a top speed of 6 mph. It is an older Kady Krogen 36 that was built in Taiwan. They burn one gallon of diesel per hour. Our initial plan was to cruise 68 miles to the Little Diversion Channel. The down-bound current was so swift we arrived there at 2;30 pm so we kept going all the way to mm 8. We have traveled 210 miles of the 218 miles on the Mississippi River. Tomorrow we will travel 8 miles and turn left and go up-bound on the Ohio River. At that time the channel markers will reverse color. Down-bound the channel markers are red on the left and green on the right. Up-bound they will be red right returning.We are anchored on the Mississippi River for the first time. This is a recommended anchorage area called the Boston Bar, but the break walls are under water so we had to estimate our location. We are anchored in 8 feet of water just west of the I 57 highway bridge near Cairo, Ilinois (pronounced Kay-Ro). We asked the opinion of a passing tow boat captain and he said we were in a safe location because all the barge traffic would be far from us. We can hear the cars and trucks as they drive over the highway bridge.The chatter on the river between the tow boat captains is a language unto itself. We pass several tows up bound and down-bound each day. Often there is plenty of room to pass a tow on either side. From time to time we will approach a tow on a bend in the river or in a narrow part of the channel. It is best to ask the tow captain if he.prefers a one whistle or two whistle pass. Tow boat captains monitor VHF channel 13 on the Mississippi River. We have AIS on our boat which is an automatic identification system. Our boat continuously transmits its location, boat name and speed while we are underway. The tow boats have the same AIS system so we have the data on them as well. If we are unsure about which side to pass a tow we call the tow boat captain on channel 13. We can call him by his boat name or just call him up-bound or down-bound tow and identify ourselves as down bound PC (pleasure craft)). They know who we are because we show up on their AIS. We also use our radio on low power 1 watt instead of high power 25 watt so only boats very close to us can hear us. Typical conversation - "Up bound tow this is down-bound PC, would you prefer a one or a two?" Tow response "do it on the one Cap." Translation - the tow captain wants us to pass him on our port side. A two whistle would be to pass him on our starboard side. It sounds better if you put several marbles in your mouth before speaking. It makes you sound more authentic like a real tow boat captain.Carl (Chef) Wooden's contribution for today's blog post. "One takes what the river offers, both good and bad. The joy of living by running water far outweighs the sorrow." Matthew Goldman, The Journals of Constant WatermanWe will spend tonight and tomorrow night on our hook. We will travel 60 miles up the Ohio River and 32 miles up the Cumberland River. We will pass through three locks. Lock 53 has been having long waiting times to get through. We shall see. On Saturday night we will stay at the Green Turtle Bay Marina. Back in civilization.View of the wall at the Kaskaskia Lock. A nice quiet night. You can see another boat in front of the pylon.
A view of the Little Divergent Channel where we did not stay.
The tow boats push massive numbers of barges in a single tow.
Here we are near the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. The Ohio River is only 8 miles away. We are the red triangle.