Eesh ...

Captain's Log - Day 5

Today was a rough day.

I woke in the middle of the night to monsoon level winds and rain. Had to scurry around and shut all the windows and doors. Fortunately, the weather was nice during the day, though.

We left Clinton, Iowa and went under another railroad bridge - this one was even closer! We had about six to eight inches of clearance above the canvas - our vhf antenna was scraping on the i-beams! I need to figure out what channel these bridges monitor so I can call ahead and ask what their clearance is - especially if these crazy storms keep up.

We saw where the Twilight (that old-school riverboat that passed us yesterday) docks! It was in Le Claire, Iowa. That was probably the highlight of the day.

In Le Claire, the channel really widened out. Then, it narrowed down real quick. I found myself outside the channel, and not wanting to get caught on a wing dam, which usually run perpendicular to shore, I cut east hard and made directly for the middle of the river. Turns out in Le Claire they have a wing dam that is parallel to shore ... which I found ... with the props ... Ugh ...

The tips of a few blades on each prop are bent, but there doesn't seem to be any debilitating damage. So, the lesson to be learned here is that it's important to double check the charts before you veer anywhere. I'm just disgusted that I hit one of those things - thank goodness the river is up or I may have taken one clear off. Also probably good that it was me and not Mike or Simon that hit it.

After this disappointment, we ended up waiting at Lock #14 for four hours!! We waited for a barge to go through, and then they never let us in! We kept radioing and the lockmaster kept telling us "fifteen to twenty minutes." Turns out there's an auxilary (that spelling doesn't look right, but that's how it's spelled on the map ...) canal and lock that pleasure-craft have to use on weekends. Only commercial and government vehicles (like this Coast Guard boat we saw come through) can use the main locks on the weekends. Lockmaster didn't bother to tell us that until we had been sitting there for about an hour and a half longer than needed.

To steal a line from Arrested Development, "[Brandon] was learning life lessons all over the place."

And it appears that my feet are a mosquito buffet. I seem to be the only one getting bitten. Simon and Mike are never more than 33 feet away from me, but somehow they've managed to steer clear of the mosquitoes. Like those flip-flop tan lines?

But, at the end of the day we're still afloat, so I suppose that's a win!

We're on the hook just south of the quad cities at Horse Island. As of this writing, it's been 38 hours since we've set foot on dry land!

Quick aside about these maps I'm linking to - an anonymous commenter has suggested I have a map showing our daily progress. Good idea! I found a way to do that with google maps. You should be able to click on a label for each day and go see where we were or zoom out and get an overall view of our progress.