We left from
mile 951, our first full day on the ‘Big River’. The fishermen we had met the night before came by after
checking their trot lines and said hi again. They gave us a few more pointers about the buoy system and
told us to steer clear of the channel, again.
mAfter
we had taken off, the going was smooth, for a while. We stayed on the right descending bank for the first few
miles, which actually kept us in the channel, but it was too late to cross. After passing a large barge coming the
other direction uncomfortably close, the wind started to pick up. There was a slight turn to the river
which choked the channel and was churned to chaos with the boat traffic and
wind. We fought through that and
took a shaky break on a beach just after.
When
we pushed off, things calmed down a bit and we gained confidence. Around 940 we came on a long string of
barges moored with tugs attached.
As we rounded the bend we came on a repair yard, which we gathered was
the reason for the line up. After
that we came around Wolf Island Bar, straight into a head wind. The day was warm, but it was taking us
forever to get anywhere. We had
lunch on the island then left for our final windy miles. We made our way around a seemingly
endless sandbar and made camp on its far end, next to a giant, gross killer
catfish hole. With the water down,
it had been cut off from the river and was just a deep dark hole of dirty
water, of course Lilly wanted to play in it. Our camp was at 919, so we had made a surprising 32 miles
for the day.
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