After an
early night to bed, we were up before sunrise. Although we could hardly see the river, we could hear the
waves already crashing. As we
packed up and the light grew, we could see that the wind was as strong as it
had been when we stopped the day before, and this was around 6 am. It was a south wind and we knew we only
had to go a mile or so before we rounded the bend and would be heading back
north towards New Madrid, MO.
As
we were eating breakfast, we saw two hunters in blaze orange pop out of the
brush on the mainland. They
probably saw us and we were worried for a bit that they would make their way to
our camp over an exposed sandbar.
We were probably on private property, so we didn’t want to have to
explain our presence. After poking
around the bank for a while, they went back into the woods and we were pushing
off shortly after.
We
managed to get around the bend and head north towards town. We both agreed that if we were headed
into the wind, paddling would have been near impossible. With it at our backs, however, we made
it to New Madrid alright. Our only
real reasons to even try paddling for the day was minimize the risk of getting
in trouble for trespassing at the same site twice and to replenish our beverage
supply in town. New Madrid is on
the north bank of a large bend, after we landed, we knew we would have to fight
our way into the wind back across the river and continue south.
The crossing was one of the hardest stretches we had ever done and there
was a couple of times the boat turned almost broadside to the waves, not
good. We managed to pull her back
around, however, and after a grueling battle, made it to the south shore. We immediately dipped into our newly replenished
goods as a reward, but decided the sandbar we were on was not a good campsite. There was little shelter from the wind,
no wood for a fire and New Madrid was in clear view. We went a little further down, around a dike and made camp
in a more sheltered area; another 16 mile day ended at mile 887.
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