What ya got goin’ on there, skipper?

Today started in the dark, as mornings need to at a latitude & season where we find ourselves. By the time we had coffee and all the crew had donned ‘floaties’, it was light enough to embark in the dinghy for the pups to go ashore. Since rain was forecast, we put on full rain gear, including rain boots. Time ashore went uneventfully and back to the boat we came. By the time the dinghy had been hoisted aboard, the back third of the boat looked like the aftermath of a mud wrestling tournament. It was time, it seemed to try out the wash-down pump. Some advised it unnecessary, but for some reason with three dogs on this trip I wanted to have it available. I sat up late a night or two before the cruise started and got it wired-in, but had never actually used it. To our delight, we hooked up the hose, opened the thru-hull, energized the circuit, and opened the valve — fresh water, albeit a little muddy, from the Ohio river carried dark brown mud slathered over the back of the boat, dinghy and swim platform out of the deck scuppers and away. Next we got under way. Misting at first, the rain eventually got going as predicted. That’s when it was time to try out my windshield wiper. Some advised it unnecessary, but I thought it might be needed, so just in case I sat up late a night or two before we started the cruise and checked the wiring and installed a new wiper blade. It left room for improvement, but the little swath it cleared in a small spot in front of the lower helm was a welcome glimpse through the broad blur that otherwise shown in front of us. Finally, it seems the warm wet air from the passing front met the icy waters of the river basin, and created fog. Wispy undulating shapes at first — Lisa even took pictures. Later though, it thickened to pea-soup. We were cruising with our GPS chart plotter, AIS, VHF radios, running lights and the fog horn warning over the hailer every minute or so. Too far to make it to Paducah before dark, we sought refuge in a sheltered marina closed for the season. Hoping to tie up to the fuel dock, we carefully inched our way into their harbor. A number of boats bigger than ours were moored in their slips, so things initially seemed promising, until we realized that their whole yacht basin had filled with silt. It was a white knuckle ride getting back out of there, since it seemed a few times we were going to be stuck in the mud. At last, however, we made our exit back into the main channel of the river. Whew — plenty of depth again, but uh oh…complete white out; zero visibility. Plan B: make it across the river and seek anchorage in a sheltered area behind a small island. Problem was, river tow boats with 15 barges along for the ride were still moving along the river using Radar and computerized navigation. We track them on our AIS (automatic identification system) and talk to them on the VHF radio. Somehow in the transition from being stuck in the mud and trying to get oriented in the zero visibility fog bank, I toggled the scale on my chart plotter to infinity (view from outer space) and the reset turned my display 180 degrees. The result was, I ended up doing a little pirouette in the middle of the river. I knew a northbound tow barge was on its way in my direction, but still a few miles away. Nonetheless, these tow barge captains keep an eye far ahead of their path, since they are akin to freight trains — hard to turn, and no brakes. It must have looked comical to the captain in question, since he hailed me with mild amusement, ‘South Pause… what ya got goin’ on there, Skipper?’ I explained that my radar was INOP, and had momentarily become disoriented in the fog; we were making our way across his path to an anchorage behind the island on the other side of the river. ‘Understood…I’ll slow up to give you time & space to get there’. Nice guy. Like pilots lost in the weather are taught, I just had to ignore looking out the windscreen and trust my instruments, and we made it where we needed to go just fine. In fact, we anchored just a short distance from a tug boat pulled over to wait out the fog. We spent the rest of the evening repeating while trying not to laugh, “What ya got goin’ on there, Skipper?” Radar…some advised it unnecessary. On a thousand other days that might have been true. Today, it might have been like having four-wheel drive in a pick-up truck; you don’t need it often, but the time it pulls you out of the ditch, you’re glad you had it, Skipper… 😉

These are pictures from the screen of our chart plotter. The yellow line traces the course the vessel took (a picture is worth a thousand words)!