October 16. Day 14 Lock & Dam 25 to Kimmswick, MO

I'm pleased to finally say that we got off to a relatively early start today! Our harrowing adventure the night before just trying to find someplace to sleep left us exhausted after being so nervous for so long and we all slept well. Jenny continued to sleep as Wade and I pulled anchor and went back to Lock and Dam 24. They STILL decided to not listen to their radio again today, but there was a barge in the process of coming out of the lock so we hung off to the side and waited to be noticed. When the barge was finally through, we were hailed on in at long last. No one bothered to throw us a rope, which we are accustomed to now and just clung to whatever ladder on the inside that we can find, and no one bothered to come talk to us. Just as well - they would have gotten a lecture in basic use of radio "communication" - you listen to the message and then you respond.







As is common with me in the mornings (and throughout the day, as a matter of fact) it wasn't long before I was starving. Wade took over for me while I made french toast, did the dishes from the previous night and then took over for Wade. The current is a lot stronger now, and the one thing all of us have really noticed when we take the tiller is that the eddies push us around. Eddies happen when the current slackens suddenly or even reverses direction due to obstuctions or flow patterns. It's really kinda eerie being thrown about, but so far they haven't been a problem. My picture is where the river was crazy with the underwater currents/eddies. It's hard to capture in a picture, but hopefully you can see the changes across the water surface and just trust me on the rest. I went for a couple hours or so, and went through Lock 25 and 26 without incident besides accidentally dousing myself with fuel as I tried to fill the tank. One of the attractions I hope we get to stop at, when and if we make up for our lost time, is the riverboat casino. We've seen a ton but this multicolored one took the cake for attention grabbing! I was freezing a short time later so Jenny took over for me.








She wasn't driving long before she called on us for assisstance. She saw the beat up "Canal - All Boats Enter Here" that you see before you. She wanted to know if that's where we wanted to go.




Well, at first glance both Wade and I assumed it to be a marina of some sort, a short time later though, we learned otherwise. Jenny continued on her way another two miles and we heard her squealing in excitement when she beat my record of 10 mph by reaching 10.5 mph, before she called out for us again, this time for a bridge. I came out and looked it over and decided we would have no trouble clearing it, when we both noticed a sign posted in large letters on the front of it. "DANGER! DAM BLOCKS RIVER!" A quick panic as jenny rushed to throw the motor in reverse and I searched for maps to tell us what in the world we were facing. Turns out it was a low water navigation dam not recommended for any boat use. Quite frankly, it looked like it dropped off like a waterfall so we hightailed out of there back toward the poorly posted, almost fallen over canal sign. Getting back was an ordeal (for Jenny, anyway, hence the picture) as going back upstream, toward the current our top speed was 3 mph, the eddies were tossing us all over, and it started to rain again... Got there eventually, though, and we were back on the right track! The cannal lasted only about 5 miles as it bypassed the dam, and it was a little narrow in proximity to the barges when we had to pass them but we made it through.







Finally finished dealing with the Lock and Dams at the end of the cannal! 27 was the last one - glad they're over! Once we left the cannal, it was Wade's turn to squeal in excitement as he broke the newly set speed record at 11.3 mph. Along with faster - there's a lot more waves too. I haven't felt ill due to the motion since the third or fourth day, but I felt it coming back as we bounced our way towards St. Louis. One of the first sites we saw was the St. Louis arc - all lit up. What we really wanted to see was a marina, but no such luk. We went on and on for hours! But still nothing. We had to pull out the spotlight again, even though we vowed the night before that we would not be travelling in the dark again. There was debris everywhere and even more barges! The current was at the fastest we have yet seen it and the buoys are spread at such far distances that it's hard to see them and we frequently barely missed logs and who-knows-what-else that was sticking out of the water. At one point, we did hit a log and it got caught on the rudder. Very scary feeling - having that drag and the noises were just awful! Wade threw it into neutral and we took over keeping straight as he leaned out over the back to dislodge the log.
It took us more than an hour and a half in the pitch black to finally find a marina (and we decided we needed to stay at a marina because the current was so high, and the banks so log-ridden that it would be unsafe to try what we did last night. At long last we arrived safely at Hoppies Marina in Kimmswick, MO.

The owners were already asleep so we will try to talk to them in the morning about pay. We met a fellow on a big 'ol cruiser that passed us earlier at the docks and he went down the whole Mississippi previous to us! He wasn't full of good news. He said it was, "the wild west from here on in" and "you don't get any help after this". He actually suggested taking the Ohio River to the Kentucky River and coming out on the coast at Mobile, Alabama. Some of the crew is considering this course of action, but we'll see what tomorrow brings. . .