M/V ILLUSIONS                             CT TO TX CRUISE

TRIP 4 SUMMARY
Alton, IL to Houston, TX
September 18-24, 1997

     On Thursday, September 18, the crew of ILLUSIONS, David and Angela Magill, along with our friend, Wally Moore, flew to St Louis, MO and taxied over to Alton, IL.  While Angela, Wally, and the friendly taxi driver went to the grocery store, I loaded the boat with luggage and other supplies.  The cleaning service was still there cleaning the boat, and we had a strange battery charger in the salon.  It seems they had some problem with our port battery, which we experienced ourselves later.  By 1pm we were all loaded up and on our way down the Mississippi River.

     I expressed to Wally that we would like to be back home no later than the 25^th, if possible, and that I was willing to tie up somewhere for a few days and drive to Houston if necessary to be there for that Friday and the weekend.  After that, it was a challenge, a goal, to not let anything stop us from getting home by the deadline.  We actually made it one day early!

     When we had a delay, we just traveled longer; so we had some long days.  This Thursday we breezed through the Melvin Price Lock and Dam (L&D) with minimal lost time (this relatively new L&D replaced the Old L&D No 26, still shown on our borrowed charts).  But we lost 2 hours going through L&D No 27 due to maintenance and moving a “double load” through the lock.  Therefore we motored on until 10:40pm that night to get to our selected anchorage.

    I had misgivings about being on the Mississippi River at night, but we actually did fine.  Wally had great night vision, as I was to find out-we ran at night most nights to get home.  The big confusion was getting to know the river and the charts.  Once we had a pattern in our minds, it was easier.

     The buoys on the river were not shown on our charts, nor were they numbered.  The range lights that were used were amber in color on both sides of the river.  The chart showed day marks, lights, and no range lights.  The train tracks on the side of the river used red lights, which could be confused with navigation lights.  It was interesting.

     We spent the first night tied up to the floating guide wall of the Kaskaskia River L&D, with the lockmaster’s permission.

     The second day of that trip we filled up with fuel at Cape Girardeau, MO at a small floating dock which was connected by hoses to a fuel truck on the dry side of a floodwall.  We took advantage of almost all such opportunities, because pleasure boating facilities are practically non-existent on this river.  Then we passed Cairo, IL where the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) joins the Ohio River.  This is the zero mile point of the UMR and Mile 953.8 of the Lower Mississippi River (LMR).  Head-of-Passes below New Orleans, LA is the zero point for the LMR.

     The river was wide, as expected, but not deep.  We experienced depths of 20-30 feet above Cairo and 30-40 feet below.  It is easy to see why the locks and dams begin at St Louis because the depths above there are too shallow for commercial traffic without them.  The river was low, since there had been a dry period.  We saw wing dams on the shallow sides of the river, to direct the water into the center and increase the depth and the current.  Some portions of the wing dams were underwater, but there were buoys at these spots to keep you away from the ends.  It was necessary to see those buoys, though; and they are moved frequently and not shown on the charts.  The deep sides of the river usually had concrete or rock, or both, revetments to protect the banks against erosion.  We saw extensive work being carried on by the US Army Corps of Engineers to control and maintain the river.

     We anchored the second night at an oxbow channel near an island named on the charts as “Island No 14”, which was in KY.  It surprised us that there were so few anchorages along the river.  Many of these lesser channels had been essentially closed off by the channelization efforts, but this one worked out well.

     We noticed the logs up on the banks.  This was good news for us; the water was low enough that the logs were washed ashore instead of being in our path on the water.  We stopped for fuel at the Port of Memphis, where we were told the height of the river had been up about 25-30 feet higher in June of that year. Living and working around this river, with its huge size, current, and water level fluctuations would require some drastic shifts in how you think about the water.  All docks must be floating, for example; and floating docks must be moved out from the bank as the water level drops, with all that means for electrical and water systems, sewage, etc.  Also, the channels in Memphis and Vicksburg were narrow, partly due to the low water level.

     Our anchorage on Saturday was a secluded cove on the RDB in Helena, AR.  It was shown on our borrowed charts, or we would not have seen it.  It worked out well.

     On Sunday we traveled to Greenville, MS for fuel and Vicksburg, MS for a shoreside meal and a tie-up at a barge instead of an anchorage.  The river got wider and deeper, 40-50 feet usually.  We have never seen so much sand!  The shallow side of the river was usually sand bars, often 5-6 feet above the water.  We could be 50-100 feet away from a sand bar and read 50 feet on the depth indicator.  Or, the shallow side could be 16-20 feet deep, which we saw more often.

     The casino at Vicksburg was the first riverboat I’ve ever seen that was permanently moored in a “pond” a few feet deep, the bottom of which was a concrete platform about 20 feet above the water level in the Yazoo River.  Apparently in Mississippi the gambling riverboat did not have to be able, nor was it required, to leave the dock for a cruise in order to gamble, as was the case at some other locations.

     We purchased fuel from a truck on Monday morning to top off our tanks; our next fuel stop was to be Berwick, LA (the Morgan City area).  We could see the names of some antebellum homes and plantations on our charts as we passed Natchez, MS.  This would be an interesting area to visit by car in the future.

     We passed the paddle wheeler MISSISSIPPI QUEEN on its upriver trip, and it was a  happy sight.  People came out to wave to us and take our pictures, and we waved to them and took their pictures.  We also passed the tow MISSISSIPPI, belonging to the Corps of Engineers; it was the largest I had ever seen.  Its wake could be felt for a mile.

     Also, we noticed that sometimes we had the same state on both banks.  I had thought the state line was the river, and apparently it used to be.  As the river found a new course, or as the Corps closed off an oxbow, the state lines were left alone.  So we had IL, MO, AR, TN, MS, and LA on one or both sides of us at times.

     The lock at Old River connected the Mississippi and the Atchafalaya Rivers, and we went through that lock about 4:30pm on Monday.  We found out the Atchafalaya River is formed by the confluence of the Red and the Ouchita Rivers at that point.

     As we went down the Atchafalaya River, it became apparent there are no facilities of any kind on this river.  It’s really a flood plain, a swamp with wide fluctuations in water levels.  There are no towns or boating facilities, or anchorages, which surprised us as we had planned to anchor.  After it got dark we could not tell if a possible anchorage was viable, so we pressed on to Morgan City where there was a tie-up at the City docks.

     The rest of the trip was west on the GIWW (Gulf Intracoastal WaterWay ) to Intracoastal City, LA, where we bought the last fuel before home; on to the Lake Charles, LA area with an anchorage in a bayou just west of the Calcasieu River and the lock there; and on to Galveston, TX on Wednesday, turning into the strong north winds of the Houston Ship Channel for the final approach to home (Clear Lake, TX).

     There are video tapes of this trip plus daily logs and summary statistics on the trip and the entire cruise for anyone interested in more details.  We covered 3450 miles in 30 running days spread over four “trips” and enjoyed every minute of it.  We transited 38 locks on the Erie and Oswego Canals, 8 locks on the IL River, 2 on the Mississippi, 1 at Old River, and 2 on the GIWW, plus we went through the Chicago lock twice, for a total of 53 locks.  I’m looking forward to more cruises, and I’m grateful we had this opportunity to see so much of the water and the country next to the water in this cruise.

     David Magill