Soon we will be out of the Mississippi. I must say, I thought it was going to be a horrible experience however; it has proved me wrong. It might not be the clearest river we have been on but we learned from traveling it. You might be asking yourself; What could they have learned. Well, you hear all the time on television about the flooding of the Mississippi & Illinois Rivers.

With the high banks along the shores and homes on stilts some city’s have tall concert barriers to block the water from approaching their towns. The river have reached 30 feet higher then what they are today as we are traveling on them. I think I will pass on cruising on the rivers during the Spring floods. If you ever get the opportunity to explore the rivers here you will notice the tree lines are horizontally as I have probably mentioned before.  Without a doubt we would travel these waters again.

Bryce has used his knowledge in anchoring along the banks of the rivers and dealing with strong currents.  There are so many great places to anchor, they are too numerous to list.  The books on the Mississippi list anchorages that are often poor.

Remember on my last post, I said Beauty slowly twisted circles all night in the calm breeze. This is her GPS recording. Anchor line & rope were just fine nothing tangled.

Buoys left on land looking for a home. Lol

Here is another picture of groins. They are really fascinating to anchor in. Don’t be hesitant poke your nose in very slowly downstream of these. Check the depth of the water and the current speed and go for it. ⚓️

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his photo doesn't do justice to what it was like going through the whirling water.  It moved like a tornado with a funnel shape center. Now, you can visualize it. Right? I still say it could suck us into a different dimension.  It likes to grab hold of your boat and turns it a bit. It doesn't brother Bryce but scares the crap out of me. When this happens the water depth is extremely deep for the river. I do believe at one point we saw 80 feet. I know it's no big deal boats travel all the time over them but it makes my heart beat fast. Bryce thinks I am funny. He try's so hard to reassure me that it's  ok.  Breath Jane, it's ok…..

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uspension bridge. We sure have gone through/under a lot of bridges. Yeah, that's why the mast is down. Under the bridge on the starboard side (right) of the boat they are repairing tows.

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his is a dry dock for tows.  If you zoom in you can see the propellers.

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his is unusual it's a V shape groin or a horseshoe shape and it's called a Chevron. Remember a groin is a structure built from the shore to protect the shoreline from erosion along with trapping the sand. It also directs the current scouring the channel.

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his is me (Jane) getting ready to relax on this sandy beach between two groins. As I look out at Beauty, she looks as if she is anchored in the middle of the river. She is actually anchored on the starboard side of the green shape buoy which is out of the channel.<
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yce pulled the dinghy up on shore and setup the chairs for us. There is so much to see and relaxation to be done. We are just puzzled that we see so many people go by in a rush to find a marina.  Often they must drive their boat 60 miles if they are lucky enough to find a sea wall or a barge to hook onto for the night. Seems a shame they bypass places like this.

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ryce is checking the water depth to see how much further we could bring Beauty into shore. We ended up bringing her in around 200 feet closer to 10 feet depth.

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me tows (Richard E. Waugh) create huge wakes, I didn't think we would stop rolling!  Most just cruise slowly by. Not unusual for any anchorage to get a few waves. We didn't have any serious issue. But….if my wine bottle would have broken…lol😂🍷

Have a great day and thanks for reading our blog. ⚓️⛵️🙋🏻