We are in Indiana for the holidays.

                                         The coolest gas grill I have ever seen.

                                          Is that not great.

                                     The propane tank goes in the tool box on the back.

                                          Me eating a Mufalota.

One Mufalota.

We got back to Newburgh, IN last night about 8:30 PM. It took us about 11 hours by car compared to six weeks by sailboat. By the way the boat was a lot more fun than the car.We rented a car. It was a little Toyota "yaris". I had never heard of a yaris before, but it was cheap. It did not have cruise control. I didn't know anybody made a car these days without cruise. It was not fun trying to stay the speed limit without it. We had planned to take the bus, but it was about $100 cheaper to rent the car, even after paying for gas. I never would have guessed that. I guess Greyhound has plenty of business. We will be here about a month before heading back down to the boat. It was hard for me to leave her there alone. I know that probably sounds silly, but it's true. The boat really is home to me now. Sharon is not quite on the same page as me on this yet. But, I remain hopeful. I have some work to do for same friends while we are here to help build the cruising kitty back up. We have an offer on our old restaurant building. Hopefully that will go through without any hitches. That would really help us out a lot.

When we were in New Orleans, my sister told me about a local sandwich called a "Mufalota", so I had to try one (and call her to rub it in). It was pretty good. Not a bad deal either. $13.50. You can see how big it is, it takes up a whole plate. Easily fills up two people, even when one of them is me.

The gas grill I saw in Natchez. It is the coolest grill I have ever seen. If we were planing on keeping a house, and I was into buying things, I would have to have one. I don't see how I could fit it onto the boat. It might look kinda cool hanging off the transom though. I would definitely get some second looks.

While we are here, I will post about some of the interesting things we saw along the way.

Chrstmas Thought

As I was walking into town the other day to take our laundry to the laundrymat I passed a Baptist church, I decided that we would go there on Sunday. So this morning that is where we went. It was a Christmas  service about the birth of Jesus and the circumstances around His birth. As I pondered the birth of Christ, I couldn't help but think of how it was typical of His life. Also of how different His life was than ours. I don't mean the toys or technology we have today. I mean His attitude and what He cared about, what He thought was important. The one word that comes to mind is humility. The king of all ages was humble. He was born in a stable, had hay for a bed, came into this world without any human fanfare. He washed peoples feet, died a criminals death. His whole life was a picture of humility.We do not read of Jesus owning any material possessions, other than the clothes on His back.  He did not own a big house, fast chariot, stable of horses, bank account , or anything else. He lived one day at a time.So here we have a man born on the farm, owns nothing, walks everywhere, if He needed something, he made it or borrowed it (colt to enter Jerusalem, upper room for passover). I believe that if Jesus had come today instead of 2000 years ago, just as many people today, if not more, would not recognize Him either. He cared about people and doing His Father's will, not about things and popularity. Things entrap us, they choke us, they entertain us to the point of missing what is really important. When we decided to go cruising we had to get rid of most of our possessions. We went from a three story house full of things to a small mobile home and a 25' boat. We got rid of about 80% of our possessions. Hopefully soon we cane whittle that down to about 10%. I can not tell you how liberating it was to get rid of things. The less I have the better I feel. The closer I feel to being what I am supposed to be. This life is not about what you have, it's about what you do. How you affect others. Things will pass away, sooner than they used to, now that everything is made in China. It's about people. I want to spend more time with people and less time with things. Over the last few years, the Lord has taught me I don't have to agree with people's thought patterns or beliefs. I just have to appreciate them for who they are, and be the best influence on them I can. Oh well I'm not a preacher, so I will shut up now.

Mike

Catching up

Since we are going to be here for a little while relaxing, I thought I would try to catch up on some of the details of our trip so far that I haven't had time to post.

The Memphis Yacht Club was absolutely wonderful to us. Nicer people you will not find on this earth. Thanks Chuck for everything.

The Greenville Yacht Club and the Gulfport Yacht Club are both part of the Somali pirate network.

When we told people we were going to go down the Mississippi river to the gulf, most everyone told me I was crazy. One even told me I was stupid if we tried it. Most people said the current was too strong, the water was muddy and polluted, the barge traffic was horrific, and there were no services, and that generally it would be a horrible trip. None of these people ever actually had made the trip. That is was just what they had heard or imagined. I found most of that to be totally untrue. First of all, as to the current, yes it was strong, and thank God it was. We could run 7 to 11 mph all day long. For my little sailboat with a 6 hp motor,  it was like having a 10 hp. There were days I wished for more current. As far as the water being dirty and polluted, I disagree. We traveled from Cairo to Baton Rouge and I saw four pieces of floating  trash, one Mountain Dew bottle, one oil bottle, and two pieces of plastic. I was shocked at just how unpolluted it was. Once past Baton Rouge, we saw maybe 5 or 6  things floating in the water. So in 860 miles we saw 10 pieces of trash, I think that is unbelievably good. The barge traffic was not bad at all. I learned to sail on the Ohio river. The barge traffic on the Ohio is worse than the Mississippi. Yes they are bigger on the Mississippi, but the river is bigger. It took a little while to learn how to talk to the barge captains, but once I did, most were very nice. If you talk to them with an attitude that it is thier river, and you are the visitor you will get along fine. I was warned about the large ocean going ships from Baton Rouge on down. They were even easier than barges. They produced almost no wake. They were so confined to the channel, that you did not have to wonder were they were going. The only thing that I was told that was correct, was the lack of services. There is not much. The gem of the Mississippi is the Memphis Yacht Club. The Greenville Yacht Club has fuel at a reasonable price (but that's all). The only fuel you will get from there on down you will have to dinghy from shore. If you use diesel, I have heard you can buy from the barge terminals, but don't know that for sure.

To sum it all up. We had a good trip. It was an adventure not a pleasure cruise, and that is exactly what I was looking for. Knowing what I know now, would I do it again? Absolutely! I do think that the time of year is an important consideration. October and November I believe are the best months.

I will try to do some more catching up tomorrow.
Mike

Us in Ocean Springs.

                                           Heaven on the Mississippi (Memphis Yacht Club)

                                             Riverview RV Park in Natchez (almost heaven)

                                             Morgan at anchor in Natchez.

We are in Ocean Springs MS.

                                          Leaving Gulfport, good riddance.

                                           On our way to Ocean Springs.

                                            Morgan's home for the holidays.

                                            Coming into Biloxi.

Coming into Ocean Springs Small Craft Harbor.

We are at Ocean Springs Small Craft Harbor. Unlike last night, (Gulfport Yacht Club) this is a good place to be. This morning I went up to the office and talked to the manager. I told him about being quoted $1.50 per foot, and he said "yeah, that's right". I then told him about being charged $2 per foot. He said that that was a mistake, and to come into the office at 10:00 and talk to Carla, and that she would refund me the difference. I went in at 10:00 and talked to Carla, and she told me that the manager was mistaken as well as the other guy, and that was what it was. In the future I will avoid this place like they were Somali pirates (because that is what they are). We rented a slip here for a month ($214.00). We will be here for a week before taking the bus home for Christmas. We will spend Christmas in Indiana, and then return to the boat in January to continue our journey. We are looking forward to being on the boat this week without having to go anywhere. We need a rest before we come home.

MIXED DAY

                                                Dolphins followed us a lot of the day.

                                              Fishing boat being attacked by birds.

                                                  Having a rest.

We had a mixed day today. We started out with a decent sailing day. We were having a good time, and even saw our first dolphins. Sharon took a lot of pics but most came out with only showing fins. The delay in the camera is hard to get used to. Then the wind and waves picked up, and I got a good dose of bashing into waves (about 6 hours of it). It was horrible, lots of spray. Spray and 45 degrees don't mix well. We got to Gulfport right at dark. We were going to anchor out, but there was nowhere to be out of the wind. We pulled up to the Gulfport Yacht Club.As I pulled Morgan up next to the main dock we grounded. I could not believe it was so shallow right next to the dock. I backed away from the dock and promptly fowled the prop and rudder with Rosie's lines. Tossed out the anchor, so I could get the lines out of the prop, which I did, but the line around the rudder will have to wait until tomorrow. Went a little further down the dock and was able to get up next to it with just inches below the keel. We will have to move before low tide tomorrow. Went inside to pay and got ripped off. THE ONLY THING I HATE MORE THAN SOMEONE STEALING FROM ME, IS WHEN THEY DO IT WITH A SMILE ON THEIR FACE. The sign on the dock said to go to the bar if you arrive after hours and pay there. I went in and the guy said $1.50 per foot (that would be $37.50 for us). He gave me a paper to fill out. I did so, then another guy took my credit card and the paper and left. He came back with a receipt for $53.50. I told him that was not what I was told. He told me that's what it was (smiling all the time. If you come this way, give this place a big miss. As it was already dark I didn't have any choice but to let them steal from me. We were too tired to fight any more.

We are underway again.

We left the marina this morning at about 7:30, went about half an hour through the bayou, got to the lift bridge at 8 am only to find they would not open it till 11:00. Our government at work. We waited three hours until they finally opened it. So we ended up only going 24 miles today. We got through the Intracoastal waterway to the edge of Lake Borgne, which is then open water in the gulf, except for some barrier islands. It was 2:30 when we got there, so we decided to stop for the night while we had a protected anchorage. Tomorrow we go into the Mississippi sound towards Mobile. Hopefully we will make Mobile on Thursday night. If not Thursday, then Friday. We had a good time visiting Marvin Brown and his wife Karen. They helped us out greatly.  It is good to be back on our way to warmer weather though.

Small update

We are still in New Orleans. We ordered a cruising guide that was to be delivered to a friend's house here in New Orleans, but it has not arrived yet. Hopefully tomorrow, so we can leave early Tuesday morning. We have been having a great time while here visiting Marvin and Karen Brown. We went to church with them this morning (Jonas Robertson's church). It was a great service. I called Abram yesterday to see if an alligator got him, or if he made it all the way to Morgan city. He made it, and his dad had already picked him up and he was heading north for a job. He said he was disappointed that he had not seen a single alligator. I told him it would not be a disappointment to me. The only gator I want to see would be in a zoo.

WE MADE IT TO NEW ORLEANS.

We made it to New Orleans today. We turned out of the Mississippi river into the Inner Harbor Canal. We had to go through a lock, one draw bridge and two lift Bridges. We then turned out of the canal onto the Intracoastal waterway. We then left the Intracoastal and turned into a bayou and after getting stuck in the mud ( and pulled out by a fisherman) finally made it to Gulf Outlet Marina.

                                                  The drawbridge we went through.

                                            Welcome to New Orleans.

                                               Cancer corridor along the Mississippi.

                                               Cool old building.

                                          Lift bridge number two.

The bayou we went through to the marina.

We were very aprehensive about the last leg of our journey on the Mississippi (from Baton Rouge to New Orleans), but it was actually not that bad. Today was very anticlimactic. We went through downtown New Orleans and passed only 10 barges and 4 ships the whole day. That may sound scary, but the river is so wide down here, it was not a problem at all. I have to say that most everything we were told about the Mississippi was grossly exaggerated, other than the lack of services. We had a good time of the trip, but as with any 30 day journey we were glad for it to come to an end so we could start the next phase of our journey. We will be here in New Orleans for a couple of days before heading on to Florida.

Still in Baton Rouge

Looks like we will be here a couple of days to get a better weather window to New Orleans. We got to get off the boat yesterday and go to church. Pastor Val Taylor sent  someone over to pick us up from the boat and take us to church. It was a great service, and then we went out to eat (as all good church folks do). Wes brought us back to the boat and helped us get gas and water. We are all provisioned up to make it to New Orleans now. They are predicting severe weather for tomorrow (and my personal weather router tend to agree) so we are going to wait. This is going to be the busiest part of the trip, and I want to do it in perfect weather.

Thanksgiving

                                             Our boat train.

                                               One of our two dinner guests.

                                          New bridge we passed under.

                                              Morgan at anchor Vadalia,LA.

                                               Abram's camp Thanksgiving.

Amazing engineering.

We had a Thanksgiving to remember. We invited Abram to spend it with us. We left Vadalia about 8 am and motored about 25 miles (that was all we could take). The winds came up and made it horrible. We stopped about 1 pm and had lunch. We towed his canoe behind Rosie. The waves were so bad his canoe got swamped. So we stopped early and found an anchorage between two dikes out of most of the wind. We had grilled potatoes and onions, chicken and sliced tomatoes, followed by pumpkin pie. Abram camped on the shore and we left the next morning. I hope we meet up again sometime. That night though was the roughest we have had to date. The wind was unbelievable. I was up most of the night checking the anchor and tyring to keep Rosie from ramming us. Then in the morning we had fog again. If it was all like that, I think I would rather live in Alaska than on a boat, but fortunately it's not. Today was a good day, sunny, sunny, sunny.

We made it to Baton Rouge

We made it to Baton Rouge just before dark. We are anchored just north of the US 190 bridge. It was a good sunny day today. We may get to go to church tomorrow. We called Val Taylor, who is a pastor here that Sharon went to school with. He is trying to arrange a ride for us. I am beat from a long day at the helm, so I will try to post more tomorrow.

Natchez is great

                                              Lunch at the Pigout inn.

                                                  The Under the Hill Saloon.

                                                   Looking up river from Natchez

                                                       

A great old church in Natchez

We had a great day today. We took Rosie across  the river to Natchez. Abram caught up with us yesterday and camped in Natchez last night. We meet him there this morning and walked all over town, then had lunch at the Pigout Inn. The food was wonderful. It was funny, we were standing at the door reading the menu, and decided to go in and eat. Abram started to walk away to tie up the dog when the owner came out and said "Hey we're dog friendly, bring her on in." So we did. It was a great place with old doors as tables. It would be worth the drive to Natchez just to eat there. We will be leaving early in the morning to get on down the river. I don't know how the Internet will be for the next week, but I will blog as soon as I can.

Pics

The rope we ran over.

                                                        Fog, fog, fog

                                                  And more fog.

                                                 Our dinner guest Abram.

                                            We are anchored by the bridge at Natchez.

                                                  The bridge in Vicksburg we floated under

                                        You see hundreds of loading places like this, half look deserted.

River, river, river.

AMAZING! ELECTRIC AND INTERNET AT THE SAME TIME

Wow, so much has happened since I was last able to blog. We are in Vidalia LA. It is just across the river from Natchez MS. We are anchored next to the River View RV Park. The owner of the park's name is Cappy. Is is a very nice guy, and also a boater. He and his wife did the great loop on a trawler. When I told people I wanted to go down the Mississippi river they told me I was crazy. I already knew that. I told them I wasn't looking for a vacation cruise, where every night you were in a marina, that I wanted an adventure. An adventure is what I got. We are now 698 miles into our journey. The only disappointing thing so far is that we haven't been able to sail as much as I had hoped. It has been mostly motoring and motor sailing. They keep predicting a north wind, but so far it hasn't happened. On Saturday, we had our biggest adventure yet. We were going through Vicksburg, MS. We had just passed three barges going the other direction, and about a quarter of a mile from two bridges when Sharon said, "There's a rope in the water". we couldn't turn in time and ran over it. When she said rope I was thinking of like a 1/2" rope. I couldn't believe what it was when I saw it. It was a barge rope. It was probably 2 1/2 inches in diameter. Before we could do anything, there was a klunk and the engine stopped cold. I quickly open the engine well and saw that it was tangled in the motor. It didn't take to long to get it off the prop. I thought, "oh well, that's not too bad". Then I tried to turn the tiller, it wouldn't turn. The rope was tangled in the rudder as well. It was wrapped all the way around the rudder. I grabbed a hacksaw and cut the rope in two, hoping to be able to pull it from one side of the boat to the other to free it. It wouldn't budge. All this time we are drifting sideways toward the bridges. Thanks to God we drifted sideways right through the middle of the bridges. But we are still in the channel with no steerage at all. We decide to try and start the motor and see if we can motor out of the channel. The tiller is turned to the side, so I turned the motor towards the other side to try and go in a straight line. It worked (barely). We got over to the side of the river out of the channel and grounded the boat. I got my trunks on, tied a rope around my waist and got into the water to try and get the rope untangled from the rudder. The water was 54 degrees, so I knew I couldn't stay in long. I was so hot from trying to get the rope off from the top I was sweating. I thought for a moment that the cool water might actually feel good. It didn't! I was just about to give up and get back on board for a rest when it came loose. We hoisted the rope into the cockpit of the boat. Now we could steer and motor IF we can get the boat ungrounded. We tried and tried to rock the boat, shift the weight around with the motor in full reverse. No use she would not budge. I put the little 2HP motor on Rosie (our dinghy) and pulled with it and Sharon on Morgan with her motor in reverse. It took a little while but she finally broke free. We put the rope in Rosie, so we would have room to move around. It filled up our cockpit floor. When we got to anchor, I took Rosie up the shore and threw the rope on the shore so it wouldn't float down river and us run over it again. Wow what a day! We have a lot to be thankful for: 1. we floated through the bridges, 2. we were already past the barges, 3. we were able to get out of the channel and into the shallows, 4. we were able to free the rope, 5. we were able to get off the sand.

Last Thursday a john boat came up next to us with two guys in it. We talked for a little while, one of them was canoeing down the river. He had stopped a Greenville to visit with the other guy who was showing him the local area in his boat. We went on. Then on Saturday we were just about to where we were going to anchor and we saw something up ahead. As we got closer, we saw it was a canoe. When we caught up with it, we saw it was Abram, the guy from the john boat. We told him we were about to anchor and invited him over for some potato soup, (we had potatoes and onions we needed to use up). So Sharon made a big pot of soup. We had a good talk about our adventures on the river. He has done 1900 miles so far. On a canoe. Wow. Paddling by day, sleeping in a tent on a sandbar by night. And people said I was crazy. He came over the next morning and we had bacon, eggs and toast and waited for the fog to lift. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about the fog. We have had fog every morning since we got to Greenville. Thick, thick fog. We haven't been able to leave in the mornings till about 9:30 or 10:00.

When we were in Greenville, we woke up about 6:30, I started getting the boat ready to go, and was about to leave when all of a sudden a thick fog rolled in. We had to just stay put until about 9:30. Friday and Saturday mornings were even worse. On Sunday after we had breakfast with Abram, it was 8:30 and the fog was already almost gone. So we got going, happy to have a bit earlier start. We got about 4 miles down the river and the fog started coming back (and there was a barge coming). So we decided to pull over to the side and anchor till the barge passed and the fog lifted. Little did we know our next adventure was about to begin. When we got out of the channel our depth went from 17' to 10' to 3.5' just like that, and Morgan stuck fast. She was sitting solid. We would walk all over the deck and she would not rock at all. I told Sharon that we would just have to wait for the barge to pass and the fog to lift and try to get her unstuck, but we would probably have to call BoatUS to tow us off. I had almost no hope of us getter her off by ourselves. When it was time to try I put the motor in reverse with full throttle, but she would not budge. We got Rosie back out. With Sharon in Morgan and me in Rosie we pulled and pulled, and to my great surprise and relief she came off the sand bar.

 

                                                                     Abram and his dog.

 There is more I could write but I think this post is long enough. I will post more tomorrow. It is not letting me post more than one pic, maybe too, this post is too long I will try to post the pics in another post.

We are in Greenville MS

We are anchored out in front of the Greenville Yacht club. They wanted $82.50 for us to get a slip. It wasn't worth that to us. We filled up with fuel and water, bought a bag of ice , and left. We have good Internet tonight, but are still running on battery power. Electric sure would have been nice, but not for 82 bucks. They were reasonable on gas though, $2.89 a gallon. I was surprised. We are being attacked by hundreds of bugs right now, I had to close up the boat. We didn't go anywhere yesterday. It was rainy and cold, we had a good anchorage, so we just stayed put. We will be leaving in the morning, our next stop will be Natchez MS. will be there a couple of days, as we have someone there to help us restock. The sun came out today. What an attitude adjuster. It felt good to be on the river again. We followed a large tow all day today named Crimson Jim. He was going about the same speed as us, so we had him in sight all day. Talked to a bunch of tows on the radio today. I am starting to get used to dealing with them. They are defiantly getting bigger now. We follow one the other day that was 10 wide. The river is getting eider to though. I tried adding pics, but the Internet is to slow. I will post some as soon as I can.

We're off again

We are getting ready to leave the marina here in Memphis in about 30 minutes. I don't know if we will have internet tomorrow or not. If not I will post as soon as I can. Thanks Seth, the depth sounder worked out great. The numbers are much larger.

We are in Memphis

                                           Making biscuits

                                            Sunset at anchor

                                          In Memphis with the I40 bridge in the background

                                           MMMMMMMMM biscuits

                                                         Memphis from our slip
Sorry for no updates the last two days, but we have been in the wilderness. No Internet or phone service for the last two days (much to Sharon's dismay). It has been an absolutely beautiful trip so far. We have been going through some really remote areas. We anchored across from New Madrid Mo. Monday night. We ran out of water in our main tank, so I put in the six gallons we had in a jerry jug and then took our dinghy over to New Madrid  and found a bait shop close to the river and filled up the jerry jug again. It was nice to get to Memphis and fill up with water, gas and groceries. A friend of ours from Lighthouse Landing named Seth lives here in Memphis, and was very kind to take us to walmart and Home Depot. It was a great blessing to have his help. Our depth sounder has been acting up the last couple of days. So Seth went to The Bass Pro Shop, and picked us up another one. I will install it tomorrow. So far that's the only mechanical failure. We have been getting into a routine, and that's a good thing. Cooking on the boat is going really well. Sharon made biscuits the other day, yummm. So far we have gone 299 miles. Our next marina stop will be in Greenville, Arkansas. It's about 200 miles from here. Should be about 4 or 5 days if the weather is nice.