Friday, 23 June 2017
Plan for waiting
Discussions with “our owner” have resulted in a plan we all think
will work. Firstly, he had the great
idea of emailing the “help” address given on the River Gages web site of the
Corps of Engineers (the people who control locks and dams and dredging of the
inland rivers) asking for Mississippi River current flow information. The problem with the COE data is that it
never tells what speed the currents are flowing. They seem to think more in terms of water
levels and cubic feet per minute of water released. What he got back from his query was estimated
current speed in miles per hour based upon several specific water levels at St
Louis, which is really helpful to us in determining when to leave this marina
to head for the Mississippi. The owner
thinks that it would be fruitless to try to get up the river unless we can
expect to make around 5 MPH over the ground, and based upon the engineer’s
data, that is not going to be possible for a few weeks to come. So we plan to get the alternator regulator
the owner has ordered installed and tested and then rent a car to drive home
from which we can observe the COE River Gages site. We will be driving home via Orange beach
where we will turn in the rental car and get into our pickup which was left at
Jim’s house and dive home after spending the night there. Once it is determined that we should head
back up here, we will drive the pickup back here to Green Turtle Bay and leave
it parked here while we head north on the boat.
Once we have delivered the boat to the owners, we may assume “drivership”
of the rental SUV they will be driving and return 400 miles to Green Turtle
where we will transfer our belongings into our pickup and proceed upon our
merry way.
