Mud Hole To Hahnville

After a peaceful night on the bank of the Mud Hole we hauled anchor. Well actually, I walked up the bank and pulled it out of the ground and carried it onto the boat. And another day of The Great Down South Loop begins.

We were happy with how well the trip had gone so far and the progress we are making. Our home on the water has preformed flawlessly for our trip. But human error can foil even the best that the boat can do for us. The chart shows a little Island in the middle of Mud Hole. The water was up probably 20 feet, so it shouldn't be an issue to just drive right over the top of it, our most direct route out of the Mud Hole. The high water has allowed us to cut a lot of corners, driving right over the land shown on the chart. The tows were cutting the corners as well. We weren't worried about some little spot on the chart that showed 0 depth. Straight out to the river we go.

Lady luck must have gotten off to oversee the anchor removal and we took off before she had a chance to get back on board. What the chart didn't show was what must have been a mooring cell (a large structure that barges tie to). Yep, we hit it with the motor. We raised the motor to look at the prop (the beauty of an outboard motor) and found we had bent the prop. We didn't have an extra prop. Now what.....We continued on, slowly. Fortunately, we must have damaged all of the fins on the prop the same, because we didn't have any vibration from the motor. Once we were brave enough to get back up to the same RPM we had been running, we found that we have lost a little speed. But other than that, we didn't notice any other issues. So on we go.

Today we would be passing through Baton Rouge and get close to New Orleans. Beyond Baton Rouge, the river become busier with large ships and it will be harder to find a sand bar to pull up to for our nightly anchorage. Surely we can find something........

Our speed was down to 16 to 18 MPH, from the 19 to 21 MPH we had been making on most of the Lower Mississippi. Charlie got on the phone and looking for a replacement prop. He found one in Baton Rouge, but the store was a 30 minute Uber ride from the river. We offered a nice tip if someone would bring the prop to us. We weren't thrilled about having to get in an Uber car, with COVID-19 exploding the way it was in Louisiana. We really didn't plan to stop for anything in Louisiana, including fuel. So Charlie kept searching. He found one in New Orleans at a wholesale marine supply store that was only a 20 minute walk from the river. He had to go through a retail shop to buy the prop, but we could pick it up at the wholesale warehouse. That is a better option, and the price was 60% of the one in Baton Rouge. He made the arrangements.

We passed through Baton Rouge and spotted LSU Tiger Stadium from the water. Tiger Stadium, popularly known as Death Valley, has a seating capacity of over 102,000. It is the third largest stadium in the SEC and sixth largest in the world. Charlie, being a Mississippi State fan, didn't seem to appreciate the site of the stadium. He took a picture, but I suspect it was to hang on a dart board.

We got buzzed by a Sheriff's helicopter south of Baton Rouge. I guess we looked innocent enough, although it took them two passes to make that assessment. We carried on and so did they.

We also saw the first of what would be many LARGE ships. The wake from these ships rocks our little boat, even though they were traveling relatively slow. We gave them a wide berth. It amazes me to see the large loading facilities for the ships. We saw tankers that carry petroleum products or other liquid cargo as well as dry bulk carriers being loaded with coal, grain, and wood chips. We saw one pumping our its ballast water. In order to maintain stability at sea, a ship will fill it cargo area with sea water before it leaves port and then pump it our when it get to the port where it will be loaded.

Ballast water discharge typically contains a variety of biological materials, including plants, animals, viruses, and other microorganisms. These materials often non-native to the port where it is discharged and can cause extensive ecological and economic damage to aquatic ecosystems. Ballast water discharges are believed to be the leading source of invasive species in U.S., Asian Carp and Zebra Mussels to name a couple. In 2011 began to regulate the discharge of ballast water by testing the ballast water for the concentration of living organisms.

Our practice has been to start looking for a place to tie up around 5:00 in the afternoon. Some days it takes a while before we come across the prefect sand bar to rest for the evening. On this day the possibilities were almost non existent. The banks were mostly concrete levees at this point. Every now and then we would see a grassy area behind a bunch of trees. But, we couldn't get to it. We found one area we thought was perfect. It looked like an old road bed going into the river. As we headed in we found that it was to shallow for even a pontoon boat to get into. We continued on down the river. We saw a coal loading barge that was anchored in the river about 100 yards from the bank. That might make a good place to tie up, unless they come out and start moving barges around in the middle of the night. Moving on.

Finally about 6:30 we spotted a barge unloading area near Hahnville, LA. The water was covering part of the facility between the land and the moorings, so we figured it would be safe to tie up for the night. We tied up between two of the mooring dolphins. It was in a bend of the river, so we knew that the ships would be moving slow to negotiate the bend in the river and we thought the wakes would be small. Let me tell you, the wake from a big ship even going slow will rock a pontoon boat pretty good. We just had to imagine that we were being rocked to sleep.

Tomorrow we stop to pick up the new prop and head on to Bay St. Louis, MS.

Surprisingly, we slept very well that night.