// January 6th, 2013 // No Comments » // Uncategorized
In August 2001, during a source to sea descent of the Mississippi River in a 17’ canoe and a pontoon boat named “For Sale”, longtime friend Scott McFarlane and I arrived in Cape Girardeau, Missouri at night following a 155-mile day of river travelling.
So plentiful were our misadventures on the Mississippi that summer that I decided to use them as the centerpiece of a book chronicling our 35-year-long friendship. I plan to self-publish “Part-Time Superheroes, Full-Time Friends” later this year. If you are interested in purchasing a copy of the book, “Message” me on Facebook, leave a comment below or send me an email at rod@ZeroEmissionsExpeditions.com.
Here’s an excerpt from the book detailing our passage through the St. Louis-Cairo corridor. Let me know what you think!
London, Ontario-based artist Jeremy Bruneel was commissioned to do the illustrations for “Part-Time Superheroes, Full-Time Friends”. The attached photo remains the copyrighted property of Jeremy Bruneel and cannot be copied or used without consent from the artist.
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The large city of St. Louis, Missouri, along with its iconic Gateway Arch and its towering skyline, rose from the banks on our starboard side. We sped past this metropolis of almost three million and made our way down to the more humble and quieter Hoppie’s Marina for a break.
As I steered the boat toward Hoppie’s dock, I came in at too much of an angle and with an awful-sounding metallic crunch, busted off an eyebolt on the bow’s left corner. Immediately a wave of guilt flooded over me as Scott let loose a curse and scrambled to get our mooring lines secured. It had been my first attempt at docking the boat and I had fucked it up. All of our oh-so-careful navigation had gone to shit in one slip up. Now we could add the eyebolt to a growing list of damages, none of which Scott was the least bit happy with. Each dent, scrape and graze devalued For Sale in his eyes. And each mishap steeped my stress level into a stratosphere of guilt and eggshell walking. Neither of us dared upset the other. Neither dared challenge the other to confrontation. And neither dared mention the rot of emotion that lay unspoken within us. With a single busting of an eyebolt, the whole trip for me had changed in an eye blink. My only respite would be a lengthy break from both Scott and the boat. The only question was: when?
Once back on the river, with Scott now at the helm, we gained on a slow moving tugboat. Scott swung For Sale to port to overtake the tug. Even at low speed, or perhaps because of it, the tug was casting off a large wake. As we began our approach, the swelling wake took on a height of seven feet. Scott thrust For Sale up on the steep side of the wave and as it topped the swell our bow tipped precariously over the crest and dangled dangerously for a moment, causing me to grip the railing white-knuckled. The whole boat then twisted as the swell rose under the starboard pontoon and pushed the boat’s portside into the river. It felt, and looked, as though the boat would flip over. Scott eased back on the throttle and For Sale backed off the swell. Then Scott, gripping the wheel with an intense gaze, gunned the throttle to full. The whining engine tore at the waves and shot us bounding over the swells and past the tug. My heart pumped hard in my ears and I thought to myself, “I seriously hope the rest of the river is not like this.”
South of the last lock, the Mississippi had become a different river – a river of swirling whirlpools, bubbling boils and restless currents. No longer was it confined into placid pools by locks and dams. It was loose and on the prowl and it seemed pretty angry at something. We silently hoped that the “something” wasn’t us.
There were no significant ports or towns until Cape Girardeau, Missouri, 127 miles below St. Louis, so we made it our destination for the day, fuelled more by the need for fuel than anything else.
By the time we arrived hours later in Cape Girardeau, the daylight had long faded. I precariously balanced myself on the bow, pointing a high watt spotlight that we had thankfully purchased in Alton into the inky night. Lacking anything resembling a marina, “the Cape” presented us with Kidd’s Fuel Service as the only thing worth tying up to. Kidd’s consisted of nothing more than an archaic barge tacked on to the end of a long wooden gangplank. Tired, stressed and cranky, we bedded down for yet another night aboard For Sale.
Less than an hour later I awoke to the familiar sensation of a rocking boat. As I watched a bright full moon arc back and forth across the roof of my tent, I realized that the rocking was violently increasing. I woke Scott with a yell and we both dove naked out of our tents just as For Sale began to slam against the dock’s rough outer edge. With arms outstretched, palms pressed against the sliver-laden wood, we did our best to hold the boat away from the dock. Unfortunately, our best attempts could not prevent the boat from bashing into the dock, causing more damage and more curses. Off in the darkness we could see the cause of the chaos: a large, wide string of bound-together barges being pushed by a towboat. I shook my head and thought to myself, “I seriously hope the rest of the river is not like this.”
Countless times through the night we sprang from our tents to repeat the same procedure. Each time we grew crankier and each time I longed for a much-needed break from the stress-filled monotony. Even when I was able to finally fall into a deep sleep I was blasted awake by the blaring horn of a train passing no more than thirty feet away from our boat. We had come 155 miles on the day but even that positive thought of nautical progression fizzled as the night slowly and sorely wore on.
We woke with bloodshot eyes, mean tempers and the need for boat fuel. Beside us was a massive, 15-foot-high concrete floodwall that ran the length of downtown Cape Girardeau. We had seen several of these floodwalls further upstream. It seemed such a drastic measure for towns to take in order to prevent being inundated by the river. Why, I wondered, had a city been built so close to the river in the first place? With this two-foot wide wall in place, the people of Cape Girardeau had essentially taken away their waterfront view, something prized by other cities further north. Worse than that, they had walled themselves in, cowering in fear behind their formidable barricade while the big beast prowled around outside. It resembled a scene straight out of the 1933 version of King Kong. Cue the natives, safe and secure in their jungle fortress. I couldn’t help but think that the residents of Cape Girardeau had turned their backs on the river, turned their backs on the very thing that had no doubt first attracted the city’s settlers to this area. Such as it is with walls and rivers: both sides eternally engaged in an endless game of one-upmanship.
We ascended a metal staircase, stood atop the floodwall and got a good look at Cape Girardeau’s downtown. The brick facades of the businesses and the white-walled courthouse were historically eye pleasing in the early morning sun. Directly below us was the rail line, running parallel to the wall. The metal staircase descended to the rail line and a string of murals had been painted on the city side of the floodwall, displaying an obvious need to beautify the concrete eyesore.
With huge gaps of up to 200 miles between fuel services downriver, we decided to buy another four gas cans, upping our total to twelve. Scott went off in search of a WalMart and returned about an hour later by taxi with four full gas cans. While the taxi waited, I filled its trunk with four empty cans and Scott went off to get those filled. Fed, watered and fully fuelled, we happily bid adieu to Cape Girardeau and hastily moved downstream.
After two hours of cruising, a top-up of the engine’s fuel tank was in order. We shut down the motor and drifted for several minutes while I filled the tank. Scott turned the ignition key but the engine would not respond. As we drifted dead in the water, a towboat pushing sixteen barges rounded a bend and headed straight toward us. Scott repeatedly turned the key to no avail. He told me to look for an external primer button on the motor but I saw nothing of the like. The starboard riverbank, less than a hundred feet way, was strewn with large rocks in an effort to arrest erosion. We knew that if we could not get the motor started we would surely be cast upon the rocks by the barge’s wake. As Scott worked frantically with the motor, I kept an eye on the barge and my fingers on the ignition.
“Try it, Roddy!” shouted Scott.
I engaged the ignition. The motor sputtered but would not turn over.
“Again!” hollered Scott.
I cranked the key and the engine revved strong. The propeller churned the water white. In anticipation of a quick escape, I reached for the throttle. As I did the engine stammered, snorted and stalled.
“Damn it!” barked Scott. He nervously tinkered with the motor and asked, “Where’s that barge, Roddy?”
“It’s getting close!” I shouted as I gazed across the bow to see the barge bearing down on us. “We need to move now, Scott!”
“Start you fucker!” screamed Scott angrily at the reluctant Mercury.
The rumble of the huge barge vibrated loudly in our ears as it swept past our portside. It was only a matter of moments before the barge’s wake would be upon us, lifting our helpless craft into the jagged rocks that seemed only yards away.
Just as the first swells began to the rock the boat, the Mercury fired up loud and confident.
“GO!” shouted Scott.
I revved the throttle hard and threw the boat into gear. For an instant the engine hesitated. Then a massive burst of power lurched the boat forward. We sped over the rising waves and carved around a barely submerged wing dike.
Once clear of the barge wake and rocks, we heaved a huge sigh of relief and pointed the boat downstream. For the rest of the day, each time we refueled the tank we kept the motor idling. The last thing we wanted at this point was to be stranded on the river, miles from the nearest town.
