Ahoy hoy from the Gulf coast!

this is Captian Nathan writing, I have reached New Iberia, LA and am currently at anchor at the Holcomb's house on the Bayou Teche. The Intracoastal waterway took me from Morgan City to "somewhere" near a little town named Landry. I ran after dark trying to make in closer to New Iberia and followed the tug "Jo Ann Marie" for several hours to avoid being run down as well as to keep my bearings. In the dark everything becomes strange and my body has no way to deal with the odd images my eyyes are recieving, so I get vertigo and hallucinations. Following a tug allows me to have a fixed point of reference as well as a big safety zone, if the tug hits anything it moves whatever it hit, sometimes it moves it right under the tug and into his wake so I run just on the starboard prop wash.

I cruised until I came to a private cable ferry that serves a salt mine and pulled into a drainage ditch, it was a nice 6' deep with a soft muddy bottom 1/2 mile from an entrance to West Cote Bay in the gulf. Little did I know I anchored at high tide. I slept in and when i awoke my 1st thougth was, "I don't remember seeing those rocks last night". Matilda was not in the mud, yet, I had all of 3 inches beneath her keel.

My cell phone was out of airtime and Regan was trying to find me, she called the ferry operator and said that she was looking for her friend "in a little sailboat", the ferry captian responded, "I'm looking right at him" and gave Regan directions to find me. I left Matilda for about 24 hours and went into town to do some much needed laundry, have my 1st indoor hot shower since I left the Arkansas and get some innernetting done. I was also able to use the google to find a route from where Waltzing Matilda was to the Holcomb's house. When I call on the radio to inquire about my position I often have to answer the question "You came from where without charts?"

Upon my return to Matilda I had to wait for the tide, she was settled into the mud rudder first as her aft anchor had been hit by a sport fisherman and was not keeping her in the canal correctly, no damage done. I had a few hours to kill and chatted with the ferry operator as his leisure time permitted, cleaned inside the boat and petted my dog. At 11:30 I was ready to move, I had risen 2" with the tide and using my little "hooker" anchor I turned Matilda 180 degrees and moved her out of the ditch into the intracoastal.

I backtracked about 3 miles to the canal that leads to the Teche bayou motored up the Teche river. It was really pretty with so many houses and lawns coming right to the water's edge, lots of parks and people out to wave hello as I putted past. I came to the 1st low bridge and had to call a telephone number to get the transportation department to open the bridge for me to pass. Despite being curtiuos and polite on the phone the state employee was nasty nasty nasty! very rude and curt and then informed her bridge operator that I was rude to her, this was relayed to me via radio from the bridge operator. When I am 700 miles from home I am not rude to anyone, especially not someone I need to open a bridge for me. I assume it has something to do with being a state employee nearing the end of a shift right before a holiday. No matter, the bridges opened and I ran in the dark all the way to New Iberia. I had to pass one barge in the dark and we stayed in constant communication in order to make it past each other safely.

as I approached the "Olivier" (pronounced O live A) bridge I radioed "This is sailing vessel Waltzing Matilda, I am approaching the Olivier bridge". As soon as I released the microphone key I saw fireworks go off on the far side of the bridge, a signal to me from the Holcomb's welcoming me to their home. I had to wait 30 min for the bridge operator to get to his location and open the bridge and when I came ashore there was cold beer, hot food and great company waiting next to a big bonfire.

Waltzing Matilda is currently anchored in the Teche with a makeshift gangplank of old packing crates and a kayak to make shore access, I am showered, shaved and in clean clothing and Mattie is quite pampered. She has adjusted to boat life after a few hard weeks and is the best boatswain I have ever had.

Waltzing Matilda in “Another World”

December 26, 2009
This will be a long one, as Nathan had quite a bit to say.
Waltzing Matilda was two miles west of Morgan City, Louisiana, when Nathan called this afternoon. He’s gone about 730 miles on this more than month-long water adventure. Now, only about twenty miles of Louisiana swamp separate him from the Gulf of Mexico.
He’s on the Intracoastal Waterway sailing with a tailwind of about 3 knots. “It does feel weird to be going west,” he said. But he’s headed toward New Iberia, Louisiana, where he plans to tie up for perhaps a week at the waterfront home of the father of his friend Ragan. The next major checkpoint will be Vermillion Bay of the Gulf of Mexico.
Nathan and Ragan met while both were students at Northeastern State University in Oklahoma and they often partnered up for swing dancing. Ragan apparently wants them to go dancing at some place in Louisiana where the dance is from 7:30 a.m (that’s right, a.m.), to noon. So strange is that arrangement that the bar serves breakfast.
Nathan described Morgan City, which he just passed, as a petroleum center and a major port and it’s where he saw his first oceangoing ship on this trip. Although small by ocean standards, the ship he saw was perhaps 80 feet tall and 300 feet long and made Waltzing Matilda seem very insignificant. At Morgan City the ocean ships transfer containers to the river barges. And it was there that he also saw a derelict iron-hulled three-masted schooner rusting and listing.
The barges have been smaller where Nathan is now, compared to the monsters he had to contend with on the Mississippi River. “Where I’m at now, the water is as smooth as glass, there’s no current at all. There’s a barge a half mile ahead and one is creeping up behind but I’m off to the side and out of his way.” As we carried on our phone conversation, Nathan began to speak perhaps as much to himself as to us about the barge behind him “This guy’s not going to give me any room here.” Then: “You might be able to hear his tug as he comes by” (we didn’t). “He’s the Thomas E. Rollins and he has two empty liquid containers for diesel fuel.”
Diesel fuel is a problem for Waltzing Matilda. He’s very low on fuel, although he has been burning discarded crankcase oil, of which he has a half gallon. Baldwin, Louisiana, will be “my first time at panhandling,” Nathan said. “I’ll find a gas station and I’ll have my fuel can and will play my violin and have a sign that says ‘Will work for diesel fuel and dog food.’”
Colorful storytelling, but I think he was serious.
If anyone were around Nathan in the lonely Louisiana swamps where he is sailing, it might appear to them that Mattie the dog is piloting the Waltzing Matilda. In the calm water Nathan sometimes sets the sales and lashes the tiller. Mattie likes to lie across the tiller, so Nathan tells her “Okay, you drive the boat, I’m going to go below and make some coffee.” And it looks like Mattie is indeed “driving.”
“I really like Louisiana,” Nathan said, despite its marshland. “It’s a different world. For instance, in the swamp there are no pickup trucks; instead people get around in boats.” He has been in places where it’s swampland for a hundred miles in any direction. “There are some interesting characters living on the waterfront here.” In one case he saw a wrecked mobile home that was floating on 55-gallon drums. It had a sign that read: “No Trapossing.” Another sign reflected the circumstances of water everywhere: “Groceries delivered by truck or boat.”
However, there was one place where he did come across some pickup trucks; in fact, there were 5 to 6-hundred of them gathered at a hunting spot. Someone had bagged a big black boar and Nathan said he told them it was the ugliest deer he had ever seen.
“The swamp is beautiful,” according to Nathan, “Although the foliage is down due to winter. There are lily pads all over and there’s floating foliage and cypress and Spanish moss and lots of owls. I see and hear all kinds of birds. I saw alligator tracks.”
Other news of the Waltzing Matilda:
--He’s heard French spoken on the ship’s radio. And as he nears the ocean ships he’s heard Chinese.
--Christmas dinner consisted of canned ham and potatoes.
--Given the complexity of waterways and channels in Louisiana, Nathan said he got lost on the Atchafalaya River. Then he qualified his statement, indicating that he wasn’t completely lost. I guess it was like the statement by early American explorer and pioneer Daniel Boone: “I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks.”
Tonight, Nathan expects to for the first time start noting the ocean’s tide and its effects inland. The tidal change, he said, should be about two feet. As we wrapped our conversation today, Nathan made one more observation that reflected optimism and that was worthy of a sailor.
“Today,” he said, “The sun rose one-half minute earlier than it did yesterday. The days are getting longer.”

Waltzing Matilda’s Schedule? “Everything is Based upon Weather.”

December 24, 2009
“The cove I stopped in has served quite well,” Nathan said in a phone call the morning of Christmas Eve. “It was eerie while I was talking on the phone with Ragan getting directions on how to go through the canals when I heard the tornado sirens go off ten miles north of me. I saw clouds but I didn’t see a tornado. On the local radio they said ‘Take cover now and if you’re in a mobile home get out of it.’” But weather in the cove where Nathan is was not bad. Today, he described the water in the cove “As smooth as glass but with raindrops.”
Quite a few raindrops, apparently. Yesterday two feet of rain fell upstream from him. As a result, the locks on the Atchafalaya River are closed and if he sets sail he’ll be unable to leave the river until he arrives in Morgan City in the south of Louisiana. But he’s not planning on going anywhere for awhile. “Everything is based on weather, no matter what my time schedule is,” he said.
Despite being buttoned up inside the Waltzing Matilda, Nathan said “I’m very exposed to the elements. Water was dripping on my head this morning – the dog was unhappy about that. But when it rains two inches in an hour everything gets wet.”
For now, Nathan said he is “catching up on my sewing, cleaning the boat a bit and doing laundry on the deck in the nice clean water.” The Atchafalaya is much cleaner than the Mississippi, “There’s fish here,” he said. And helping him to pass the time “Everybody and his brother has called to wish a Merry Christmas.”
While he says he’d like to perhaps find a church where he can have Christmas dinner, his plan otherwise is to enjoy canned ham. He says he’s only eating about 900 calories a day – he’s got plenty of food but says he doesn’t need to eat much. He sleeps eight to ten hours a night, much of it, he said, induced by stress (presumably a lot of that from being on the Mississippi River).
When the weather clears he will run toward New Iberia, Louisiana, mainly on diesel power, since the canals are too small to sail in. Years ago Nathan had an old diesel Mercedes which he rigged up to burn cooking oil. Whenever he would drive by, his car often smelled like french fries. A problem with that fuel was that in cold weather it could congeal and clog his fuel system. In Louisiana, Nathan said “It’s getting warm enough now that I can start looking for veggie oil for fuel. It is an advantage to having a diesel engine, right?”
We’ll join Nathan by telephone again tomorrow night along with our daughter, Amber, and son-in-law, Eric, flying in Christmas night to what we hope will turn into the first white Christmas Northwest Arkansas has had in 34 years.
On behalf of Captain Nathan and crew member Mattie the Dog, let me as official correspondent of the Waltzing Matalida, wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy

Waltzing Matilda: “Battening Down the Hatches” for a Storm

December 23, 2009
It was a year ago today that Nathan put the down payment on Waltzing Matilda. After taking possession he spent much of the past year restoring her. Although solid on the outside, Matilda needed a lot of interior work. Having launched her from Van Buren, Arkansas, on November 22, tonight Waltzing Matilda, Mattie the Dog, and Nathan are tucked away in a cove on the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana.
“I’m battening down the hatches and preparing for a big storm tonight,” Nathan said. Bad weather has been building for three days and the forecast calls for 40-70 mile-per-hour winds plus the possibility of tornadoes. Nathan said he is anchored well in a small cove in an eddy in about 15 feet of water. If his anchor breaks loose, Waltzing Matilda will just go back into small trees; in fact, none of the trees is more than 3 inches in diameter, meaning they would do little harm if any blow over on the boat.
He did some damage to his mast today. He had to lower it because he was unable to clear a railroad bridge. Putting the mast back up by himself took hours and in the course of doing so he damaged the place where the boom ties into the mast. “Part of the learning curve,” according to Nathan. “I’ll have to fix it.”
He’s glad to be off the Mississippi which he said required total concentration at all times. There are barges on the Atchafalaya River, but they’re smaller than the monster water trains he had to dodge on the Mississippi. He only made 13 miles today: lowering and raising the mast took time; also, it took him an hour to get through a lock. Seems the lock operator was a colorful Cajun guy and “there was lots to talk about.”
Last night he camped with some guys and said he had a great time as they enthusiastically welcomed him to Louisiana.
Mattie the Dog is adjusting to life aboard the boat. She’s a tremendous watchdog because if anyone approaches the boat, she is able to sound like a big dog when she barks. Nathan has tried to sneak up on her in the kayak but couldn’t do it. Even while with the guys at the campsite last night, she was suspicious of the strangers.
On her first anniversary with Nathan, Waltzing Matilda is at anchor, perhaps for a day or more due to the weather. “With the big storm coming, I’m glad I’m off the Mississippi,” Nathan said. “I haven’t had a day off for two weeks.”

Waltzing Matilda: “I’m in a Small Boat and I Need Small Water”

December 22, 2009
“The Mississippi River is just killing me,” said Nathan regarding his decision to leave the Mississippi River and sail south instead on the Atchafalaya River deep in Louisiana Cajun country. “The barge traffic is just intense and they’re always in my way. I’m in a small boat and I need small water. The Mississippi is not so big and scary and gnarly any more, but today sixteen barges went by and I had to wait on them.” Also, south of Baton Rouge, the Mississippi river traffic includes ocean going container ships.
Nathan intends to eventually end up in New Iberia, Louisiana, and tie up for awhile at the dock of the dad of a friend, Ragan. Looking at the map I have no idea how he’ll eventually end up in New Iberia from near Southern Mississippi where he is camping tonight. Earlier this week he had me on Google Maps to find the canal route from Baton Rouge to Morgan City, Louisiana, and I got lost! Tough to trace the route on the map: rivers and channels and bayous and lakes and I was glad that I really wasn’t in a boat trying to find my way. I communicated by e-mail with Ragan telling her of my problem in helping Nathan navigate; she said a friend of her dad’s is a local Cajun and he could tell Nathan how to find his way through the area.
While traveling the Atchafalaya River, Nathan said on his west bank will be St. Landry Parish (parishes, of course, are the counties of Louisiana). It’s named for a seventh century bishop of Paris and there are a lot of people named Landry in Louisiana. Although they’re of a different family line, they, like we, are descended from the Acadians, the French settlers of Nova Scotia, forcibly deported by the British in 1755. Some Acadians came to Louisiana (“Cajun” is a corruption of “Acadian”), others remained in (or in the case of our family, escaped back to) Quebec. Last summer Nathan met some of his Acadian relatives in Quebec when he hitchhiked to our family reunion on the Gaspe Peninsula.
The water on the southern Mississippi River is foul, Nathan said. “I haven’t seen a jumping fish break the surface in a hundred miles. Even the dog won’t drink it.”
Tonight he is camping on the river with some locals he met. I’m not sure if they’re on the banks of the Mississippi or if they’re by the Atchafalaya.
There is a lot of Mississippi River barge traffic and the water is bad, “But,” Nathan said, “I’m having a good time.”

Waltzing Matilda Nears Natchez

December 20, 2009

Reporting he was forty miles north of Natchez, Mississippi, with a nice westerly wind abeam, Nathan had good sailing today.
He spent last night at the city dock in Vicksburg, next to a sightseeing pontoon boat, the Sweet Olive. Sweet Olive’s captain took Nathan into town to buy diesel fuel. Waterfront downtowns look depressed, according to Nathan, “Nobody’s waterfront has anything to do with the river economy. They’re decrepit, stores are abandoned. There might be a few businesses downtown but everybody else has gone out by the Wal-Mart. I go ashore someplace and say ‘Where’s a grocery store?’ and they say ‘Oh, it’s out on Highway 85 about six miles out.’”
Another good thing about sailing today has been absolutely no barge traffic. Until late this afternoon: then four barge trains went by. The barge trains, of course, make wakes “And there’s a big wake when two of them pass,” he said. Also, when the river is a hundred feet deep, “weird hydrological patterns” develop. The force of the wake hits bottom and bounces back up, mixing with the wake waves already on the surface. “I’ve had four foot waves,” Nathan said. “One of them I think lifted the keel right out of the water. We seemed to just balance on top of it. It’s kind of exciting.” Mattie the dog, who earlier got nervous when Nathan had to rock-n-roll fast upstream to avoid hitting riprap, apparently is taking it all in stride. This time, in the waves, Mattie merely awoke from sleeping on her mat and lifted up her head, but did not get agitated.
Jerry Bell, the Mississippi River canoe vagabond Nathan had met in Greenville, advised Nathan not to sail into crime ridden New Orleans. As a result, upon arrival at Baton Rouge, Nathan intends to head due south on a canal that eventually reaches the Gulf of Mexico to the west of New Orleans.
Earlier today Nathan overtook Jerry on the river and invited him aboard for tea. Jerry rode with Nathan for about three hours. He enjoyed being on the Waltzing Matilda. “This sailin’ stuff is pretty good,” Jerry said, “You don’t hafta paddle.”

Waltzing Matilda Back on the River; Nathan Meets “Nobody.”

December 18, 2009
“Rockin’ downstream” is how Nathan described today’s conditions, 40 miles north of Vicksburg, Mississippi, on the Waltzing Matilda. He’s running mostly by sail, having used the diesel engine perhaps five minutes to charge his batteries and to put more distance between himself and a barge train.
“Things are going quite well today,” he said, “They were yesterday, too.”
“It was tense the first few days on the Mississippi River,” according to Nathan. Now, the weather is beautiful, he’s flying a jib and a mainsail and high water conditions have lessened to the point of no trees or other debris in the river.
Yesterday there was intense barge traffic as the vessels are hurrying to deliver their loads so they can tie up for Christmas. Apparently he got in the same channel with a barge yesterday and made the barge operator nervous. “What are your intentions?” the barge radiod “I can’t stop this thing.”
While in Greenville, Mississippi, Nathan met Jerry Bell, an individual who lives on the river in a canoe and who was the feature of a documentary called “Nobody.” Jerry had been a tool and die machinist and a blacksmith who had been involved in building iron gates and fences (the same job Nathan had before he quit to go traveling). Nathan and Jerry hung out for awhile in Greenville, both waiting for the weather to improve. “We were both glad to have company,” Nathan said. Both were also anxious to trade books since they had each read the ones they had aboard. Jerry’s really roughing it, floating the Mississippi in just the canoe and sleeping in a tent. Aboard the Waltzing Matilda, Jerry exclaimed “Oh, wow! You got electricity! That’s awesome.”
In researching the documentary “Nobody,” I found that while living in Indiana, Jerry’s alcoholism got the best of him and one day after losing his family and his job, he got into the canoe he had won by collecting cigarette coupons and took off down the Mississinewa River. Then he sailed to the Wabash and eventually ended up on the Mississippi. Keeping his canoe afloat with duct tape patching, Jerry eventually ended up in Memphis where he met a couple of photojournalists who chronicled his story from 2001 to 2006 in “Nobody.” TV psychologist Dr. Phil got in the act by staging a televised reunion after 17 years between Jerry and his daughter, Kayla, embittered because Jerry apparently fled her life to avoid child support payments. Don’t know how the reunion came out, all I saw online was the promotional material. Dr. Phil’s people did fix Jerry’s teeth, however, to improve his appearance on television.

Waltzing Matilda's Rudder Breaks in Front of Barges; "Please Don't Run Me Down."

December 14, 2009
“Imagine that you’re driving down the interstate and an 18-wheeler is coming at you,” said Nathan, “And your steering wheel comes off in your hands.” That’s what it felt like on the river today when Waltzing Matilda’s rudder ripped loose and three giant barge trains were coming at him.
Previously Nathan talked about Mattie the dog’s bad attitude. Mattie’s attitude caused a problem today. Talking to the dog trying to coax her aboard the boat Nathan apparently got distracted and Waltzing Matilda ran aground on a sand bar and did some damage to the rear of the boat. Also, the water on the Mississippi River is high and it has a lot of debris. Three times today Nathan hit submerged trees, one of which hit his propeller and apparently in the collision the rudder got hit ripped from its lower bracket. Bad situation—adrift without steering in a fast river. “Did I mention that three barges were coming at me?” Nathan said. They were two miles away. He got on the radio and called one of the barge towboats. “This is a broken sailboat ahead of you. Please don’t run me down.” The towboat responded: “Hey, broken sailboat, are you okay? Do you need assistance?” Nathan said he didn’t and using an oar as a rudder regained control of the Waltzing Matilda and got out of the way. He was then able to do a makeshift repair on the rudder.
Approaching Greenville, Mississippi, there were other problems: a storm was coming and Nathan had to avoid three barge trains of 45 barges each that were running a half mile apart. Keeping out of their way he noticed on the river chart that he was getting hemmed in against underwater riprap capable doing serious damage to Waltzing Matilda. He saw ripples in the water caused by the riprap. He couldn’t stop, he couldn’t go out in the main channel because of the barges. He realized he had no choice but to turn his boat upstream. While the diesel engine could not fight the current, he could use his sails to run with the 20-mile-per-hour southerly wind up the river. He came about, had two sails set wing-to-wing, ran the diesel full speed and with the boat rocking and the current fighting him and the dog crying he made it a mile upstream.
Tonight Waltzing Matilda rests at anchor on glassy smooth water between the Jubilee and Lighthouse Casinos in Greenville, Mississippi. Nathan plans to be there for a few days: he’s got to make repairs and he also plans to wait for the water level to go down.
Although parts of today’s sailing were fun, the Mississippi River gave him a bit too much excitement.

Waltzing Matilda on a "Serious River;" Crew Mutinies

Barbra took a brief, less-than-one minute call from Nathan while he had cell phone service today. He's finally on the Mississippi River. The current is fast. Apparently something was up ahead of him. Then: "Gotta go!" [click]

Said Barbra: "Not the kind of hangup a mother likes to have."

Later December 13, 2009

After the abrupt discontinuance of his cell phone call, Nathan later left a message on our answering machine to say that he had to hang up because he had a “big dead tree and an eddy (of current) to deal with.”

Still later in the day he called to say that he was anchored in a safe place by an island in the Mississippi River and that fog limited visibility to about 50 yards.

In his first encounters with the Mighty Mississippi on Saturday afternoon, Nathan said he was “overwhelmed by the current.” The river had full control of the Waltzing Matilda – the river was too strong to even allow him to go ashore. It was even too strong for his diesel engine to take him against the current. As he got downstream to the mouth of the White River emptying into the Mississippi, he attempted to turn westward in order to head upstream on the White, but even its current was too strong. It was already late in the day and he was afraid he would have to stay on the Mississippi all night. His plan was to try to find a barge train that he could follow so he could stay on course through the night. However, he saw a point that gave him enough shelter to anchor, but only 30 yards from the fast-flowing river channel. It was an intense night. From 6 p.m. to midnight, big barge trains motored by every three minutes. Then, he said, “It rained like crazy.” He was up every 40 minutes to check on his anchors. Sunday morning he found that for some reason all three of his batteries were drained. There was no sun to provide a small charge to them from his solar panel so he was entirely dependent upon his hand-cranked diesel engine to recharge his batteries.

Sunday he made 30 miles, running entirely under sail. Although the river pushes him along at 8 mph he needs to make sail headway in order to have rudder control. He found a safe cove with a good anchorage by an island and there he tied up for the night.

“This is a serious river,” Nathan said. It’s currently 2 and half feet above flood stage and it is cold. Besides his life jacket, Nathan also wears a harness that he has rigged from an old car seat belt that serves as a fall restraint. At all times he has a line attached from the boat to his harness.

There is a mutiny in the crew. Mattie the dog refuses to come when Nathan calls. In fact, not only does she refuse to respond, but she just looks at Nathan and pees, usually on his coat or some other object of his that is nearby. At the next town he stops in, Nathan intends to find a family to take the dog.

With the state of Arkansas to his west, and the state of Mississippi to the east, at certain places where Nathan sails down the Mississippi River he will experience the results of where the river has shifted and left portions of Arkansas stranded on the east and parts of Mississippi stranded on the west side of the river. Take a look at the Mississippi River below Memphis on Google Maps and see how the state line meanders back and forth across the main channel of the river, tracing places where the river used to be. The same thing occurs north of Memphis with other states.

Waltzing Matilda Almost Across Arkansas; the Story of Goat Island

December 11, 2009

It’s been nearly three weeks and Nathan has sailed almost all the way across Arkansas. He’s docked at a nice state park fourteen miles from the Mississippi River. Today had been a difficult day, he said, but the end of the day made it worthwhile.

Nathan diverted from the Arkansas River into a canal that eventually goes into the White River that empties into the Mississippi. Previously Nathan had docked at a place he described as some guy’s “whole little kingdom.” The man had a bar and grill and a motel right on the waterfront. Also there was a place the local good ol’ boys had named “Goat Island.” More on that later.

Nathan docked because barges were lined up to get into the canal and he needed to wait for them to disperse. As he got to know the proprietor of the “little kingdom,” the man offered Nathan the use of his car to drive a mile down the road to get provisions. “Sure, go ahead,” the guy said. “The insurance papers are right there on the seat.” “Really?” Nathan said. “You’re just going to let me borrow your car?” “Yeah,” the proprietor replied, "I figure you have my car but I have your boat.” So off Nathan went. One of the purchases he’s had to make this week was a new alternator since the British one that came with Waltzing Matilda had gotten finicky and wouldn’t charge the three batteries well.

While at the kingdom, Nathan learned the story of Goat Island. Seems some of the local good ol’ boys thought it would be a good idea to put a dozen goats on a little nearby island. That way they could sit and drink beer and be entertained just watching the goats. Out in the river the goats would be safe from the dogs and the river wouldn’t hurt them since it didn’t flood that high. Wrong. Two weeks after the goats were put on the island, the river flooded and the good ol’ boys had to go out in their duck boats and rescue the goats. When they got them ashore they couldn’t just leave them loose because the dogs would get them and they didn’t want to build a pen for them. So they found another way to confine the goats and keep them safe from the dogs: they put the goats on the roof of the motel. But that caused a problem because when a car would drive up to the motel the goats would jump off the motel roof onto the car. Eventually the flood subsided and the goats were back on the island. Two weeks later: another flood. So the good ol’ boys rescued the goats again and this time instead of on the motel they put them on the roof of the bar. But when a car got too close to the bar, the goats would jump off the roof onto the car. When the flood subsided, the goats went back to the island. Then the river flooded the island a third time.

This time the good ol’ boys had a different solution.

They had a goat roast.

True story? Don’t know, but Paul Greenberg, the Pulitzer prize-winning editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette says local editors are blessed. While editors in other places punch up stories to make them interesting, in Arkansas and Louisiana editors have to tone them down to make them believable.

Showing his appreciation to the proprietor of the kingdom by buying lunch and beer, Nathan then set off downstream about a mile to a park where he met the kingdom proprietor’s evil twin. Stopping to get some water, Nathan was informed by an 80-year-old park caretaker that it would be $5 dollars to buy water! Nathan was incensed and eventually the old man waived the fee. Nathan then spent several hours at the park doing repairs on his diesel engine before resuming his trip downstream.

At the end of the day he sailed into lily pads covering the water in the canal. Also there were cat-o-nine tails growing. Pelicans and swans graced the flat lowlands where he was at. Eventually he docked at a beautiful state park.

“It was the end of long day,” Nathan said. “During the last ten minutes all this beauty made it totally worth it.”

Overnight Storm; Stranded on the Waltzing Matilda

Wed, 9 Dec 2009
“Terrifying” was about the first out of Nathan’s mouth today when describing the thunderstorm he went through overnight. He’s been anchored in sheltered waters at a park at Moscow, Arkansas, for the last 48 hours. When the storm came, the wind direction shifted 180 degrees and increased from 10 to 40 miles per hour. Nathan had three anchors out and a big cast iron coffee pot lashed halfway down one of the anchor lines to help keep the anchor line horizontal so that the boat’s movement would dig the anchor further into the bottom. Today, the wind keeps him stranded aboard the Waltzing Matilda. If he cuts the boat loose, it’ll blow into shallow water. The wind is also too high for him to take his kayak ashore, so he’s been on his boat for 24 hours.
He describes his journey as “hours and hours of boredom interspersed with moments of sheer terror.”
Nathan is 52 miles from the Mississippi River and is anxious to get there, although with some trepidation. It’s been difficult to operate a sailboat on the Arkansas River because it’s so narrow. The Mississippi River will be about a third of a mile across when he joins it.
He’s kept busy reading and mending his clothes. He’s making a little lifejacket for Mattie the dog. He’s attaching a hook to it so he can fish Mattie out of the water “when” (not if) she falls overboard.

Waltzing Matilda Gets Stuck; Crew Reduced by a Third

December 6, 2009
“I’ve had better days,” said Nathan reporting in on Sunday, two weeks after the Waltzing Matilda set sail from Van Buren, Arkansas. “I’m stuck in the mud.”
I fully expected Nathan to have reached the Mississippi River by now; instead, he’s at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, about 25 miles southeast of Little Rock. And he’s stuck.
He had gotten off the main river and followed a channel toward the city of Pine Bluff in order to stock up on fuel and groceries. He followed the channel markers, he stayed in the middle of the channel, and Waltzing Matilda’s 3-foot keel came to a stop in two feet of water. What makes it even more frustrating is that he is right in sight of the facility of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, the people who maintain the channel. And amazingly, he said Tyson Corporation barges are able to negotiate the 2-foot depth with no problem. But Nathan is stuck and since it’s 37 degrees there are no pleasure boats out and about who might pull him from the mud. He’s planning to fly sail in a crosswind, hoping that the wind will lift him off. He can go ashore if he has to, since he has a rubber dinghy towed behind the boat.
Also, his only crew member now is Mattie the dog. First Mate Jesse decided thirteen days on the river was enough, so he headed home to Northwest Arkansas. Jesse’s departure was traumatic for Mattie, Nathan said. Otherwise, she’s “quite happy” and was delighted to run on the beach where they camped last night. Mattie is at home on the Waltzing Matilda – too much so as she has developed an “attitude problem.” Mattie likes to lie on Nathan’s river charts and she gets mad when he pushes her off. Nathan says he’s fine with being alone on the boat and is learning to sail Waltzing Matilda singlehandedly.
Diesel fuel consumption has increased due to a line leak and Nathan’s plan was to get something in Pine Bluff to fix the fuel line.
He had me get a weather report for him from the internet, since he’s gotten skeptical of the NOAA weather radio reports he receives. Conditions in Southeast Arkansas and Southwest Mississippi look rainy for the next few days, I told him, with some thunderstorm possibility. As a result, Nathan said he’ll probably stay in the Pine Bluff area for awhile until the weather clears later in the week.
At the moment he has no choice. He’s stuck in the mud.

Toad Suck Lock and Waltzing Matilda Breaks Anchor

After months of preparation, Nathan began what he hopes to be months at sea with the launching today of his boat, the Waltzing Matilda, at Van Buren.
He and first mate Jesse plan to cast off tomorrow down the Arkansas River, going through their first set of locks just a few miles downstream. The boat will initially be powered by a small diesel engine and an electric trolling motor. In a few days they'll be at Lake Dardanelle in central Arkansas. There, Jesse's girlfriend, an experienced sailor, will come aboard for awhile to give Nathan and Jesse pointers as Waltzing Matilda raises her sails for the first time under Nathan's ownership. After that, Jesse and Nathan will go down the Arkansas River to the Mississippi River, with Jesse staying aboard perhaps as far as New Orleans. Then, Nathan intends to take Waltzing Matilda to sea in the Gulf of Mexico heading toward Florida. He plans a trip to Cuba, then hopes to go up the eastern coast of the U.S. and Canada, hoping by next year to make it to the Landry ancestral village of St. Omer, Quebec.

Through the rivers, Waltzing Matilda will have to go through many locks and avoid giant river barge traffic, often consisting of large number of barges lashed together in front of big diesel-powered towboats. One passed by after sunset while Waltzing Matilda was docked.

Nathan will be calling us each week and using the U.S. Postal Service to update us on his trip. We'll keep you posted.

Waltzing Matilda is about 20 feet in length and was built in Great Britain in 1967.

Nathan and First Mate Jesse should be somewhere near Toad Suck, Arkansas, by now. That's right, there is a Toad Suck and they've got a lock that Nathan, Jesse, their boat, the Waltzing Matilda, and their newest crew member, Mattie the dog, need to go through.

Nathan called yesterday, Monday, and said Mattie had joined the crew. Barbra and I met Mattie Saturday when on a whim we drove to Lake Dardenelle, Arkansas, where Jesse and his girlfriend, Jamie, were teaching Nathan how to operate the Waltzing Matilda under sail. Mattie was a stray dog wandering around the dock. She was a bit scared but really wanted to be friends, so eventually she went aboard the Waltzing Matilda for the adventure of her life.
We joined Nathan, Jesse, and Jamie for a delightful Saturday morning of sailing on the lake. The previous night we brought them a Thanksgiving dinner from Barbra's brother's place where Barbra and I were for Thanksgiving.

Besides sail, Waltzing Matilda has a diesel engine and an electric trolling motor used for maneuvering. The diesel has a bad oil leak and Nathan has ordered a part for shipment to Little Rock where he intends to fix it.

We left Saturday afternoon. After sailing lessons, the Waltzing Matilda went through Lock Number Ten on the Arkansas River and Jamie also headed back to Fayetteville.
The ongoing voyage of the Waltzing Matilda:
December 3 report:
Overnight December 1-2, Nathan felt that he had to learn to run at night, so he took advantage of the full moon and headed down the Arkansas River while Jesse slept. Nathan got nervous when he came upon the lights of a dredging operation. “I didn’t know where to go,” he said. “The lights of the river confused me.” He thought maybe he should sail between the dredging units, but wasn’t sure. He roused Jesse to raise the barge on the radio to ask them where to sail. They said go between the dredging units. Had Nathan gone to either side of them Waltzing Matilda would have gotten tangled in dredging gear.
They went through Toad Suck Lock, where Nathan said the lock operator was a real Arkie: overalled and toothless, with a funky hat (I guess the kind of guy you would expect to be running a lock called Toad Suck).
Upon making Little Rock on December 2 Nathan found there were three railroad drawbridges that were too low to clear a sailboat. He didn’t know how to contact the bridge operator(s) or what the protocol was, so he anchored. But then he had a scare when the anchor gave way and they started drifting in ice and blinding rain. Jesse, in his long johns, came out of the cabin to help. They hit some rocks. They got the diesel engine started and despite 4 miles an hour of current and 20 miles per hour of wind coming at them, they were able to run two miles west of Little Rock using only 25% throttle.
They found a cove and anchored. It was right by a bike trail, so Nathan said “People ride by and stare at us.” Since the only other craft on the river are barges and bass boats, when Nathan and Jesse come along in their old sailboat, Nathan said, “The guys in the locks think it’s awesome – they think it’s great.”
Hanging out at a nearby park, Nathan spent time skateboarding on December 3. Eventually, the barge Victoria came by heading downstream, and the guys radioed the barge to learn the protocol for getting the Little Rock railroad bridges lifted. They got their instructions and hope to depart on the 4th.
Other items:
The oil leak in the diesel engine fixed itself. A cork seal swelled and plugged the leak and they’ve used no oil since Dardenelle.
They ran aground in a cove, but backed off okay because they were going slow when they grounded.
Mattie the dog is not feeling well – hasn’t eaten all day and hasn’t had much water. She got into some sweets and Nathan thinks that may be her problem. Also, while docked, she fell off their dingy, but Nathan heard her splash, so he was able to pull her out of the cold water.
Although it’s only going at 4 miles per hour, Nathan has learned deep respect for the Arkansas River: “That current is a serious, serious force.” Another 120 miles and they’ll be on the Mississippi River. “I can’t wait,” he said.