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.”