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.