From the CIA To Easy Street-Part 2

We are leaving Jacksonville, heading South, "up" the St. Johns River.  And away we go.  La la la, tum tum tee tum, and...Oh my Gawd!  You had to be there to fathom this one.  Let me describe the raging terror that turned my guts into granny knots and sent my heart shifting into fast forward with its four cylinders racing out of sync at high speed.  Actually, I just stood there, froze to the deck, and almost wet myself.  The navigable channel of the river is not very wide even though it looks like there is a lot of water out there.  The true width of the navigable channel is a mirage and one must adhere to the charts, obey the markers, and hope the bottom hasn''t changed since the chart book was published.  Praying helps somewhat also.

Here we are, doodling along at our 8 knots just right of the center of the channel.  I had to go and turn my head and look behind us.  Right down the middle of the channel, bearing down on us at a speed much greater than ours, is the bow of the tallest and widest freighter I''ve ever seen this side of Lake Superior. It looked as wide as a city block and as tall as the Empire State Building.  And that was only what was sticking out of the water up to its main deck.  It was churning current and making wake that would have made the Titanic shudder.  I just knew we were doomed!  Captain Steve came to the rescue.  He already knew about the freighter''s approach because he was alert and paying attention.  Steve possesses a secret knowledge (actually it is a common sense factor)...he knows the draft (that’s how deep a yacht sits in the water) of the yacht he is operating, this one being four feet.  The common sense factor...he, knowing full well that the approaching freighter has at least twelve feet of draft, it stands to reason that the freighter can’t follow us over into shallow water.  If the freighter did follow us into shallow water, it couldn’t hit us if it wanted to.  It would go aground and no freighter captain wants his vessel aground in a river that size or anywhere else for that matter.  Besides, he was so far above us that he  couldn’t even see us.  Another Captain’s Rule:  “Hey, Mon, da bigger boat got da right-of-way.”  Steve maneuvered the "Lady Ann" out of harm''s way, over into the shallows, let the freighter pass, and maneuvered back across the wake with a minimum of turbulence.  Needless to say, his First Mate kept one eye out over the bow and the other out over the stern from that moment on.  I didn''t know freighters that big could get into a river that small.

Murphy''s Law struck again.  Our depth finder stopped working.  Steve really had to feel his way along and I guess 8 knots isn''t so slow after all when you don''t know where the bottom of the river is.  The generator and radio also got tired of working and took a vacation.  Fortunately, Steve is not one to rely on mechanical devices because they are not dependable when you need them most.  Every time something broke down, Steve would make the comment, "Columbus didn''''t have one of those, so I don''t need one either."  When it comes to a Loran, too many bad experiences have made him a firm believer in the "dead reckoning" procedure.  Unfortunately, during the trip, everything had broken down or quit except the engine and it was missing and surging on the last day.  We expected it to expire any minute.  The crew asked Steve, "What if the engine quits out here in this wilderness?"  He replied, "No problem.  We''ll just drop the anchor and wait for someone to get us some help.  Or...if you all remember the movie, "African Queen", the river here is shallow so we''ll man the polls.  It''s not like we''re 150 miles out to sea."

Steve operated the yacht from the bridge while Ann ran up and down the ladder to the main cabin to read the instruments that were still working down there, and she would call the readings up to Steve by phone...that is until the phone quit working.  Than she ran up and down the ladder to personally deliver the messages.  We watched constantly for channel markers, hugged the outside of bends in the river as the inside builds up silt shallows.  The river has narrowed considerably as we get further from its mouth at Jacksonville.  It''s beginning to wind back and forth, right and left, starboard and port, and...Oh my Gawd!  Hidden by the jungle beyond the next bend approaching with great gusto is a tug pushing a giant barge. We''re going to both arrive at the bend at the same time.  I''ll give you three guesses of where it will position itself on this bend and it won''t be in the silt shallows.  It''s hogging the whole channel.  When it makes the bend, it will need the whole channel.  Once again, Steve moved over into the shallow water giving the tug the total right-of-way.