Day 16

Miles Covered: lm 869.8- to lm 795 (75 miles)

Closest towns or landmark (chart): Steward Towhead island to Gold Dust Bar

Original Post date: June 14, 2009

Again, I woke to the usual coffee, nice consistent start and taste to each day. On this morning I finally decided to become “one with the river’ and take a bath in it – we are very spoiled with the quality of water in WNC and this was a BIG step for me – I had been using ‘Off’ insect repellent for defunker…. Tom was glad that now I had earned the ‘River-Rat’ status….

Great day of weather once again, no complaints – we have seen shorelines of black mud to shorelines of beautiful white and.

Phone service and internet have become limited, to the point where we don’t even try anymore – I guess thats part of being here anyway – just to ‘unplug’ from it all for a while.

The deck of the pontoon is wet, always wet (wet feet) – another part of it all. The waves and wash from the tows reach over the bow and onto the floor and getting your deck ‘washed’ is something to expect, often. Tow Pilots have shown the utmost regard – but they can only do so much, their waves are just a product of the shear power the tows produce. When you pass a tow, you can expect the wakes to affect you for two or three miles after. The waves seem to radiate from the banks back into the channel. We just maintain our idle-speed and take them one at a time. The bonus of a wet floor is that it cools things off a bit – dries quickly, just in time for another set of wakes.

At times, I get a little anxious when Tom passes a tow too closely. Today, this anxiety and sixteen days with him came to the surface – I swore that I would take his Gerber tool at retirement. Tom just casually responds with “I’m just headin’ down the river, with or without my Gerber tool..” It was funny….later. It’s just another part of it, spending a month together with few luxuries in such a confind space. We have really done well as far as getting along to this point. There are few people that I would agree to take on such a challenge with. Tom is certainly one of those few.