Part 2:
Day 2

Last week we were introduced to our author and his friends, Dellus and Benton Hodges, as they launched their 21-foot Carolina Skiff into the Mississippi River from Memphis, TN for a spur-of-the-moment, throw-caution-to-the-wind, put-life-on-hold adventure to the Gulf of Mexico and back. They had each other, lots of food, and an unbelievable number of empty gas containers. We left them after their first day on the water as they settled down by an brilliant fire and opened cans of beef-a-roni and hash and placed them directly into the fire to heat and reflected on the lessons of the day…scout out a camp-site before proclaiming it as the perfect place to rest and know that mud is going to be a formidable obstacle to the traveling group.

During our first night of camping, we marveled at the stars and the ridiculousness of what we were doing. It was now time to sleep and the question arose, “who gets to sleep in the middle?” Benton had his turn and Dellus told me to go ahead and take mine. The middle was warm and comfortable and almost allowed me to sleep through the night until Benton woke me up by not only grabbing me but pushing me to his side of the tent as he yelled “Dellus! Dellus, get your gun. I’m serious, there’s something out there!” Neither Dellus nor I panicked, but he did load his pistol and within seconds we were both peering out beyond the ridge behind us for anything moving. There was nothing, only wind and the feeling, again, that we were somewhere on Arkansas sand on a Mississippi mud bank far away from anything. As we crawled back into the tent we placed Benton in the middle and, without discussing it for the rest of the trip, that became his place.

We had learned about the tugs and the barges and staying out of their way but were about to learn, as I have mentioned, why avoiding their wakes is important.

Breaking camp was beginning to become second nature and the next morning while doing what we needed to do Benton, strangely, found wild-growing watermelons—although very probably they were not wild at all but had inadvertently taken root from former campers—so we cut one up and had fresh watermelon and fruit-cocktail from a can for breakfast before shoving off. I cannot speak for them but I was eating better than I normally did. I rolled up my pant legs and placed my shoes towards the back of the boat in lieu of caking them with mud again and pushed us into more of life we did not know. We had learned about the tugs and the barges and staying out of their way but were about to learn, as I have mentioned, why avoiding their wakes is important. The farther south down the Mississippi one travels the larger the conjoined tons of steel become, as does the displacement of water that will pummel a boat. If you are brave enough to attack this river in a 21-foot fishing skiff you better be prepared to deal with it. We were beginning to understand that turning directly into the waves is not always the best option, depending on how big they are. Sometimes, as these behemoths grow, it is a much better plan to full-throttle as far as you can and try to outrun the monsters. If you find yourself caught at the end of a wake then use the last resort: come to a stand still and turn into it to face the inevitable.

We learned on our second day that our skiff was well designed to handle adversity.

Traveling on, every boat captain, and hopefully his or her crew, is familiar with the marker system: red on the right returning and green to the left. But we were not returning, we were headed down a system of water into a bigger body and therefore it was currently the opposite for us: green on our right and red to our left. But, on a river as big as the Mississippi, sometimes the immense barge and tanker traffic take up most of the channel, at least enough of it that you do not want your boat anywhere near the channel because of the wakes you would encounter. We learned on our second day that our skiff was well designed to handle such adversity. Our boat had a remarkable draft of only three inches on its own, and only six to eight when fully—and I mean fully—loaded. So, we were able to push the envelope a good bit with the channel markers, which kept us out of trouble quite a few times. The markers can be used as guides but not necessarily absolute rule, though they should always be respected. In some instances, only five or six feet beyond the markers can turn quickly into two to four feet of water even though you may be a hundred yards from the shoreline. But in many cases, you may be able to set your sights a couple of markers down almost a mile away and deviate from the channel, steering still around its outskirts and out of the way of large ships—saving fuel as well—and slipping right back into it to avoid any danger.

So we were learning to deal with the barges: Avoid them with speed if possible and turn into their wakes when necessary; and undoubtedly, confrontation is sometimes necessary. Near the middle of our second full day on the water we were rounding a bend, still with Arkansas on our right and Mississippi to our left, and noticed a barrage of barges headed towards us, pushing up river. Part of the battle is deciding which side of them to stay on but with three of them headed towards us, stretched out more than a mile, we decided to stay far to the right of them and hug the green markers while moving as quickly as possible for as long as possible. In this case, the green markers were only 20 yards from the shore so we had to be careful. As the first one got closer we were able to count how many barges were connected and being pushed and I have to say were worried when we counted five wide and seven long and this was only the first of three. We stayed with our strategy of keeping way to the right of them and moving as fast as we could. We succeeded in escaping the onslaught of the first waves but then had to slow down because we were running into the wake of the second and third. We came to a full stop and turned the boat so as to float with every crest until it was over. Though a great idea, it didn’t happen as planned.

We glanced around sheepishly to make sure we were all still there while the skiff was already riding the next wave.

We almost made it through with white knuckles and adrenaline and the boat did great but enough became enough and it simply could not ride every wave. We shot up on the crest of a good seven footer and then there was an eight- to nine-foot wave only five feet in front of us before the bow of the boat had even begun to ascend again. It was one of those moments like a car wreck where time seems to go into slow motion. Benton spontaneously screamed “We’re screwed” and we all held on even tighter to whatever we were already holding onto while we watched five feet of water crash into and over the bow and rush into the boat and over our feet up to our shins. Time had only slowed down for us because the boat itself was beginning to recover before either of us were. We glanced around sheepishly to make sure we were all still there while the skiff was already riding the next wave. Dellus turned on the bilge while Benton and I checked the watertight boxes that our food and gear were in. The dry hold at the front of the bow was a Godsend, protecting everything. Our plastic food containers may have floated a bit but were OK as were the three of us. The boat, of course, was ready to move on, laughing at the water since our tent, sleeping bags, guns, and flares were all bone dry. The three of us were the only things soaking wet.

We continued on and made almost 200 miles that day over mostly calm water. We saw bald eagles flying higher than the hawks, nesting in the tops of trees. There were no signs of townships or even civilization for that matter. We laughed when we tried our cell phones and all of them—three different networks—blinked “no service.” Dellus joked, “So much for nationwide coverage,” and I asked him if he could “hear me now?” We were paying attention to lessons learned and, at least 30 minutes before we were going to lose the sun, began looking for the night’s campsite. We came to a fork in the river that the channel markers intimated staying to the left of so we decided to steer to the right in the hopes of finding an offbeat, quiet place to pitch the tent. It crossed my mind how silly it was to think of this bypass as an exit from an interstate highway but that is exactly what it was. We were tired, yet careful, and spotted a place we all liked the look of from the river (albeit hard to tell from so many yards away). I took a rope—as the bare-foot one—and jumped into the shallow water, while Dellus trimmed the motor, and tied us off to a sapling that would serve just fine while I investigated whether we should camp here or not. It seemed pristine enough and just beyond the tree line was a cow pasture, which we were not worried about leaving footprints on. We were very careful on the entire trip to leave any place we visited just as it was when we found it. When we found other trash we even took it with us to discard with our own.

We found our spot and it was a good 150 yards from the boat but the boat was in a good place and we decided not to move it. It was then that I learned of one of the most simple, brilliant, things Benton had ever come up with. As the sun was setting and while we were moving into our site for the night he broke open a fluorescent stick and tied it to the wind-shield at the helm of the boat and announced “now we can keep our eye on it.” Then he took another stick and two fishing poles down to the bank just in front of our campsite. Dellus and I were gathering wood to enable the fire to burn as long as we wanted and watched Benton come back up the bank, cut open a package of smoked sausage, break off a few pieces, and disappear again. Dellus and I found him on the bank just below our camp putting sausage on the end of hooks. He had broken open another light-stick and somehow made two out of it and attached them to each of his two fishing poles. I laughed and Dellus said “OK Benton” and the two of us walked back up the bank to the fire. Benton joined us soon but within five minutes, I swear, one of the lights was bending so close to the water you could not see it anymore. Benton was there in a flash and started playing with the fish on the end of the first pole just as the other pole started to bend. Delllus and I both jumped up and ran to help but he beat me to the second pole and I only watched while they both reeled in a couple of catfish. We sized them up and threw the smaller one back (although they were both more than two pounds). Of course, Benton had to tell his brother that “mine is bigger than yours!” Truth beats fiction any day!

We broke out the portable charcoal grill that night and placed the cleaned fish right in a frying pan. Benton did most of the cooking and wrapped the meat inside tortillas with sautéed onions and more black olives. Dinner was awesome; we were full and happy and talked about the stars again and why so many people confuse the Pleiades with the Little Dipper and shared shots of whisky until wondering why Atlas’ seventh daughter had been lost. Then it was time to get ready for the next day. I made the mistake of staying barefoot all night and paid for it later by contracting some sort of viral, mud-fungus, bacterial thing. Another lesson learned: it’s better to clean your boots every night than sink every day into a foot of mud with bare feet. Now I understand what soldiers from WWI and Vietnam meant by trench foot!

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