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| Pura Vida pinned against the fuel dock in NOLA |
Every time I transit through New Orleans’ elaborate
system of bridges and locks, I say, “I swear, I will never do that again!”
Well, I swear, I will never do that again.
Our day began at 0630 trying to figure how to get off the
fuel dock with the north wind pinning us to it.
When we fueled yesterday evening I told Ruth I don’t really like staying
the night on this dock in fear of the expected increasing north wind. After all, we were here instead of offshore because
of the small craft warning. However,
this is the dock the marina offered us for free, so I didn’t want to appear unappreciative. Another problem, besides the strong wind, was
that we had a boat directly in front and behind us, limiting our maneuverability. However, with the help of a local boater holding
the bow we were able to get the stern off and we backed into the 20 knot north
wind at 0730.
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| Tied to Wendy C awaiting a lock |
We made it through the L & N lift bridge with no
issues by 0745. Next was the Florida
Ave. Bridge (Ch. 13) which had a curfew disallowing boat passage, during rush
hour, until 0830. While circling and
waiting, we were informed that it might not open on time as they were going to
perform maintenance. However, at 0831 the
bridge began to lift. Next was the
Claiborne bridge (ch. 13) just shy of the first lock. The Claiborne opened after we had
confirmation with the Industrial Canal Lock (ch. 14) that we would be granted
passage. At 0845 we cleared the
Claiborne. The lock requested we tie up to some pilings on our port side and wait, as there was maintenance being
performed on the lock gate. As we
approached the pilings, I realized they were too far apart to tie bow and stern
and they appeared to be too shallow to drift with one line attached, so I
contacted tow boat Wendy C, also
awaiting entrance, and was granted permission to tie to its starboard
side. So we were set for the 2 hour wait. At 1100 after a tow boat pushing 6 barges, 3
long by 2 wide exited, we were contacted by the lockmaster with instructions. We would follow three light boats,
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| New Orleans Industrial Lock |
tows
without barges, into the lock and tie on our starboard side.
With fenders deployed on the starboard side we made our
way into the lock. Ruth moved to her
position on the bow armed with a boat hook. The part that must be explained is
there are River Flood Warnings throughout southern Louisiana including New
Orleans and the Mighty Mississippi River.
The lock tender dropped Ruth a line, while I was steering and we never
saw him again. With a 20 knot wind
tunneling from the rear, I told her to tie it to the stern cleat and wait on
the bow line. We never received a bow
line. I believe the intent was for us to
hang onto the line, to keep us against the wall of the lock, taking in slack
as the lock filled with water. As we rose, I suddenly remembered this from past
experiences and moved the line to the mid cleat giving Ruth instructions to
fend the bow off the wall with her boat hook, while I fended the stern. This worked for only a few seconds until the
water started pumping into the lock. The
flow into the lock was not gentle as I had experienced in the past. It felt as if it was being pumped directly where
PV floated, half way through the lock.
Eventually, as we drifted, we ran out of line to hold on to. I had a tremendous sinking feeling when the
line slipped through the mid cleat and my hands. I actually thought it was going to rip the
mid cleat off the boat. Pura Vida met chaos this day. Adrift in the Industrial Lock with 20 knot
winds astern and water flowing into the lock we were suddenly headed to the
port side wall. We reached the wall swiftly
and fended off the best we could, with no line from above, using our boat hooks,
with only our fender board to port.
However, we couldn’t maintain this for long. I floored the throttle in forward determined
I would tie to a towboat ahead. Apparently,
Silver Fox, saw the event, radioed
the lock stating “the sailboat lost his line”, then he offered us to tie to his
port side, where I was already approaching.
With their help and our gratitude, we swiftly tied bow and stern and
waited out the flooding of the lock. The
lock rose 13 feet, not a common amount. This
was attributable to the River Flood Warning and the Mississippi River being
abnormally high. We thanked the lock
master, as is customary, and bellowed appreciation to Silver Fox then exited the lock with a sigh of relief and a change
of shorts and socks.
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| Bridge after Bridge |
Next was the Mighty Mississippi. I figured the flow would be too great to turn
up river to the Harvey Lock, which I have done previously, so we were prepared
to travel the Algiers Alternate Canal.
However, I thought I would give it one last look before turning down
river toward the Algiers Lock. Following
the tow boats I watched them as they entered into the river. They seemed to be drifting almost sideways
down river as they entered the river.
This made my decision easy. After
entering the Mississippi I contacted New Orleans Traffic (ch. 12), as required. They informed us there was a ship heading
upstream and to contact them on ch. 67.
We did as requested and passed them on the 1 whistle side. I then noticed we were traveling at 12 knots
throttled back. The Yanmar was turning
2000 RPM’s, which usually pushes PV only
4 knots. I doubt the river was
flowing at 8 knots but we were flying. I
contacted the Algiers lockmaster who kindly gave directions. Another unknown vessel contacted us
requesting to hail us on Ch. 22a. We
changed channels and they informed us there was a very bad eddy at the entrance
to the fore bay into the canal, which was just prior to the lock. We survived the eddy then contacted the lockmaster
for further instructions. Fortunately,
he requested we enter directly into the lock and “float.” We were happy to “float,” and perhaps lucky
to be floating. The 13 foot descend from
the Mississippi River level to the Algiers Canal level was pleasant. We had no line to hold on to but the water
was not flooding in. We simply fended
off the wall with our boat hooks, throttled forward and reverse as needed and
floated back down to normalcy.
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| Flooded Banks of the Mississippi River |
We needed one more bridge lift for the day, the
Belle Chase, before finding our anchorage for the night. We dropped two anchors, bow and stern, into
the familiar Barataria Waterway anchorage at Lafitte. We felt grateful this day passed without a scratch on us or PV. I swear... until next time. By the way, cruising is not for sissies.
