2nd Anchorage

 After a fitful nights sleep for both us we started to prepare to leave our anchorage about 8 am.  I can’t even describe in writing what that struggle was like, but it took all 4 of us, no one lost a limb, no one was injured, and our anchor is up on the boat and secured until we can have the windlass repaired.  It was over an hour of stress and manual labor.  I drove the boat so we could maneuver over the anchor and almost threw up several times as I drifted closer to Steve’s boat, or worse, thought my stern ( and propeller) were going over his anchor chain. We survived - just another thing I don’t ever want to do again.

Several tugs and barges passed us during the night, but the good news is, they didn’t cause us to roll in the water because their speed was slow and the current kept their wake down. Both of us were up and down all night because of nerves and even Madison had trouble settling down. Madison has learned to pee on the pads provided out on the bow like a champ, so that is good news.  Bad news is, she refuses to poop out there, so after 3 days of this she could blow….  LOL!

We had a longer, 6 hour day today to the Little Diversion Anchorage somewhere down the river. We passed a couple of barges, but otherwise it was sort of a pleasant day on the river. No leaves changing yet here The original anchorage spot was not wide enough or deep enough for our boats, so we are anchored 5 miles down south of there beside the Thebes RR bridge.  It’s a nice spot, just passed the city of Cape Girardeau, and there are actually large houses up on the river bank and a highway somewhere near (we can hear cars). We had some friends anchor here the night before and they told us it was a good spot.

Much simpler anchor process tonight - Steve and Kathy got their bow anchor set, we rafted up and tied off to their boat, and Steve and Tom set a stern anchor off our boat.  Now we are secure on both ends and not moving… Kathy fixed spare ribs in the crockpot, potato salad and marinated cucumber salad, so we had dinner with them on their boat. We were all exhausted, so it’s showers and early bedtime tonight.