Of Foreign Build

by Jackie Parry

  The air smelt fresh here, like home; it was inviting with the promise of adventure. Not once did we tire of the endless pink and black glimmering rock formations that lined our pathway through the shimmering water. Here, inventive builders pieced together esoteric houses on rocks that were scattered throughout the canals and hidden in picture book bays, nestled in with their own jetty. It left us wondering which movie star may hide there. We made plans to return someday.

  It was here that we experienced what it would be like to drive through treacle. With numerous places to anchor, we guided Mariah from the main channel and suddenly she turned into a languid lump. Suspiciously, we peered over the side to see that a bushy weed, just visible under the surface, had Mariah in its clutches. Little by little, we extracted ourselves from the embracing triffid, back to the main channel. It was like working our way through a syrupy paste. This, thankfully, was a one off phenomenon.

  Night after night, alone, we revelled in the serenity, our contentedness. Looking east from the partly protected bay, the horizon was a tiny speck. From our deserted surrounding we could see for miles. Perhaps the world had ended and no one told us.

  Ashore, we were acutely aware that this was bear, snake, and spider country. Stepping into the vibrant forest, we raised our voices to scare off any prowling bears.

  ‘What’s your plan if we’re confronted by a bear? I asked.

  ‘If a large grizzly approached me, I plan to play dead.’

  ‘Good,’ I said, ‘I intend to look it in the eye and slowly back off.’ I felt more at ease. ‘If my plan fails, at least the bear would deal with you first, and have a hearty meal before attacking me!’

  We collected wood for our modest potbelly stove that kept us snug on board. The nights were becoming chilly, but the clear sparkle of the water still beckoned us in each day. On the shore, the pink, blue, and quartz stones were like jewels, each one I lifted for a closer inspection made a creepy, long-legged spider skitter in one direction, while I scurried in another. Some of the rock formations stirred our imaginations; they were reportedly over one hundred million years old. I wondered what had trodden here before us. If only they could whisper their secrets.

  As we gathered information on the Peterborough Hydraulic Lock, a stranger took great pleasure enlightening us that farther along the Trent Severn the depth was down to three feet. With our five feet draft, this caused some anxious creasing of the crew’s foreheads.

  ‘The lock-keepers will tell you about it, but everyone is having problems,’ he expounded. But the fearless Mariah carried on in the face of adversity, knowing that somewhere along the line, someone would tell us what to do. Well, at least we hoped they would. Twice we bumped our bottom; there was no damage and no water less than five feet.

  The locals we met along the Trent Severn Waterways were intrigued with our travels.

  ‘You sailed all that way in that boat?’ they’d say with what seemed to me unnecessary emphasis on ‘that’.

  But Mariah had her own exclusive claims to fame. In England, she’d been perched on the highest hill in Hertfordshire and sped along the M25 motorway; now we were going to put her in a large bath tub that lifts into the air and then on a railway track, quite a feat for an ocean going vessel. Canada has two unique systems aside from the usual locks. The first is a Lift Lock. We drove into a large bathtub, and a door rises out of the depths behind us to secure us in. Another boat at the top does the same, and his weight pushed water from somewhere below him into somewhere below us. He came down, while we went up. Underneath us both was a large, hopefully strong, hydraulic ram. The ride was speedy and smooth. Peering over a twenty metre ledge in a boat was bizarre.

  The second unique system is the Marine Railway or The Big Chute. For economic reasons and as a barrier to prevent migration of the parasitic sea lamprey, a huge one hundred tonne open carriage was built over granite that separates converging waterways. Riding on twin tracks, it lifts boats out of the water, over the rock, to off load them into the river on the other side. Mariah, held by slings, was over seventeen metres high, looking out over a sheer drop of hard rock. As she rattled in the air, our hearts rattled to the same rhythm.

  Aside from the fairground rides through Canada, the scenery was by far the most breathtaking we had seen anywhere in the world. In the translucent water, lilies did a Mexican wave in our soft wake, and sentinel silver birches stood tall on pink granite next to proud pines that mixed within a surplus of greens, tinged with an autumn flush. Each night, swinging on our three-hundred-and-sixty degree panorama, we savoured the views like a fine wine, trying to taste, absorb, and never forget.

  Bidding a sad farewell to the dramatic Canadian scenery, we eased our way back into the States and picked our time to go south along Michigan Lake.

  While the wind gathered spirit, Penguin Jack II (our dinghy) had been surfing behind us and trying to overtake Mariah, skewering violently. Ropes snatched for the last time and yanked loose the towing line. We shifted Mariah around to search for an eight-foot boat in a three hundred mile long lake. Fortunately, PJ’s bright green paint caught our eye, and we fought the growing waves to salvage the wayward dinghy. Having been born in a brothel, PJ was clearly independent and lacking in any manners. The white-knuckle ride that was our boat made the retrieval challenging. Eventually, with skilful boat manoeuvres and ungraceful lurching, we reclaimed our rebellious dinghy. Abruptly, the winds gathered momentum with the fresh water and heaved the waves higher, the clatter of shifting equipment, plates, and books made me cringe. Noel gasped through the stinging rain to re-tie the prone mast that was trying to break free. Noel relied on his flexing knees, his earned balance, and a bit of luck while he weaved a spider’s nest of nautical knots to secure the heavy lump of timber.

  At last, rocking and rolling into a safe anchorage, we turned to the task of mucking-out the boat. Again, we were surprised and caught off guard (as we were in France) at how changing the dynamics of the boat, by dropping the mast, so radically changes its performance.

  After a couple of moon-lit dashes along Lake Michigan, we arrived in Chicago at 2 am on the first day in September. The towering, opalescent city lights welcomed us into its still bay. The next morning, bureaucrats turned us away from the shore. We could not step onto land from the anchorage area; we had to go into a marina. As budget conscious cruisers, we took advantage of being dumb foreigners and sweet-talked the marine police into allowing us to dock at their private jetty, while we explored Chicago’s sights and did the paperwork.

  Actually, the best way to see Chicago is via boat, puttering through both its adolescent and mature, tall buildings, watching the rat race scurry by. This was the beginning of an entirely new adventure, heading south in mid-west America.

  From Chicago, there are two routes to take; we opted for the Sanitary and Ship Canal that offered superior scenery. This leads to the Illinois River. Not too far into the Canal there was Barge City, my words for a place where there were two hundred foot long barges parked bow to stern, as far as the eye could see; the channel between left just inches leeway for any traffic.

  As I squinted through our tatty binoculars, I was convinced a barge was heading our way, and I could not see a clear way ahead. With little time, we squeezed into a small gap, dwarfed by huge, rusted monsters. From behind the wall of barges around us, a monstrosity glided past. This thing, with the tug pushing it along was over a quarter of a mile long and one hundred feet wide! We were a little awe struck at the captain’s deft handling. We waited until four of these monsters had gone by and slowly poked out our nose. After a mile, we caught up with yet another behemoth. Politely, we asked if we could overtake (knowing the mile marker you were at was a necessity at all times). We had to wait for the captain’s permission to pass and obey his requests. We finally grasped his southern drawl after many whispers of ‘what d’he say?’ He gave the signal, so we upped the revs and started overtaking a boat over 1200 feet long, that’s seventeen barges plus the pushing t
ow boat! Halfway alongside, we saw an approaching barge was static, tied to a bank, but we would not fit the three of us alongside, so the throttle received an extra shove. With our mind taking great leaps from, yes, we’ll make it to no, we won’t, and the throttle receiving the abuse that matched our thoughts, we slipped through just before we created a unique type of boat concertina.

  We had been chatting about it for months, and with a giddy blend of trepidation and anticipation, we crossed the threshold onto the famous Mississippi River. We had only heard negative experiences about this part of the trip, which heightened the emotions. This corridor of commerce runs, in total, for over seventeen hundred miles from Minneapolis, MN to New Orleans, LA. We traversed just two-hundred-and-fifty miles of this fast flowing, muddy water, where often you’d see historic paddle-wheel boats gliding past. The current was with us, but running fast, giving us an extra three knots; good for speed, bad for mistakes.

  There was little information available for this section, so for the first night we had to find our own anchorage. Tip-toeing off the channel (the charts had no depths), we found enough room to anchor. With the new trip line tied securely onto our anchor with a floating fender, I dropped the anchor and miraculously the knot unravelled. I watched in wonder as our fender took off on its own.

  Without thought, Noel and I grappled to fix the outboard onto the dinghy and I jumped in, feeling a bit like Jane Bond on a mission to rescue. We had anchored behind a submerged wall (a wing dam) which gave us a little reprieve from the dominant current; however the fender had, by this time, built up some speed. Racing towards it in the dinghy, I caught up with the fender and scooped it up in a heroic fashion, I turned just before reaching the unforgiving current of the main channel. I revved the two horse-power outboard hard, the engine coughed, and I prayed. Somewhat late, my mind decided to offer some thought. If I were caught in the current, in the main channel, our small outboard would not have coped; I’d have been whisked off down the Mississippi with only PJ for company. I upped the revs more and was shaking by the time I reached Mariah. What a foolish thing to do, risk my life for an old fender!

  The Mississippi was an exhilarating cruise. The clean sandy beaches, parks, and lush vegetation possessed an unexpected beauty. Along the way, we found some fabulous rest stops out of the channel, out of the current, and away from the commercial traffic. We were approaching the Ohio River turn-off and poignantly ended our trip along the Mississippi.

  ‘Hurricane Ivan is heading for Mobile, Alabama.’ The radio updated us on the relentless hurricanes that were only a few hundred miles away. Being inland, we felt safe from the awesome winds, however, when hurricanes move to a large expanse of land, the rain comes.

  ‘I’m standing here near the Tennessee River, watching pleasure craft and yachts break free from their moorings and crash into bridges,’ gasped the commentator on the radio, fully in tune with my horror. The Tennessee runs into the Ohio, our next river. The Ohio was running at three to four knots current – against us. That meant our average speed would be a monotonous one to two knots. Luckily, there was a protected, pretty anchorage just before the raging river, near a town named Cairo. We sat there for a long week, waiting for the Ohio River to calm. We tackled jobs on the boat and took trips to the town every other day.

  The outing to town was a marathon. We dinghied ashore, climbed a ten foot muddy bank, and trekked a mile across fields overgrown with a mesh of weeds. Mozzies were fearsome and waged a full-on war. We then climbed a levee bank, which was ideal rattle snake foliage, and ultimately reached a gravel road. We were now half way there. The rest of the journey was a bit easier and after dragging our push-bikes (and many sock burrs) thus far, we were able to enjoy a ride. Loaded on the outward journey with bags of rubbish and all our groceries homebound made for a somewhat challenging exercise.

  With flood waters still rampaging down the Ohio River, we prepared for battle and turned into the thick brown, debris-ridden river. Our speed slowed to a laboured two knots speed over the ground, while we played dodgems with the floating trees. The Ohio River houses two locks, which raised us up higher, away from sea level. However, water levels were so high, we motored right over the top of the locks, walls and all! At the second lock, while going over the top of the huge superstructure, we stopped dead in the water. Our hardworking Yanmar was pushed to the red as an enormous tugboat, thrusting fifteen barges, crept up our rear. As the barge crawled nearer, we stared at the land that was not moving by, and the Yanmar started to scream, not much before I did. Suddenly, Noel had the bright idea of tacking. Weaving left to right, we broke through the current, and the shore started moving along again.

  We continued on and motored for long days, trying to get through this laborious section with haste. When we reached Tennessee, we started going down-hill with the current flowing south, the same direction as us, into the Gulf of Mexico.

  The Cumberland River was enchanting. Well, I am not sure if it was the magic of the place or the fact that we were reading Harry Potter at the time. That evening two hooting owls, perched on a tree across the narrow river, entertained us for hours with their mystical calls.

  After the Cumberland and Tennessee River, we entered the last stretch of the system that would lead us south into Mobile, which was just east of New Orleans, into the Gulf of Mexico. The Ten-Tom Canal connects the Tennessee River with the Tombigbee River; this was our last fresh water canal. The locks appeared newer and quieter in the Tenn-Tom. The waterway was sparsely populated and we took delight in watching the majestic Blue Herons sit in the almost naked trees with the onset of winter.

  The cold nipped at our extremities, a price we paid for completing this trip in winter, but the cloak of warmth from people of the Deep South warded off the chill. We lived through part of winter, in Demopolis, Alabama, experiencing the way of life at first hand, while we worked on Mariah in preparation for the Pacific Ocean.

  Living within a community such as Demopolis, Alabama was what travelling was all about, not the latest tourist attraction, but the people, the culture, the feel of the place. The locals instantly accepted us, and their welcoming smiles were contagious. We easily slipped into their ways and their rhythmic accents. Listening to their voices was like pouring dark molasses from a warm drum, thick, rich, and leisurely. You could hear the melodic beat of country music beneath their day-to-day conversations. We knew their laid back attitude was absorbed deep into our hearts when we tentatively thought about making a decision tomorrow.

  While working towards departure, and victualling the boat we had ducked into a rather plain looking cafe. Situated within a semi-industrial area, we were surprised at the cleanliness and comfortable surroundings. We were on the run, between picking up fuel filters and our last supermarket shop.

  ‘Two burgers and two glasses of milk, please.’ That’s all we wanted.

  The burgers were nothing short of brilliant within a toasted bun that was full of fresh, crisp salad, too.

  ‘Thank you,’ we said to the waitress, when she collected our plates, ‘we just have to tell you, we are from Australia and that is one of the best hamburgers we have had since Australia!’

  ‘Well, sir, ma’am,’ the waitress smiled, ‘that is so very nice of you to say so.’

  But, what we didn’t realise, was that our “waitress” was the owner. As we gathered our belongings to leave and pay at the counter near the door, the entire staff stood in a line. The owners, waitresses, chef and washer-up, all smiled at us.

  ‘We just want to say, it has been a pleasure to meet you and an honour to serve you today.’ The owner said sincerely.

  Noel and I then walked down the line of employees while they shook our hands, and refused to take any money from us when we left! They were so thrilled to have foreign visitors that took the time to thank them for their food, they treated us like royalty. And, that just about sums up the Alabamian way!

  We said our farewells to PJ, our dinghy, in Alabama. The kitchen cupboard s
heets were slowly separating, and it was only fair he retired. We searched for a replacement without much luck. Until, rather despondently, we were strolling around the yard and called up to a guy standing on his boat, on the hard.

  ‘D’ya know anywhere we can buy a dinghy?’

  ‘You can have this one.’ And with that he tossed over the handrails a perfect, beautiful fibreglass dinghy, complete with brass row-locks, oars, and a neat little plaque.

  ‘I was about to throw it away,’ he said.

  We named her Matilda, and she was destined to travel home with us.

  During our river cruising we had felt that things weren’t quite right with our house in England. A tenant had left and the estate agents said they couldn’t find another. So, with winter becoming chilly and causing boat work to slow, and with a longing to see my family we decided to do some land travel in Europe.

  We left Mariah on the hard in the marina in Demopolis, Alabama. Mum and Dad had offered to buy us our airfare back to the UK to see them for a few weeks. Organising the trip before Christmas was a rush, but with the boat in a safe and reasonable marina, at one hundred American dollars per month, we were happy to go. We could also visit our great friends, Den and ‘Tash, in the Netherlands.

  ‘We can’t wait to see you,’ ‘Tash and I had declared simultaneously.

  They were about to become parents to twins! Their boat, Frodo, patiently waited for them in the USA.

  Getting around America on land was only easy if you had a car. We researched public transport and found the only way to get to an international airport was via coach. Locals in the marina were horrified that we thought about travelling this way and quickly a cruiser offered us a lift to the airport via his home. It was a four-hour drive to his home near Nashville and a further hour’s drive to the airport. En route to his place, he told us of his time in a straight-jacket; we started to feel a little vulnerable cooped up in a van with a stranger who had officially been on the wrong side of sane at some point. The couple were hospitable, and a few days in the middle of the country was relaxing; however, the odd tic the guy produced and the unstable emotions, plus the gun, made us a little tense. The hour’s drive to the airport at 4:30 am wasn’t fun, and the hour long argument with his wife was disconcerting, and I shivered at my imaginings at his actions if we were not there. We knew we would return back to Mariah a different way. Being cut off, with strangers, in a remote location in a foreign country seemed a rather daft thing to do.