Sep 20 - Rabbiting Can

The buoys are tethered to big concrete blocks. Occasionally the tether is just the right length, and the current is just the right strength, that the buoy can submerge for a period of time and then suddenly pop up, like a rabbit out of a hole. Never get in the way of a rabbiting buoy, if it pops up under your canoe it can cause serious grief.

We've read reports of rabbiting buoys. We've seen two of them this trip. They are not common. I saw a green can buoy today disappear before my eyes. It was off to the side, no threat to us. I wanted to show it to Jim, but it didn't pop up.

Wing dams are long stone dams which are generally submerged (except at low water) and are placed by the Army Corps to direct the flow of water into the navigation channel. There are thousands of them. At the water levels we've been paddling wing dams are a nuisance, but not a hazard. Because they reduce flow, they cause big slow moving eddies downstream, and a bit of turbulence right as you cross - boils and some tight little eddies. Not scary and nothing that's a problem for little Miss Tuffy.

Just after I saw the disappearing green can buoy we crossed a wing dam. While crossing perhaps 50 feet of boils and eddies below the wing dam - thump - the green can popped up out of the eddy and bumped Miss Tuffy. Popped up and hit the boat right in front of my paddle. Surprised the hell out of me, but did no damage.

There's a pretty crummy photo below of Jim with a wayward can, showing the scale.

The can that hit us was not in its proper place - as the navigation channel buoy markers are never at a wing dam. And it was not near the place where I first saw it. It is certainly a member of the Brotherhood of Untethered Cans.

Imagine the odds - this is a mighty big river, now half a mile wide, sometimes a mile. We've seen two rabbiting buoys all trip. And this joyriding untethered buoy gets caught in the wing dam eddy and pops exactly in our location. Frickin' unbelievable.

Warm and sunny all day. Some headwind, but not too bad. Very nice camp in the sand opposite the big industrial area south of New Madrid, MO. River mile 883. Unlike some recent industrial areas, this one is not spewing stinky smoke.

We stopped briefly in New Madrid for water and ice cream. Because we won't leave the canoe alone, we did not go to the riverfront Civil War Museum. And, true to our fears, the nice fellow who greeted us when we landed said that last year a kayaker had his boat stolen right in that very park while he was in town. What a way to ruin a trip and to destroy the trust and delight in human nature that a trip like this builds.

In the photo of a map below, the red line connects last night's and tonight's camps. 21.6 crow miles, 43 river miles.

We are healthy and living in the tent is AOK, but we do miss our bears a lot.