Day 34

Day 34
I was on the water again by 6 AM, no use fighting the trains when you camp within spitting distance of the tracks. I knew today was going to be another busy day on the water with many pleasure boats running up an down river.  The high water has covered all the sandbars but a few, so boaters are all running about and drifting rather than hanging out on the beaches. I would be passing through Dubuque and I knew there would be several hundred boats out. The first 15 miles or so went as smoothly as they could given the conditions and shortly after noon I was at Lock and Dam 11. The Lock Master opened the gates and pushed me straight through, he warned me about the high volume of boat traffic down stream before sending me south. When the gates opened I could see the town of Dubuque and hundreds of boats of all shapes and sizes. I stopped at two parks just down stream from the dam but both were closed and showed signs of very recently being under water. I inched along fighting boat wakes from every direction as a boat passed me coming or going every 15 seconds. I made very slow progress for the next several hours, keeping my eyes open for a place to land and at least up load my blog posts now that I had good reception. About 4 I saw a small beach and paddled hard sliding in as the boat wakes pounded the 20 feet of sand. As I was up loading my posts the boat wakes pounded my boat, slowly filling it with water. I did a quick check of the Corps of Engineers maps and saw if I did 4 more miles I would have covered 90 miles in the last 2 and a half days. As I paddled on I saw a large barge headed in my direction. I could see jet skis and boats cutting close to him and making things very stressful for him as well. I picked up my VHF radio and got him to answer. I told him he had my authority to have the deck hands break out the 2 inch fire hose and start spraying down anyone to close. We both had a good laugh at an otherwise very tense situation. As the barge and I were passing several large power boats tried to pass him on the left and were about to run me over. Twice I had to stand up and wave my paddle over my head to warn them off, not an easy trick in a canoe fighting barge waves. After the barge passed I spotted a nice sand bar on the opposite shore, I had to wait about 10 minutes for a break in the boat traffic so i could paddle across. Making the beach I quickly set up the tent, lit a fire, bathed and started fishing. I caught 5 nice catfish in about 10 minutes. From off the mostly empty water a john boat with a fan mounted on back pulled up to the beach. I recognized the boat as a bow fishing set up. Next a large cabin cruiser pulled up on the sand bar as well. In short order one of the men on the cabin cruiser was asking where I was from, when I said Jackson MS, the conversation started to flow. They passed me down beers and asked me all manner of questions about my trip. They told me this beach was named survivor island after a couple got stuck here years ago. They offered to charge my phone or help in any way they could. It was nice to meet some more real river people but as the sun set I was alone in camp. I have been very sore in the evenings and I spent an hour stretching and massaging while watching the local fire works shows before falling to sleep. Today I also found out my partnership with Wolf River Conservancy for fund raising is almost set up. I am very excited to raise funds to help this group clean and maintain this Mississippi river tributary that flows through Memphis TN.