Daily stats
Start: 8:10 AM - Helena, AR
Finish: 3:30 PM - Smith Point (river feature) MS
Time: 7:20
Daily dist: 65
Total dist: 662 miles
Weather: Calm and cool
Start: 8:10 AM - Helena, AR
Finish: 3:30 PM - Smith Point (river feature) MS
Time: 7:20
Daily dist: 65
Total dist: 662 miles
Weather: Calm and cool
The Ikkuma didn't quite fit in Buddy's truck
Buddy and his son
This morning Buddy and his son came down to the warehouse at 7:00 AM sharp to help move me and my gear back to the boat landing. With my food bags now plump full to capacity it took a bit of fussy packing (and repacking) to get everything back into the Ikkuma. Once again a quick handshake farewell and pictures, (this time of me and the little Christmas tree my mother sent in the last food drop) and I was on the water again.
Me and the little Christmas tree. We never did take ours down till New Years anyway
With the late start (8:10 AM) I was not expecting to put on more than 50 miles today. However after just a few hours I had already surpassed the 30 mile mark and I started to wonder just exactly how fast I was going. So for the first time since St. Louis I dug out the GPS and fired it up. What I discovered was almost startling. Just floating in the current at rest I was moving 4 miles per hour. When I got straightened out and ran carefully in the main flow I was sustaining 8.5 miles per hour often spiking up to 9 mph. No wonder I was logging up the miles so fast this morning. Of course the slight tail wind blowing down stream helped too.
Actually after complaining about what an upstream wind can do on the river I must explain what a downstream wind can do. Instead of heaping the river up into waves as it does when it blows up stream, a down stream wind irons out the wrinkles in the water making it mirror smooth. It was in conditions like that which I spent most of the day. In addition I went four hours without a single bit of tow traffic. I was able to pick my line in the main current and just cruise. It was the best day of paddling yet. Everything just felt good with the boat and paddle and the miles flew by.
A beautiful day for paddling - I almost felt sorry for folks stuck at work :-)
Last night I spoke to John Ruskey from Quapaw Canoe company based in xxx with a Helena outpost as well. I had used the Helena location as a mail drop for my re-supply box. John was going to be running a tour in one of his multi paddler war canoes on the river today. Unfortunately he was putting in over 40 miles from where I started. We figured it couldn’t hurt to try to find each other during the day just in case so we did phone check-ins a couple times during the day. I caught John on the phone at 2:00 and for a moment with how fast I was going had hopes that I might be able to catch him but he was still another 20 miles ahead of me. Some other day for sure. What I did learn was that just 12 miles ahead of me he had seen some nice sand bars so I had a destination for the night.
I pounded out those last 12 miles in just an hour and a half and set up camp on a beautiful sand bar on the southern edge of a big bend in the river pretty close to river mile 600 - 65 miles from where I started seven and a half hours before. I can’t wait to see what an early start and full day of paddling will bring.
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