What Happened??

I realized the other day that of the 3 page blog I wrote only the title made it to my blog.. So sorry. I am a terrible writer and our computer system on the boat doesn't always cooperate. I really don't even remember all the witty things I wrote, so that blog is a wash! lol
I don't have much to report other than I was in my first (and second) accident on the river.
Wanna hear about it, ok, its goes like this.

We did crew change on Tuesday and I stayed to work a little extra.....should have gotten off. About 9:30 that night our front left barge hit the bank. No damages to the tow or barge, but because it was a tanker barge we had to wait for the coast guard to come look at it. Bells were ringing, PFD's (personal floatation devices)were coming out, it was controlled chaos. But the guys handled it and I stayed out of the way. All was well. The next morning after breakfast, business as usual, except that we are aground waiting on the Coast Guard. I had laid back down, when the Leadman knocks on my door and says,"Put on you PFD. Another boat has run aground above us. Their tow broke apart and is headed our way and we can't get out of the way. The captain will be ringing the alarm in a few minutes" I did just that. But I went up to the second deck so I could see and hear what was going on. About the time I got up there the leadman came back through and said,"If the runaway barge hits the boat, it will sink in a couple of minutes. The good news is you can get to the tow, and climb off on dry land. So you do that and stay out of the way. If it hits the tow, stay on the boat unless you hear the abandon ship alarm." Now at this point, I was in full panic mode, but the old school teacher came out and said handle the situation, fall apart later. The alarm sounded, the barge came around the bend, and headed straight for the stern of the boat. At the last possible minute, the current caught it and it hit the corner of the tow and despite the efforts of our crew, knocked five of our barges loose. They stayed together in a string and floated ten miles down river before another boat caught them at Rosedale. And all this before 8 a.m. It took until that afternoon for the Coast Guard to arrive and clear us to move and get our other barges collected and on our way again. After that first 24 hours I was ready to be put off on the next sandbar!! But life settled down and we had an non eventful remainder of the trip, until I got off 10 days later.



They got a new cook assigned for the other crew on my boat so I won't be tripping with them anymore. And I really liked them. The Cajun captain helped me refine my Shrimp Gumbo recipe.

(recipe follows)



I do hope to visit some other boats and trip on other rivers.


Despite the excitement, I still love my job. So till later.......