Day 17

NEARLY A CATASTROPHE!!!

Yesterday's blog ended with this picture of my boat shored along the edge of a community park. It looked like a good place to stay. I went to bed in the boat's cabin at about 11:00 that night. Throughout the night I noticed that while in my sleeping bag I kept sliding toward the back of the boat. At 4:30 in the morning I woke up to see a bright flashlight shinning on my boat from a distance. I figured it was the police investigating why my boat was tied up there. I opened the door and stuck my head out. I said, "what's up?" The guy with the light on his head said, I'm sorry....I'm just bow fishing....I won't bother you". Then he said, "Do you need any help?", which I thought was a strange question, but then I looked around me and realized the boat was completely out of the water. Not only that but the back of the boat was a foot from edge of the river. It was then I realized the river had dropped 2 1/2 feet between 11:00 at night till 4:30 that morning. For all I knew the river was going to continue dropping, so I hurriedly got out of the boat to see if I could push it in the river. I wasn't able to move it more than half a foot and the back of the boat was acting like a bulldozer blade pushing mud into a pile and hitting big rocks used to keep the river bank in place. I wasn't sure what to do so I started looking up marine towing services. The closest one was 35 miles away and didn't open for three more hours. Anout then the bow fishing guy came back and I said "hey, can you help me push the boat back in the water?" He got out in the mud with me and we stared moving the bolders, then used our hands to scoop the mud away from the back of the boat. After more pushing and rocking, we finally got the boat slid back in the water. I offered him money, but he didn't want to accept it, but I insisted and gave him $200.00 because it would have cost me a lot more than that if I had to pay somebody to tow it. He said he was recently laid off of his job and the money was going to help him out a lot.

After getting everything back in the boat, I did what I'd planned to do which was to cross the river to a McDonald's that has a dock. I spent a good bit of time cleaning up mud and reorgazing the boat before going up to get an Egg McMuffin.

My next stop was Point Pleasant, West Viginia.

Point Pleasant has a courtest dock, riverfront park and an opening in their floodwall so boaters can visit town.

Point Pleasant is also home to that wonderful urban ledgend....Mothman". I toured the museum.

The next stop of the day was Gallipolis.

Gallipolis is another boater friendly town that has services nearby and a beutiful community park.

I ended my travels today with this baby beaver at the site where I'm camping. Mother and father beaver took off down the river, leaving their baby behind. He (or she) didn't seem to be too afraid of me and even swam right up to my boat. According to some folks I met here, it's not unusual for parent beavers to leave their babys alone for hours at a time. Today I finished up at mile 307 and covered 57 miles. I'm right at the edge of Huntington, West Virginia, but camped out on the Ohio side of the river.