This is my dock this morning, at which time the Mississippi River's level was 4.2 feet below zero on the Memphis gauge. That's my boat in the white cover in the left side of the photo.
At more "normal" levels there's at least 50 meters of water between the dock and the bank, but right now you can almost jump across. If the water drops another couple of feet or more, the dock will run aground. (The all-time recorded low reading on the Memphis gauge is -10.7 feet in July of 1988. I don't think this marina was in place back then.)
As I was paddling on Saturday morning, I saw a boat using sonar to take depth readings near the mouth of the harbor, where a lot of silt gets deposited. I knew a dredge wouldn't be far behind. Sure enough, by yesterday morning the lower reach of the harbor was crisscrossed with pipes and the dredge boat was firing up its cutterhead. That's the mouth of the harbor way off in the distance in this photo, but unless you're Steve Austin with his bionic eye I don't think you can see the dredging apparatus.
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