Monday photo feature

This photograph appeared on the CNN website this past week.  It's part of an article about the low flows on the Mississippi River.  You can view the article here.

While I don't think the article was intended to mislead people, the use of this photo is deceptive in my opinion.  The caption reads as follows:

The Mississippi River at Memphis -- shown here near the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge -- has slowed to a trickle. It was at its fifth-lowest level on record this week and continues to drop.

Actually, that's the Hernando DeSoto Bridge in the photo.  The Memphis-Arkansas Bridge is a mile or so downstream.  But the thing I take issue with is the suggestion that the little puddle pictured here is all there is of the Mississippi at Memphis right now.  It's not.  Just look at the last two photos in the post I put up yesterday.  As I said, even at historic low flows the Mississippi is a very big, very powerful river.

Maybe I shouldn't get upset about this.  But I constantly encounter people in our society whose understanding of basic river hydrology and continental drainage is shockingly poor.  We don't need an ostensibly serious news organization making that problem worse.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

The ravages of a lack of water

I went back down to the riverfront yesterday and found the water even lower than it had been on Tuesday.  At -10.76 feet on the Memphis gauge, it was just over a tenth of a foot lower .

I mentioned in Tuesday's post that the low level is putting a lot of stress on the marina.  Check out the bowed roof supports in these photos:

The marina is owned by its slip owners, sort of like a condo.  I'm not part of the ownership since I just rent a rack for my kayak down there, and I guess I'm glad not to be on the hook for the damage that's happening to the structure right now.  But on the other hand, I get a lot of enjoyment out of my use of the facility, and I hope the owners will be able to keep it in good repair.  I don't think the slip owners are a particularly wealthy group--the wealthy houseboat and yacht owners around here keep their boats at Pickwick Lake--so it remains to be seen how they address the damage once this low-water period has run its course.

Just like on Tuesday, I had to use another dock to have access to the water, and even at this dock there was just barely enough water to float my boat.  I did a quick depth-check with my paddle; the tip of the blade was probably an inch or two immersed in mud:

Meanwhile, not even the United States Coast Guard has a ramp that extends all the way down to the current water surface.  The USCG buoy tender the Kankakee is usually parked in this spot, but right now it's having to take up residence elsewhere:

I got in my boat and paddled for 60 minutes.  The low water level is causing all kinds of trouble for commercial vessels, but there's still plenty of water for paddling.  Even at a record-low level, the Mississippi is still a very big river:

Yep... interesting times in the lower Mississippi River basin.  Let's hope for some rain in the Midwest soon.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

This low-water season is REALLY low

I'm on a bit of a break from blogging.  Apologies to anybody who's been checking here multiple times hoping for something new.

Not much has changed since my last post, and that's the main reason I decided to give the blog a rest for a while.  The truth is that I was tired of writing essentially the same thing over and over.  Soon I'll post an update of what's been happening with my aches and pains and my efforts to keep some kind of exercise going until I find the motivation for pursuing paddling excellence once more.

The main reason for this post is to share some photos I took today in the harbor.  Yesterday the Mississippi River dropped to its lowest level ever recorded at Memphis.  The record low had been -10.70 feet on the Memphis gauge back in the summer of 1988, and yesterday afternoon the water dipped almost a tenth of a foot lower than that: -10.77 feet.

By the time I got down to the river this morning it had risen back to -10.65 feet... still all but the record low, as far as I'm concerned.  As I walked down to the marina, I found that the entire west end of it was in the mud:

Here's the dock where I normally put my boat in the water:

Low water puts a lot of stress on the marina.  Even the part of it that's still afloat has some piers that are touching the bottom, causing contortion in the roof line:

Since my normal dock was completely aground, I carried my boat around the corner to a dock that still had some water access:

First I paddled up toward the harbor's north end.  Up there a barge is sitting high and dry:

I headed back south, and stopped to take a picture where Bayou Gayoso empties into the harbor.  My guess is that the mound of dirt in the foreground is made up of sediment that's washed into the harbor from the bayou:

Farther south, down the hill from River Garden Park where the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race used to finish, an historic relic has been revealed.  Pictured here is some kind of old wooden boat complete with the engine block that I presume once propelled it.  I am not the first person to spot it: there's an orange traffic cone marking the site just to the right of this photo.  I hope that means our local archeologists are on it:

There are two marinas in the harbor.  I've shared pictures above of the one where I keep my boat.  The other one is some one thousand meters to the south, and it's not faring so well right now, either.  The entire west wing and much of the east wing are sitting in the mud.  The boats in this photo won't be going anywhere until the water comes up a few feet:

And here's a photo of the same marina from a different angle that local photographer Danny Day took yesterday.  I think he made better use of the light than I did (i.e., he's a better photographer):

All very fascinating, to be sure.  But I hope for the return of some rainfall to the Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland drainages soon.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.