The first thing I noticed was there was very few people out, and it was truly a beautiful warm summer evening last night. Not quite sure why there weren't more boats out, but it was a Monday night.
View up river.As I headed up river, I began to notice the water level is much lower than before.
AND, the drift was extremely heavy. Everything from empty Gatorade bottles, to Styrofoam (from docks maybe?), Basketballs, plastic bags, etc. And the infamous "Outdrive Killers", as I like to call them, the hidden trees. Ranging in size from little twigs to full blown trees. Here's some examples! And you can see the visibilty of them off the bow. They're incredibly hard to see when driving into the sun.
So with the cost of gas right now, and the amount of drift in the river, I decided to take a casual stroll and plot out the marker buoys on my GPS. It's something I've always meant to do, because at night, they are virtually impossible to see until you're right up on them. So I traveled about 10-15 miles up and plotted their locations. Now I feel better for those late night rides back from the fireworks at New Richmond. Here's a shot of the buoy. Definitely wouldn't want to hit that at cruising speed, something about solid steel, fiberglass and 30mph doesn't sound healthy!
Now the sun was beginning to set. I started heading back, and this is the view on the way back. Can't beat a sunset on the water!
And since my first mate decided to ditch me for the Fall Out Boy concert at Riverbend, I decided to tie up behind there just to see if I was missing anything. Kicked back, had a beer, and listened to the music. Darkness grew over the water, and I ended up leaving about 10:00. I was headed back at idle speed, due to the drift. Right off Coney Island I noticed this, which was a great reminder of why I like to drive slow at night!
Memorial Day weekend's approaching quickly, so there'll be lots of stories to tell after that! Stay tuned.
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