Day 14 – October 3 – Little Diversion Channel Anchorage

Today our destination is the Little Diversion Channel chute just south of Cape Girardeau, Missouri.A chute is a small river or large creek that flows into a larger river. Fern was very specific in giving us good anchorage locations as she feels that the river has changed somewhat due to the recent storms in the Midwest. Several of the customary anchorage locations have been “silted out” as a result of this year’s rains. Loopers and other river travelers have (or at least should have) the Skipper Bob, Waterways, Quimby’s and several other self-published guide books that provide information about the waterways, ports of call and anchorages. Like any publication, these books are wonderful and exceeding helpful but when it comes to current information, one must trust the locals – and we certainly trust Fern.

The weather has been beastly hot and of course it is majorly humid here on the river. So we arrived at the Little Diversion chute anchorage hot, sweaty and greatly in need of air conditioning and a shower. We got all settled into our anchorage and Mark started the generator. It started just fine but it would not stay on and the error message that he was receiving was that we were receiving “no fresh water flow”. Mark spent about a couple of hours checking and rechecking everything that he could check above the water line and he concluded that the water intake must be clogged from when we had that encounter with the sandbar yesterday. So this means that we do not have generated power until we can get to Green Turtle Bay and a mechanic and/or diver can determine why the generator is not working. We only use our generator when we are anchored to run the AC and plug-in outlets, so while it is an inconvenience, we are able to adapt really rather well. The main boat batteries are strong enough to sustain the fridge and water pumps while we are at anchor so we feel comfortable at this time with not having a generator. What this means is that now we will be asleep as soon as the sun sets each evening and that is not a bad thing at all.

Three other boats anchored in the Little Diversion River with us. Only one other boat had we seen before. The friends that we had been traveling with have stayed in various harbors longer than we have but I am sure that they will catch up to us shortly. The two boats at the anchorage that we had not seen before were much larger (50 feet or so) than us and I am sure that they are not traveling at 7 knots or even at our greatly enhanced river current speed of 10 knots.


Hours on the water: 6.5
Nautical miles traveled: 61.3
Number of locks: 0
Time spent waiting at locks: 0
Tomorrow's Destination: I-57 Bridge Anchorage
What we're listening to: Four to Score by Janet Evanovich
What we watched: 0
Lesson for the day: Even with a new boat, something is always not working…
Obligatory knitting report: Mittens for Wunder Kids