Finally some pictures

These are from the first day:




Docked for the night in St. Paul:

High Rollers

The rough waters were a little too much yesterday, so we pulled onto an Island for a few hours. We made repairs and improvements to the Sea Monkey. It's an ongoing project. We set sail again when the wind looked like it had died down, but it really didn't. Soon it was dark and we realized that our spotlight wasn't charged. We don't have a depth finder, so the best way to be sure to keep from hitting bottom is to stay in the barge lane. It's marked off by buoys and you need to find them in the dark. As each wave soaked the deck, we searched for the buoys with a flashlight, which worked but inflicted some wear and tear our nerves. We passed a barge, which had a few spotlights. We could see the buoys from their lights, but didn't want to hang around a boat that big for too long, so we high-tailed it out of there.

We decided to pull over in Mineiska, MN and look for a dock, but we ended up anchoring for an hour or so, to let the spotlight charge and to let the wind die down. We set sail one more time, using the spotlight sparingly. By then, the wind was pretty calm. I would use the spotlight for only a few seconds at a time to mark the buoy, then turn it off. I'd point the flashlight at that spot until it reappeared, keeping us on course. The spotlight died again as we were approaching lock and dam #5. Right out of the lock we found a dock in Wittman and called it a night.

This morning, we finally got a break. A tailwind! So I strung up the front tarp on the top deck as a sail. We'll post pictures later.

Slowly but Slowly

We just swing through Wabisha for breakfast and a few suppliles. Mother Nature isn't quite so kind today. We have got headwinds and waves. To keep the splash off of the computer, I have the towel wrapped around my me and taped to the screen.With the waves and wind coming at us and no current going with us, we have slow progress, but something is better than nothing and we need to cover some distance. Josh just stood up and the wind took his chair out from under him. He almost sat down into the river, but caught himself on the edge of the deck.

We're soooo thankful of Cindy at the Red Wing Marina for helping us out with the barrels, and at no charge! If we were still running with only ten barrels, the whole lower deck would be swamped under these rollers.

Getting Settled

I typed this one up last night when we were out of internet service. Sorry for the wait:

We woke up early yesterday, around 7 am, and headed down stream. I still didn't quite feel comfortable on the raft, what with all of the clutter and all. We had made great improvements from dropping all of the electrical gear and other things off at the mouth of the Minnesota. Aside from the clutter, the new vessel simply didn't feel right yet.

It wasn't far out of the cities when we found an old rotary bridge. We climbed around for an hour or so, found plenty of fire wood and took some good pics. I found an old rusty nut and bolt that was bigger than my fist!

Time was ticking and we had to cruise, but it wasn't even a mile down the river when we found a rope swing. We were all wanting to make good river time, but I had never been on a rope swing. And this was a HUGE rope swing, at least 75 feet tall. It was a low swing. If you hung on the bottom of the loop of the rope, you had to hold your chin up by your hands, an keep your legs up. The first time I went, I skimmed the water, then didn't quite want to let go and swung back toward shore. I yelped and stuck my legs down to drag on the water and slow down before the tree trunk. Of course, everyone got a kick out of it. After a few more swings, the other guys couldn't resist. Matt pulled the same move that I did and had to slow himself as he swung back toward shore. Josh launched out with strait arms and slid his butt on the water, but still had some good distance on the swing. I got a good first-person view of a swing with my camera. I had to hold it in my teeth to get the shot. We'll post it up when we find some high speed wi-fi.

We cruised for a few more hours and found ourselves just up river of lock and dam #2, which was our first lock and dam of the trip. We had an hour and a half wait because there was a barge coming up river. We could see the nose waiting in front of the lock and couldn't figure out why it wasn't moving. It was another day or so until I talked to Bruce Moe and he mentioned that a lot of the barges are too long to fit into the locks whole, so the split them in half. During the wait, we added some 2 foot high plywood to the front to act as a splash guard, but not quite extending across the full width of the deck. We later added two angled wings to run the full width.

The lock and dam is a unique experience. We were the last of about 10 boats to pull into the lock. "How you doin'?" I yelled out. He took one look at our boat and with a grin on his face he shouted, "Better than you." He threw us a few ropes and we hung on tight. The couple in the boat ahead of us got a kick out of our craft and we went along with the chit-chat. It wasn't until I saw the water mark on the wall about a few feet above the water when I realized that we were dropping. The lock-keeper said that our boat wouldn't make it down river. But we have confidence in our design. After dropping about 15 feet, the doors opened and off we went.

It's not too surprising that amongst all of the yachts and houseboats, the Sea Monkey sticks out like a soar thumb. Everywhere we go, people gaze, smile and wave. One family in a rather superb looking craft yelled out things like "that's the best boat I've ever seen!"

Josh drove most of yesterday while Matt and I wrote in our journals, fixed up the Sea Monkey, read books or just enjoyed the scenery and waved to all of the locals. The goal was to land in Red Wing by night fall. We couldn't yet travel at night because we didn't have the proper lighting. We glued 4 different LED lights to make one, over-the-top white stern light, but still needed some C batteries for the red and green bow light. When we were only a few miles before Red Wing, the sun was about to set when we found a giant sand mountain in the middle of the river. The side facing the barge land looked a little crowded, so we circled around the back side. The slope was nearly at a 45 degree angle. Matt and I then realized why we brought the mountain bikes. As we climbed the mountain with the bikes, the sand eroded and each step only gave us a few inches. After an absolutely exhausting climb, Matt took the first trip down the hill. First down the shallow side, then he took the corner down the steep side. I took the same route. It was steep, and fast, but the sand was so soft, there wasn't much worry of a painful landing. On the second trip, we each took the steep side right off the bat and on the third, we bombed it straight into the water, no breaks down the whole slope. Three runs was enough for us. So we headed back to the Sea Monkey, started a fire with the drift wood we collected earlier, and hung out on the soft, steep sloped beach.

Today we slept past sunrise quite a bit, about 8 I think. The raft was still dragging it's belly along the surface, and we would get water on the deck on almost every boat wake. When we went through lock and dam #3, we got a green light right off the bat and went through in a matter of 15 minutes. Much faster than our first lock. We found Red Wing in the late morning and pulled up to the marina to ask if they knew where we could get some more barrels. We were quickly welcomed with open arms by Cindy, co-owner of the marina, and she directed us to her collection of barrels and lumber. "Take anything you need" she said. Our jaws dropped as we realized that we stumbled right into the solution of the low buoyancy problem. Matt was the chief engineer and foreman in the upgrade process. It took us a few hours but we came up with a great design and put it together with no problems, except when we ran out of screws. By then we had installed one more barrel and could hardly believe the difference it made. There was a Runnings store a few blocks from a dock down river so we started to set sail. Before we left, we sparked up conversation with Smokey, captain of "The Smoke On the Water." He mentioned that we should have a fire extinguisher. With the extended length from the barrels, we are now required to have one. He went to his boat, and just gave us one. No questions asked!

I had heard that people on the river are just wonderful, but I was still surprised to see how truly gracious and friendly everyone really is on the river. Every so often, we'll stop and talk to fellow boaters, liqueur store clerks, or just people on the dock, and absolutely everyone is fantastic to be around and glad to help in whatever way that they can. Everyone you meet on the river may as well be your friendly next door neighbor, simply a delight!

Mother nature has favored us today. Lake Pepin, known to be the roughest part of the river, was calm and gave us no trouble. With all of our proper lighting, we cruised our first night ride. Between Josh's GPS mapping phone, the river charts and the spot light, it was no trouble to find our way in the dark. We put up some solar garden lights earlier today and now our boat is lit up like a Christmas tree! We made it to the end of the lake and docked ourselves in Pepin City. The marina was all closed up so we found a public dock to tie up to. The air over the water is a bit chilly, but it's not too bad in the cabin with the tarps dropped down. It feels like more than just a few days since we were just setting off in our barely-floating raft with piles of batteries, motors and bags everywhere on the deck. We've become organized, better engineered, and most importantly, very comfortable on the raft. It was a smooth transition. Life is good on a raft.

Pictures from the launch

The first day

We got up at 4 am to finish getting ready. We left Diamond Lake about 8 am. My dad Bruce, his buddy Bruce Moe, and Matt's dad Jon drove us and the raft to Bloomington.

We brought 2 gas motors, that we had planned on taking as backups, but the bigger one hadn't been running well. And the electric motor, but the speed controller for it that Matt and Ben bought on eBay didn't work so we couldn't control the speed, and the cables and motor got to hot and couldn't be used for very long at a time. We got a newer motor on the way to the river thanks to a deal from Crystal Pierz Marine.

The boat launch location in Bloomington on the Minnesota river that Ben posted was off by a few miles, we didn't figure that out until we got there. So it was kind of crazy giving everyone who was coming to see us off the new directions. Plus every driver got a 5 dollar fine for driving in a state park without a sticker. It took a while to get us loaded because we had too much stuff, including extra plywood and 2x4s in case we needed them.

When we started going the raft was very low in the water, we hadn't tested it with it loaded up with all our gear. Waves from bigger boat wakes splashed up over the front, and the bottom back studs were plowing water. Half way to the Mississippi we decided we needed to get rid of a bunch of weight. We called my Dad and Bruce who met us at a marina on the Mississippi. On the way there we were stopped by the sherifs water patrol for being over loaded, they couldn't see our registration numbers because the raft was too low in the water. We had to unload the electric motor, 5 of the 6 batteries, the gas generator, the solar panels, one gas motor a couple full gas cans, and a bunch of extension cords. It was much lighter but we wouldn't be relying on electricity to power us like Matt and Ben had planned. We went a few miles down the river and stopped in St Paul for the night and had supper at a restaurant on the river then went for a walk and relaxed on the raft. We'll post some pictures tomorrow, but its late and we've had a long day

LAUNCH!

We launch tomorrow (Saturday 7-11-08) at noon onto the Minnesota river from Bloomington. If you want to see the raft in action, come for the launch! You could get off 35-W at 106th st W and then go southbound on Lyndale ave S, you'll run right into the landing (right next to 35-W).

If you want to find it on google maps, search for the coordinates: 44 48' 04.27"N 93 17' 18.92"W

See you there!

The First Storm

"I'll just say it wasn't quite ready for whitecaps. Ben will have to tell that story."

We were so anxious to put the raft in the water, we didn't even bother to strap the barrels on. Besides, the wind was coming off of shore and there were no waves. Well we lowered the platform in the water while we slid the barrels underneath. We took it out for a spin and life was good, but the water was still to chilly for swimming, so we just tied the raft to shore.

It didn't move over night, but the next day, the wind shifted toward shore. I was talking to Matt and looking at the raft through the window. Just as I said "well we've got some waves but it looks ok," a barrel fell out from under the deck. "GATTA GO" I said as I ran out the door and down to shore.

Without hesitation I stripped down to my underpants and hopped into the water to find that three more barrels had fallen out. I ran down the shoreline and one at a time, threw them back on shore so they weren't going anywhere, then tended to the raft again. Each time I tried to pull the raft up onto shore over the rip rap shoreline, I'd lose another barrel or two, run to chase it, and start over again. All the while, I was cursing mother nature (not the best idea) It wasn't long before I was cold, exhausted and out of barrels to chase. To top it off, the raft was only getting heavier as it sat in the water.

I finally gave in and called my dad and Matt to help out. I pulled it down to the boat landing and while I waited for the rescue, I had to stand in the water and hold the deck away from the shorline to keep the waves from tossing it into the rocks. My bare feet were killing my feet but the cold numbed them up well enough.

My dad and Matt finally showed up at the same time. While my dad backed the trailer in and I stood in the water in my skivies, Matt rolled up his pants and walked in.

"Man, the Rockey bottom is hurting my feet" he said. I didn't dignify that with a response. We got the raft loaded up and out of the water, we each had a beer, then I took a long hot shower.

Yes, we underestimated the wrath of Diamond Lake. And now your thinking, how will they make it down the river in fewer than ten peaces if they can't even make it on the lake. Well, the barrels are now strapped on and should hold strong, thanks to Leo Schwise. If we do hit a rock hard enough to break the straps, it will only be one or two, because they are all strapped on seperately.

Maiden Voyage

We strapped a 9.8hp outboard on it and motored around Diamond Lake. All systems are go. We picked up some folks and had a few drinks to christen the raft.

Raft Construction Continued

The raft is nearing completion. These pics show the barrels being strapped on, the cabin being built, and the first bench being installed. The cabin made deck a lot less floppy.