Old muddy river would be more apropos. As you can see, the river level is fairly low, the skies are grey and a light rain is falling, but other than moving the band into the salon instead of leaving them on deck, nothing changed for the nightly cruise on the Steamboat Natchez.
They usually have a crowd of close to two hundred on a cruise; due to the weather and the day (Tuesday), we sailed with just about half that many people. Boarding and the first dinner seating began at six; the ship sailed at seven for a two hour trip on the Mississippi.
The Natchez (top two decks in the bow shown above) was built in 1975, though most of the engine room came from an earlier steamboat, the Clairton, built in 1925. The main dining salon is the lower deck on this picture, with another bar and the (usual) band stand a deck above. The lower deck houses one small dining room, the boiler and engine rooms and access to the paddlewheel.
I could get used to this. The trip was amazingly smooth; the only time you remembered you were on a ship was during the couple of minutes it took to turn around at the end of the outbound journey. The chug of the steam engines, even the slap of the twenty-five ton oak paddlewheel, were remarkably quiet. The distance from the lower deck down to the water is less than three feet - you truly have a sensation of skimming along the water.
Bad night picture of shoreline taken from the lower deck. Note to Canon Powershot: Your "night shot" setting? Useless.
The engine room is set up for self-guided tours. The first stop is the boiler room.
Um, yeah. If boiler #2 is Thelma, can you guess the name of boiler #1?
The engine room itself is the next stop. Don't ask me for all the mechanical details, but the steam comes from the boiler and eventually pushes these piston thingees that drive the doohicky that turns the paddlewheel.
Very cool to watch, even if I can't exactly describe what happens. I do know the steam is recaptured and cooled with river water, to be returned to the boilers and reheated, to begin the process all over again.
While we couldn't go onto the platform directly next to the paddlewheel, and the angle (and stupid night shot setting) weren't adequate to get a good picture, I do have a short video of the wheel in action.
This is actually sideways, in order to get the best shot. Ignore the weird flip at the end - blame a rookie camera woman.
This was a dinner and jazz cruise. The dinner was standard catered fare, though with a spicy twist - baked chicken, catfish and/or pork tenderloin for entrees, corn with andouille sausage, pasta salad and bread pudding for dessert. My waitress (the girl from Milwaukee) insisted I try the bread pudding, which I was sure I wouldn't like (texture issues). I was wrong.
The jazz came from the Dukes of Dixieland. While I drew the line at both filming AND recording them to post here, I did casually focus the camera out the window, to provide you with a taste of the music (as if breaking only part of a music copyright law is not as bad as going whole hog).
All in all, a nice night on the river.
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