Mississippi River Traffic

Barges and River cruises

I was told about an app called Marine Traffic that allows you to track the movements of the barges and for that matter, all marine traffic globally. It was a lot of fun to check out what was passing us by. One day, we sighted the American Serenade which is part of the Mississippi River cruise fleet of the American Cruise Lines. Being such a river buff, I have always been fascinated with these cruises but they are inordinately expensive. It is much more affordable to do a river cruise in Europe.

I started researching some of the barges we saw. A lot of them are owned by Marquette Transportation. Checking their website, I found lots of job postings, from deckhands to pilots and engineers. I think the moment has passed for me, but it would be a great adventure for a young person. If you have cargo to ship, you can lease the use of one of their tugs and they will move your cargo.

The full moon over the Mississippi.

It is nice to see that water traffic is back to normal. Last October, river levels were at an all-time low at Memphis. It was a hot summer and there had been an ongoing drought. The low levels disrupted barge traffic and even allowed saltwater to move up the Mississippi River in Louisiana, threatening the drinking water for thousands. It was minus 11.5 feet last fall. Now the river is moving to flood stage. Later in our trip, we made a stop upriver in Cape Girardeau and were told the flood gates would be closing shortly.