The Ohio and the Lower Mississippi rivers had carried me and my sneakbox, LUNA, 1,840 miles in the 57 days I’d spent rowing from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. On January 5, 1986, 3 miles downriver from where I’d spent the night moored between pilings under a downtown wharf, I left the Mississippi at the Industrial Canal locks. The lockmaster wouldn’t let me enter on my own—there were too many tugs and tows that needed to get through. The lockmaster wisely prohibited me from bring LUNA into the locks unaccompanied. Captain Duffy of the towboat LEAH was my escort.
Photographs by the author
Read this article now for Free!
Ready for a second free article? Create a free account by entering your email address and a password below.
— OR —
Subscribe now for $29.99 a year and have immediate access to all of our content, including hundreds of small-boat profiles, gear reviews and techniques, adventure stories, and more! You can also browse our entire archive of back issues starting from September 2014, as well as post unlimited classified ads. This is an extraordinary value!
A remarkable tale in every aspect. The story speaks for itself. I felt I was there beside you throughout the journey. Thank you, Mr. Cunningham.
Great story, thanks! Some aspects remind me of my own small-boat cruises, or of the Melonseed Skiff I owned.
Thoroughly enjoyed reading the account of your epic journey in LUNA.
Given its unique feeding method, I think the bird you watched “in the wee hours of the morning” was almost certainly a Black Skimmer, rather than a Shearwater.
What an amazing bird, they don’t occur here in the UK but I remember watching them on a birding trip I made to Mexico in the early 2000s
Best regards
Paul Pearson
Thanks, Paul. It was indeed a Black Skimmer. I’ve made the correction.
Thanks for the editorial and the Sneakbox articles. I grew up in New Orleans and was fortunate enough to sail in the lake and canoe/kayak in the bayous with my dad and go fishing in the marshes with my grandpa. Will definitely try to inspire this adventure in my kids. Thanks!
As a lifelong boater and reader of nautical adventures, I can say your three-part series on your sneak-box adventure is a wonderfully written contribution to our nautical literature. I went back and copied out many of the strong lines in your narrative. I won’t repeat all of them here but since I have fished Deadman Bay for 45 years I will repeat your description of the local net fisherman tiller steering their outboards mounted in the foredeck from the bow. “Their skippers stood in the bows to see their way through the shallows, giving their craft the look of aquatic Minotaurs.” Writing the equal of Nathaniel Bishop. Thank you for the sensitive descriptions of the indigenous southerners.