A stormy time on the river

It appears that the drought has ended in this part of the Southeastern United States. It has rained abundantly for much of the last two weeks. All three of the large Savannah River impoundments upstream from our dock are now full. In fact, the largest is over-full. The Army Corps of Engineers is trying to do what it calls "balancing the basin" by increasing outflows to match watershed inflows, while holding lake levels as full as safely possible.

Before the recent rainfall torents, engineers were releasing only enough water from the dams to assure minimal river flow to the Port of Savannah. Until last week, this was about 3,800 cubic feet per second, as measured at Thurmond Dam on the lake at the southernmost end of the system. This morning, the flow was about 16,000 cfs.

One result of the increased flow is that all the junk, old limbs, tree trunks and other stuff that had been above the previous high water mark,  has been washed adrift. A lot of it piles up on our dock, necessitating twice-daily logjam clearing work. I use an old 6-foot oar as a lever to move the stuff out into the stream.

While the water flow is five times what we usually see here, the present volume is not particularly worrisome. In the 12 years we have lived on the river, we have seen flows of more than 30,000 cfs at least a couple of times, with water levels rising as much as eight feet.

Interestingly, in spite of the the much greater volume of water, engineers have held the water level in our area of the river close to the usual depth. There is a small dam with a lock about 13 miles downstream from our dock. Engineers must be managing releases from that dam to hold the pool level relatively constant.

Army engineers are walking a water management tightrope, trying to balance current and expected inflows with dam releases. Full reservoirs, continuing high levels of rainfall and the impending Atlantic hurricane season pose a potentially destructive scenario: What if a hurricane develops and dumps even more water in the basin?

Nothing like that is predicted at the moment, but engineers have announced they will be testing the floodgates at all three dams next week. All of Thurmond's floodgates have not been opened since 2007.

Ms. Bettencourt, meanwhile, is untroubled by these phenomena.

As evidenced by the spider work on her stern line, she has not moved in some time.

Her cooling system overhaul was completed and tested for leaks last week.

There was no sign of  overheating during a prolonged period of running the engine at.the dock.

The real test, however, will be a long run at about 80 percent power.

There will be such a run in a few days. Then, assuming everything works as expected, the current plan is to spend the rest of the month relocating some dashboard electronics and repainting the pilothouse cabin.

After that, it's down to Savannah for some coastal cruising.