9/23/18 Sunday: It was not a very restful night. We both weren’t completely happy with the way we were anchored – we like to have more scope out, but couldn’t do that in this narrow channel with how deep the water is. And we knew we had to get going at the crack of dawn. I hate that…. when you know you have to hop out early, so you end up waking up a zillion times, even though the alarm is set. 🙄 I finally got up about 6:00, and got ready to pull the anchor. Kenny checked the AIS and discovered that there were two tows that were headed upriver near our little channel, so we wouldn’t be able to leave until they were past us. It was still dark out. Really dark. We could see that all the other boats had light on inside, so everybody was up and getting ready, but we had to wait….for daylight, and for tows. So we fixed some coffee and waited. Pretty soon, we could hear the tows. They sound a lot like a train rumbling as it comes closer. And then we saw the lights on the front barges going upstream at the channel opening. And then – a big bright spotlight shining in at all of us!It was kind of funny – like a giant search light peeking into a cave and seeing six little white boats sitting quietly, being as still as could be so the predator wouldn’t see us. The spot light moved around and stopped on each one of us, like he was counting us and making sure nobody was moving! Then he went on by. Whew! We were safe! The second tow was right behind the first, so they were both past our channel pretty quickly. There was third one headed up, but was still several miles downstream from us, so we could make a break for it. It was getting light enough that we could get the anchor up and by the time we moved, we would be able to see whatever logs or debris might be in the water. Time to go! So I went out and got my wiener dog hose ready, but – it wouldn’t turn on. Oh bother! Kenny tried to get it to go, but he thinks the pump motor might have froze up. I hoped everything wouldn’t be too muddy as I pulled the anchor up without rinsing it off. It could have been way worse, but there is kind of a mud pile on the anchor pulpit now.
Our little boat parade was all out of the channel by 6:45 and on our way. We were the last ones out, so we were able to watch the other five boats crab walk sideways as the Mississippi current caught them and swooped them off down the river. Captain Kenny powered up and we came out without any problem. And bonus – there wasn’t much debris, so that was great! Captain started out up on the fly bridge to get us going out of the channel. He didn’t stay up there very long, because it was pretty cool and wet, just like yesterday. I went up, and he told me to just stay dry downstairs – he’d be down soon. And he was. I didn’t get a picture of him in his uncomfortable spot yesterday, so here he is. The helm chair downstairs is usually the galley counter. Today it was opened up to be a chair. And his eyeballs are looking through the very top of the windshield. Not the best design feature of our Island Girl but it works alright when it’s yucky outside.
We made good time on this last section of the Mississippi River. We averaged about 13.5 mph, as this screen shot shows. Check out how squiggly the river is here! At the very top of the chart is where the Ohio River ends and meets the Mississippi, and the ‘Ol Miss continues south (which is straight up on this picture). We turned left at that point and went UP the Ohio.
We got to the Ohio River by 10:30 – so we went 50 miles in less than 4 hours. And as we approached the Ohio, there was fog. Or maybe it was just really rain clouds. In any case, the visibility got worse. This picture is the last bridge on the MS. Then we were at the intersection, at Ohio mile 981, and our destination was Paducah at mile 935: 46 miles uphill.
So we turned left and started our Ohio River journey. SeaJamm was ahead of us, but was very hard to see through the rain and clouds. We now had our radar on, in addition to the AIS. It was hard to see the tows, and this is a very busy area for them. There were dozens of tows and barges that were along the shore, anchored out in the river, or moving about. It is a very busy staging and transfer area for the Ohio, the Upper Mississippi, and Lower Mississippi rivers.
We got through all of that, and the clouds started to lift to give us better visibility. We weren’t going nearly as fast anymore, since we were now going UP river and fighting current. We had a good 4-5 mph favorable downstream current helping us down the Mississippi. Now we had about a 3 mph current pushing against us as we went up the Ohio. It felt like our brakes were stuck on – (like a boat has brakes, right?) It felt slow, yet the water was moving past us at a good speed, so looking at the water, it seemed like we were doing good. But looking at shore, we were going slow.
Our next excitement was the Olmsted Lock. This lock has been under construction for 30 years! I’m serious! It is finally operational, and has replaced locks 53 & 52 on the Ohio River. Recently, the water on the Ohio has been at such a level that the lock is not actually locking boats through, but they are able to pass by the lock over the “wicket dam”. A wicket dam is a structure under water that can be raised up to create a dam wall to hold back the water. Today, the wickets were down, so we didn’t have to wait our turn to go through the lock. SeaJamm called the lock to see what our procedure would be. The lockmaster could see those of us with AIS, and told us to keep on coming, and that we could pass through with a tow that was waiting to go upriver as well. He said that there was a “Priority Corp Boat” (whatever that is) coming down river, but it appeared that there would be enough time for us to go past. The lock sent a guide boat along with us to make the pass, which helps to maintain one-way traffic only. So this worked out great for us, and we never even had to slow down. YAY! There was still all kinds of construction going on. Check out these cement mixers! I cannot even fathom how they constructed all of the underwater features of this lock and dam.
There was still a lot of construction cranes and equipment here!
I don’t have any idea what this structure was for.
This is the lock and a portion of the dam. There was also an underwater wicket dam here that stretched all the way across the river.
The underwater wickets created a very turbulent surface!
The river was flowing toward our bow, and the underwater wickets created waves on the surface that rolled back up the river. We made it through just fine, and the escort boat turned around and went back to bring more boats across. I don’t really understand the need for the escort, but there must be a good reason. Perhaps if a boat lost power in this section, it would be bad because of the turbulence. The escort boat was a big tow/tug.
Shortly after the Olmsted lock at mile 965, we saw what remains of the former Lock 53 at mile 963. The only thing left is the building on shore. The entire lock and dam structures are gone! Well, except for the underwater wickets. We could tell that they were still along the river floor, because we experienced turbulent water all the way across the river here.
You can see the line where the water goes from a smooth flowing river to a wavy, torn up surface.
And then we saw the downbound priority tow for the Olmsted lock coming. I don’t know what all of this structure was, but this tow was the Army Corp of Engineers, so it was definitely Olmsted Lock stuff! I don’t know how the tow operator could see – but it actually looked like there was a little booth on the very front under the yellow thing that may have had a little pilot house to help, because it even had it’s own little radar twirly going.
We spied some kind of fort on the Illinois side of the river. I asked The Google, and learned that this is Fort Massac, originally built by the French in 1757 during the French-Indian war. It has been rebuilt, burned and rebuilt over the years. In 1778, George Clark launched attacks on the British from here, and a statue recognizing his service stands along the river.
Somehow I hit a button on the camera that did this awesome effect on this picture! I had to do all kinds of investigating on buttons, and found that my camera does some neat stuff. Who knew?! This is the statue of George Rogers Clark who became the highest ranking American military officer on the northwestern frontier during the American Revolutionary War. His younger brother William CLARK, was one of the leaders of the Lewis & CLARK expeditions.
We had one more former dam to cross – Lock and Dam 52. Again, the entire dam and lock is gone, but the underwater wickets are still there, creating a turbulent surface. We watched our depth sounder as we passed over this one. We went from 30 feet deep, to 140, and back to 20. WOW! So the river flows over those wickets and creates a trench! No wonder the surface is boiling! Amazingly, just a month ago, these locks were still working – lifting/lowering vessel traffic – and now they are completely gone!
After 97 miles, we arrived at Paducah Kentucky. It has a beautiful new dock, and we were happy to see it. This had been a long, nearly 10 hour day, with half the distance taking 2/3 of the time. Check out the pilings on this dock! They are huge circumference, and very, very tall! The dock guy said the docks were up at 52 feet earlier this year – much nearer to the top of the pilings. This Ohio river can really have some high water!
We had heard from a few sources that Doe’s was THE place to eat, so six of us headed to dinner. It’s a pretty unassuming place!
There were primarily steaks on the menu, so we ordered a 2 pound T-bone. 😳 It comes with 2 sides and 2 salads – apparently it is intended to be shared. Oh my! Was it ever good! It was probably the best steak I’ve ever had. Kenny & I shared and still had left overs to take home! Yum!
After that, we were ready to just kick back and take it easy. We planned to stay here for two nights. Today was such a long day, and tomorrow is forecasted to be very rainy and warm – I’m glad I reserved two nights here.