10/29/18 Monday: We got into Midway in the early evening last night. By the time we got fueled up, docked, and some of the grime rinsed off, we hardly knew who was at the marina or what plans might be happening for the morning. We planned to go to Columbus Marina today, which is about 60 miles and 4 locks away. The first lock is just 3 miles from Midway. We figured that it would just make sense to wake up at 6:30 and listen for activity. Sure enough! That blasted alarm went off at 6:30 in the dark, AGAIN. I snuggled into my blankie for a few minutes, not wanting to give up my nice warm cocoon, but my planner-self instinct soon took over. I got up, dressed, looked outside, and saw people out wiping the dew off of their windows and getting ready to go. It was about 48 degrees out, and the dew point was above 50. So the moisture just kept fogging everything up. I stepped out on the dock and asked if someone had called the lock. Yep – we were all clear to get on with it. In about 10 minutes. Ok! I quick went in and told the Captain that we needed to prepare for departure – right now! No time for fixin coffee.
We were ready to roll in minutes, and followed the gang out of the chute. But first we helped Parrot Bay push off and get unstuck from the mud. Maybe the water dropped a little over night? We don’t really know them, but we originally met them back when we were staying at Green Turtle. They were with Bay Tripper when we needed a ride back from Paducah to the marina. Nice people!
There were nine boats headed for the lock, so we’d be traveling as a fleet today. There is no sense trying to pass anybody and go faster than the slowest boat, since we all need to lock through together. The four locks for today are spaced with just 15-5-14 miles apart- so a Looper fleet it was! This was a neat shot of Bay Tripper coming out of the marina.
There was one go-fast boat that was stuck with the fleet. I felt kinda sorry for him. He could and probably wanted to go 30mph, and he was stuck going 8mph. Or he could go faster, but then just had to wait for all of us. Even Island Girl doesn’t prefer to go much slower than 9, but that’s where we found ourselves today. As long as we can get the engines warm and get some oil pressure going, the Engineering crew doesn’t complain too much. Our fleet filed right into the first lock – Fulton lock – which dropped us down about 25 feet.
The lockmaster advised us that two of the bollards were missing, so as it worked out there were only 8 bollards available. We were boat #8, and Bay Tripper was boat #9, so they just rafted up to us. That worked out fine – we like Bayliners. 😉
Our early morning lock festival.
And as easily as we filed in and secured ourselves to our bollards, we filed right back out again, like an orchestrated ballet. This wasn’t the first rodeo for any of these captains or crew. And the sun was just coming up.
Away we went to the next lock, which was 15 miles away. There was still some fog rising from the river, which made for some good Halloweenish spooky mysterious pictures. At least there weren’t any pirate ships lurking out there! (I don’t think!)
The Wilkins lock was another drop of about 25’. We filed in, we filed out, with no wait at all. YIPEE!
The sun was getting a little higher in the eastern sky at about 10:30 in the morning, which made the fall colors on the western shore of the river just brilliant. We were tagging right along side Optimysique as we were all readjusting our cruising speed after exiting the lock. She looked so pretty against the fall colors!
Five miles later, our next lock was the Amory lock. Another easy in and easy out. We were living right today!!
And then – Weyerhaeuser! I can’t help it. I have a retirement pension from this company, and forest products are in my DNA after my long career with them. It was fun to see the chip facility and activity from the waterway.
Our next ‘stop’ was Aberdeen. WHAT?! That made us laugh, because there is an Aberdeen in Washington State, and we didn’t think we had traveled quite that far.
Each of the locks have a control tower like this, where they can see the vessel traffic on both sides of the lock. Once again, we were all in and secured in no time. Four locks with no waiting time at any of them. We don’t get this kind of speedy success very often!
Some of the scenery was really colorful and diverse, with all the water, and trees. There was a surprising assortment of foliage.
I still haven’t figured out these trees are that grow in the water. They look like they have needles, not leaves, that turn color and fall, leaving the tree bare. Any ideas?
I did find a house nestled in the woods.
And then the red buoy convention. I still am not sure why we needed three red buoys in one spot. I suspect a couple of them are escapees from somewhere up river.
The TennTom is a peaceful easy feelin kind of waterway. Not much civilization. Very few fishing boats. Just 4 locks and 9 boats enjoying a perfect cruising day!
Just us and – the spiders? I decided that there were spiders of the tarantulasaurusrex type lurking just ashore in the trees! We’d be cruising along, and WHAM! Spider web silk smack in the face. Yep – some monster spiders are just sitting around spewing out web-silk and they send it flying in the light breeze to be caught in the face by some unsuspecting boater. We saw all kinds of web strings just suspended in mid-air over the river. No spider attached, just web silk floating along. I guess it is almost Halloween, so I’ll give em that. Our antennas caught their fair share, too.
Just cruising along, singing a song….sneaking through the trees.
And we reached our destination, the Columbus Marina, by 4:00. So 60 miles, 4 locks, 9 hours. Better than yesterday’s 56 miles, 3 locks, 10 hours. Not all nine boats came this far, but we were a little mini parade coming into the marina, and they handled us just fine, one after another. Just follow the little marker buoys off the main channel, and you’ll be fine. This marina is right at the end of the wall for the next lock, so when we leave, it will be easy to check with the lockmaster on a good departure time! We tootled in and backed into our slip, where we’ll stay for a few days. There is some stormy weather coming in the Wednesday/Thursday time frame. Our next stop after this marina is to be anchored out in the river, so we want good weather on the day we leave here. Mechanic Kenny says he has some things he can work on while we’re here. He already ordered a new water pump for the weiner dog hose wash down, which should arrive here tomorrow. I think we’ll have plenty of Looper company here, while others wait out the weather too.
For you data geeks, today’s milestone is that Island Girl’s hour meter turned over 2000 today. She had about 970 hours on her when we bought her in March 2015. She was 15 years old, so that was an average of about 65 hours per year. We put about 400 hours on her in the three years before we started the Loop. And now in the last 7.5 months, she’s run another 625 hours. We have about another 100 hours to go until we’re home.
On your next travel day, you will stay or go past Sumpter Recreation Area, mile 270. That’s where we met the ” rattlesnake in the frying pan or Hog goes in the freezer” guy.
I think those trees might be Cyprus trees.
Windy and rain here today.
HA! We will likely stay there. We’ll look for the fella!