October 9, 2017
We tried to take off early for a long day but the river was socked in
with fog so we didn’t get started until about 10. This time we caravanned with three other
boats, Miss Lily, State of Bliss and ChaCha all headed at about the same speed
to the same place, anticipating anchoring out.
Fortunately we were head down stream and were making 10-11 knots!!
We pulled into a lock just off the Mississippi on the Kaskaskia River
and were able to tie up on the wall
below the lock so we could get off the boat and walk around. A neat Pilgrim boat, Miss Lily invited us all
to dinner of a great crock pot roast. I
brought a salad and they were set up so 9 of us could sit around a table in
their cockpit.
October 10, 2017
Still on the Mississippi, not too interesting, or as John calls it a
great green tunnel. We anchored in the
Little Diversion Channel with three other boats that had passed us during the
day, but we had caught up to by evening.
This is really a tortoise and hare kind of scenario. The difference between 7 nm and 10 just means
the others get there sooner, but there are only so many places to anchor along
any stretch of the river. In order to
fit all the boats in the area, there were now 7 or 8 we were showing off our
shallow draft and headed farther up the channel, but forgot about our height
and clipped our antennae on a bridge. No
damage, just a good reminder about everything we have to think about.
Being on a small channel off of the river I got out my kayak and headed
out in a cloudburst. But since it wasn’t
cold being wet didn’t make too much difference.
Cooked dinner on the boat and fell asleep to the rain pounding on the
hatch over our heads.
October 11, 2017
Up early we headed off for a long day.
Came off the Mississippi at Cairo and headed up the Ohio. When we started this trip I hadn’t realized
how little mileage we put in on the Mississippi. We could have continued down the Mississippi,
but it is about 750 miles farther from Florida that way and there are no
recreational marinas, lots of huge barges and nothing but a very wide channel
with vegetation on the banks. All of the
trip on the rivers has been somewhat like that.
The rivers natural flooding up to 30’ change in a year, and the real
floods up to 50-60’ have moved all
civilization back from the river banks. The locks on the rivers control some of
it, but they have given up below Cairo on the Mississippi and the river goes
where it will. There were not even any
recreational docks in Cairo, through there were tugs and barges parked everywhere,
taking on cargo and waiting for locks.
Our first encounter with the infamous stretch of locks on the Ohio was
at Olmstead Lock. This is a lock that
has been under construction of 20 years and is billions of dollars over
budget. It is supposed to replace lock
52 and 53 which should have been replaced 40 years ago. These locks are actually used to raise the
water level in the river in dry seasons to facilitate navigation all year
round. They have wicket dams made of
timber (80 years old now) that they raise a lower when needed. Needless to say they are a mess and always
needing maintenance for just not working.
When we got to the locks the remnants of Hurricane Nate had dumped a lot
of rain the the Ohio watershed and the river was too high to use the locks, but
instead of lowering the wickets to just let the boats go through, they were
making everyone wait till the water went down.
Probably worried that they wouldn’t be able to get they up one more
time.
They were letting pleasure boats through the lock under construction and
over the wickets of lock 53, so we only had to wait and hour or so for our
escort boat through the area. But it was
getting really dark and we headed for the closest safe anchorage about Lock 53
at Bean Branch Creek. Pretty quiet and
not too much rocking and rolling from the wake of the barges.
October 12 - 13, 2017
We only had 10 miles to go, since Lock 52 was closed but we moved up to
Metropolis, the hometown of Superman, and anchored with some other boats at a
spot where we could get out our dinghy and go to a boat ramp. Using the dinghy is always an option when we
anchor, but the banks of the rivers are so muddy, getting out and going for a
hike is not really an option. It is
really hard for Loopers who have dogs on their boats that they have to get off
at least once a day.
John had to find a notary and then
Post Office for some documents he had to send off, so I went to the Super
Museum. An amazing collection of memorabilia
from Superman comics and the TV show.
They had the sling that he flew in.
Things have really changed in special effects in the movies. We got back to the boat pretty quickly, we’re
not really comfortable leaving the boat with no one aboard. 
Though the trip from St Louis to Cairo on the Ohio is a very historic one, there wasn't much to take pictures of till we got to Metropolis
Not knowing when we would get
through the lock, some people had been waiting for two days when we got there, one
boat decided to head into town to rent a car and go back to St Louis. We were
only three hours by car from their home.
Since they didn’t have a dinghy John ferried them in, but they said the
fire department would have come to get them.
They cleaned out their freezer and gave us some good stuff for a few
dinners. We spent the night off of
Metropolis and were settling in for the weekend on Friday watching the water
level, when we got the word that they thought the water would be low enough on
Saturday morning and they would let any pleasure boats that were anchored below
the lock through first thing in the morning, so we headed up about 5 miles and
anchored for the night with about 12 other boats.
October 14-15, 2017
First thing in the morning was about 9 am but they got all 13 boats into
the lock (actually they could have gotten twice as many in) and up we went 3
feet to finish our trip on the Ohio. We
passed Paducah where we have wanted to go because it’s a neat little town with
the National Quilt Museum, but we’d been on the Ohio long enough. There are two ways to Kentucky Lake. Either turn off on the Tennessee River at
Paducah and go the commercial route, shorter but more barges to get through the
next lock, or go up to the Cumberland River which is more recreational and not
usually too much traffic at the lock into Barkley Lake. But since the barges weren’t going anywhere
on the Ohio, when we called the lock they said, no problem, no wait so we took
the shorter route and got to Green Turtle Bay.
It’s a lovely resort, marina with a cute little town and restaurant and
a good mechanical repair shop. Had
lunch/dinner at the Thirsty Turtle at the resort. Great variety of grilled cheese
sandwiches. Next day we got out our
bicycles just to get to the ship’s store since it was a huge marina and we were
twenty five yards away across the water and a quarter mile walking. They area was pretty hilly but we went into
town for some groceries and dinner at Patti’s 1880’s Settlement. It is an infamous restaurant, decorated on
every square inch inside and out for Christmas with good pork chops and bread
baked in a flower pot, and 15 different homemade pies to choose from. Out in the middle of nowhere, in October, it was packed with waiting times up to half an hour.
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