Good Morning/Afternoon all! (I started writing this at 9:30)  We are back on the grid J  We are currently at Green Turtle Marina in Grand Rivers, KY.  They had a special deal on for Loopers, stay for 7 day only pay for 5.  So we are staying here for the next week.  We got 7 days for $312.70 which included about $17.70 in tax (13.44%)!  $44.67 a day though is pretty good and we get free cable and power.  This is a very large marina with plenty of walking spaces.  They have laundry facilities, $1.75 a load which is a little steep I think but what ya gunna do when you start to stink and people start giving you a wide birth?

As a transient boater, we have free access to the indoor pool, exercise area and the Yacht Club dining.  If you were here as an annual boater, you’d have to pay $500 entrance fee and $35 (?) a month. They do have a breakfast lunch place called the Dockers that anyone can use.  They also have boats you can rent and kayaks too.  The place is surrounded by condo/townhouses that you can rent to.  Pretty impressive place.  We still like Sunnyside better though :).

The town is only 1 mile away and they have an IGA there.   We’ll be checking that out later.  They have a few courtesy cars and you can also rent a golf cart and use it to drive into town.  Lots of different looking boats here.  I’ll be updating the blog with pictures from here so I hope you enjoy them.

So….where have we been since October 10^th, here is what happened……

October 10, 2013 – we left Quincy Yacht Harbor at about 7:15 heading for lock 21.  There were little foot prints or should I say Paw prints, on our swim platform

Paw Prints on the Swim Platform at Quincy

I think we must have had a visitor last night.  Another good reason to keep your transom door closed and locked!  This part of the river is pretty repetitive, trees, sand, and rocks.  There are always a few surprises.  What the heck is that?

Propane Grill on a Sand Bar

Yup, it’s a full size grill sitting on a sand bar.  We saw 2 more of these on our travels.  I guess people use them on weekends?  Whatever floats you boat I guess :).    The trees down here have been getting mossy

Mossy trees on the Mississippi

Gary said the moss or vines where planted to keep the banks of the river from falling in but the vines ended up taking over the trees and killing them.  Another good idea from the Government that didn’t work!  Hee, Hee.

Then we ran into a cloud making factory, really we did!

Cloud Making Factory

The river so far has been dead calm which is always good and makes for easier driving.  We went thru locks 21 and 22 but there is no 23, kind of weird.  Luckily we got right in to both of those.  We have been very fortunate so far with the locks.  Haven’t had to wait too long for them.  We arrived at Two Rivers Marina at Rockport, IL.  The dockage was $62.50 per night ($1.25/foot).  That was a nice marina.  They had us stay on the front of one of their docks.  Wow, what a dock.  12 foot wide walkways and 6 foot wide fingers.  Roof.  Cement.  Very nice.  A few of their amenities weren’t working, like the pool, restaurant, courtesy van and the wireless.  But nice dock and nice people working there.

Rockport Marina

While we were there a 50 foot Gibson houseboat pulled in.

Mark and Jane’s 50 foot Gibson

The Asian Carp were jumping out of the water behind their boat.  Then the fish started heading toward our boat.  The jumped similar to a dolphin, but they are uglier.  I think the noise of the Gibson made the fish come up.  Apparently they don’t like noise.  The Gibson it turns out belongs to Mark and Jane Priniski.  They had their boat at Kings Cove.  They are first time big boat owners and are livin the dream, like us.  We got to know them a little better over a nice pizza (thank you Priniski’s) and some wine on the dock.

October 11, 2013 – We left Two Rivers Marina at 7:40 and continued our journey.  The first lock we came to was 24.  It was like a ghost lock.  Once we got in, no one came out of any building so we figured we should just float in the middle again.  We thanked them but no response.  I guess they didn’t have their morning coffee yet.  We locked thru lock 25 and got the same reception as lock 24.  We started flying our AGLCA flag today, could that be it?  It is windy today and about 68°.  There is less stuff to look at and entertain us but we are definitely not bored. There is a lot to do when you are driving the boat.  Watch the gauges to make sure nothing is over heating, keep your eye on the Garmin to make sure you are going the right way, stay between the buoys and watch for logs in the river.  There have been a few times we had to dodge logs.  It is good to stay alert.

Remember when I said we see weird stuff?  Here is another example.

Lazy Boy on an island

Ok…I guess I can see the grills, but a chair?  That is carrying your creature comforts a little to far.  I mean come on!  You are pulling up to a sand beach on the river!  We have been living too long without people.  We are starting to fart, burp and scratch at will.  The cat is getting embarrassed.  We better control ourselves when we get around real people again.

Look at those caves under that house!  I don’t know if I’d want to be the owner of the house.

Caves under house

House with cave under it

We pulled into Grafton Harbor, a 64 mile trek.

Grafton Harbor

We got some gas at $4.16 (with the Lopper’s discount) then we checked out our gas mileage.  We are getting a little over 3 MPH.  Pretty good for the old gal.  Nice marina.  We paid $62.50 for dockage there ($1.25/foot).  They had a pool and a hot tub that were still open, a winery across the street and some interesting looking boats.  See the blow up girl pirate in the stern and the grass roof!  They had a party on the pier that night, sounded like fun! 

Cool Boat – day light

Cool Boat at night

Weird thing though, they had no cleats on the docks, you had to tie to the uprights that held up the roof.  Luckily I have seen Gary tie off to things that aren’t cleats so I was able to do the initial boat tie up when we go to the dock.

Our boat at Grafton Marina

October 12, 2013 – we left Grafton at 7:45 (no rest for the wicked on this trip).  Today is about 63° and cloudy and it looks like it might rain soon.  We passed Our Lady of Rivers.  Gary said they have a blessing of the boat there.  Missed that event I guess, oh well.

Our Lady of the Rivers

We learned something new reading the river charts.  Some of the locks have a strobe light instead of the green light for the recreational boaters to signal it is time for them to come in.  Well maybe that was our problem at locks 24 and 25.  They never did the green one, just the strobe light.  I guess they thought we were a bunch of idiots and we thought they were grumpy.  Goes to show…..

We locked thru Mel Price lock and dam.  I caught my first bollard.  Good job Colleen!  There was a lot of debris across the entire entrance of that dam.  We let the fishing boat that was practically glued to our port side go ahead of us and clear a path thru the debris.  See, we smart boaters :).

Once we passed thru that lock it turned more industrial, more tows, more barges anchored to the shore.  They have big chains and moorings to hold them in place.  We had to stay to the left side of the channel to enter the Chain of Locks Cannel.

Chain of Lakes

Apparently there is a 4 foot drop if you go the other way, yikes!  This cannel is really, really narrow.  We just followed a tow down to where the lock 27 is.  As we got closer there were tows everywhere.  I heard on the marine band that one tow was not schedule to go thru the lock till tomorrow.  Holy Crap!  Man, I hope we don’t have to wait two days to get thru the lock.  Luckily they had an auxiliary one and they locked us right thru.  This lock was really different.  It didn’t have a door that closed in the back; it just had a wall that came up from the river rather than two doors that closed.

Lock 27

We floated in this one too.  We arrived at St. Louis around 12:30, man alive, that place is hoppin!  Tows everywhere going every which way.  Cattle boats giving tours.  It was crazy.  Here are some pictures:

St. Louis Arc

St. Louis Arch 2

I’ll add some more pictures on the picture page.

Look at this house we passed, what the heck!

House with leggs

House with Legs

Legs

Our final destination for the day was Hoppies.  I have heard so much about Hoppies and Vern from Gary that I was dying to meet her and see the place.  We paid $62.50 for dockage ($1.25/foot); Gary said this is a raise from the last time he was here….6 years ago!  Maybe they are entitled :).  Vern’s daughter took me to the grocery store so I could pick up some milk and bread.  I’d never find that store again :), of course I am the one that gets lost in a bag.

Vern gave her Captain’s talk at 4.  She is a Tug Boat Anne type of gal but she sure knows here stuff.  Gary showed up with his charts.  Sounds like they are having trouble with a rock wall they installed down river a little ways.  It is causing it to shoal in by their dock.  Hopefully something will be done or it sounds like Hoppies may end up having trouble in the future.  that would be a big loss for the area and the boaters that stop by for fuel.

There was a sail boat there; Kestrel I think is their name.  They are eventually going to Venaswayla (you know, some place really south).  They had their mast and sail shipped to Pensacola, FL where they are going to have some outfitting done on their boat.  Who showed up???? Mark and Jane again in their Gibson.  Glad they made it.  They are heading to Green Turtle too.  We hope they have enough gas to make it.  Mark was a math teacher, he calculates that they should make it with the gas they have.  We’ll keep our fingers crossed.

October 13, 2013 – We are going to travel about 80 miles each for the next two days and stay at anchorages Vern told us about.  Apparently the place Gary stopped at in 2006 that was like a drainage channel is silted in so that is why Vern suggested these other two anchorages.  As we traveled on the river we sat on channel 13 on the marine band.  This is the channel the tows sit on, that way we can kind of keep track of them.  There were 3 corners where you had to announce yourself before you entered the corner because you didn’t want to meet a tow in the corner because they could take up the entire width of the river.  When you travel thru those tight curves, the water gets all swirly and the water drops off to 50 to 65 feet!  It is kind of hard to maneuver thru these curves with the swirls.  When you pass a north bound tow, because they are fighting the current, they push up a pretty big wash.  You want to make sure to don’t travel in their wash as they can swirl up logs and junk that you for sure don’t want to hit. 

When we get to our first anchorage, the sailboat Kestrel and a CHB trawler, Osprey, are here.

First Anchorage

We find a good place and settle down for the night.  We only run the generator for a little while at night just to charge the batteries so we end up going to bed around 8:30.  I found that my new Kindle with the white screen really comes in handy while we anchor out because I can read it real easy even in the dark.  There were a crap load of tows that went by last night.  We figured maybe because it was Monday tomorrow they were more active.  It seems they do a lot of their traveling at night. We also had some guy that drove up in his john boat.  Let me just say, we were quit a ways from a city.  What do you want weird man?  Why are you coming over to check out the 3 boats anchored this late at night?  Not that I am paranoid but you can’t be too careful.  He spent more time withe the sail boat than me.  I guess the sail boat guy was more chatty.  I’m like…move on guy, nothing to see here.

October 14, 2013 – we got up at 6 and left the anchorage at 7.  We traveled with the sailboat and the CHB for most of the day.  We passed by Cape Girardeau at 9:30.

Cape Girardeau

Cape Girardeau

We came upon a dredging operation and a 5 X 5 tow.

Tow passing Dredge

We called them on the radio and they asked that we wait up river till they passed the dredging operation before we passed them.  Of course we obliged, after all, they are bigger than us and the kings of the river.

We also learned that on the curves of the river, the south bound tows have the right of way.  The north bound tows, who have more control over their vessels in the current, will wait at the mouth of a curve if there is a south bound tow coming thru the curve.  We passed a south bound tow at one curve and it was a good thing because we found a bunch of north bound tows pulled over waiting for the south bound tow.  That made sailing for us a breeze!  We lost the CHB though when we passed that tow so it was just the sailboat and us.  We got to our last anchorage before we headed up the Ohio.  The sailboat had us go in first and check things out.  Sure….make us the guinea pig will ya?  We both got in there fine and settled in for the night.

October 15, 2013 – we left the anchorage at 7:30 and left the sailboat in the dust.  We started going up the Ohio.  The current is pretty strong and we are heading north now.  We decided to use both engines and drive at 1400 to make some time.  I learned that you should make sure you can see the side of the barge that is heading toward you, that way you know you are not in their direct path.  Good lesson to learn to make sure you don’t get run over :).   Look at this pile of coat at one of the plants we passed.  Glad the NSP plant by the Sunnyside didn’t have any this high!

Coal Pile

We passed by the new lock they are building to replace lock 53 and 52.  That was quite a site.  You guys think the bridge is a project, this is twice as impressive.  Look at the travel lift they have!

Travel Lift

And that is some kind of floating lift or something.

Floating lift

It was very cool to see as we passed by.

We got to Lock 53.  A few days before they had the wickets down (I have no idea what a wicket is but I am glad they put them up), boats were just driving over the wickets so they didn’t have to lock through.  Apparently the river was too swift and the tows couldn’t make it over them so there was quite a back up.  When we got there though, got right in.  Man, this one was old.

Lock 53

See how far the building is for the lock?  That is because the water level raises so high they had to build that building that far away from the lock.  They only opened 1 door and the guy opened it did it by pulling a metal bar.  We were only lifted 5 feet and we had to use our own ropes to hang on to the lock walls.  That was differant.

It has been rainy and cloudy all day today.  Boo! See me in my rain gear, cute huh?  Beartrax….do you notice anything?  That is the life vest you got me for Christmas a few years ago.  I finally get to use it and I wear it every time I go out on deck or tie up the boat.  Thanks!

Colleen in rain gear

We got to lock 52 and called them.  They told us we had to have 50 feet of line and everyone had to wear a life jacket on deck.  The life jackets weren’t a problem but we only had 1 50 foot line so Gary had to tie two together.  They are only supposed to be raising us 10 feet,  why do they need 50 feet of line?  What the heck?  Plus I can’t throw a line 25 feet up, oh no!  Help Mr. Bill!  Well we ended up waiting 1 1/2 hours to lock thru.  They had two chambers and they already had a tow in the one we were going to be in so the Lockmaster told us it would be ½ hour but the tow was a tight squeeze so it took a while to get him in just right.  When we finally got in the lock they lowered down a hook so we could put our line on it, the guy pulled it up, looped it around a round cleat and was suppose to pass the line down to me…he didn’t.  He started passing Gary the hook to grab his line but because I didn’t have a hold of my line we started drifting away from the wall.  We were tying off on our port side so Gary had to run around back to the starboard side, maneuver the boat closer to the wall then run around again and try to pass up his line so he could tie off.  Then I had to ask the guy to pass down the end of the rope so I could have something to hang on to so the boat didn’t drift away from the wall again.  I guess he thought he had done that.  Once we were all tied in (the 50 feet lines were an over kill by the way), it still took forever to raise us about 10 feet.  I guess that is why they are building the new lock.  When we were done and they sounded the horn so we could go, I had to pull my line back to the boat, run to the front (I always manage the back of the boat and Gary does the front in the locks), open the door so Gary could run around and get into the boat quickly and then I was suppose to start the boat moving forward.  I never touch the controls when we are locking or docking, that is the Captain’s job.  Whew!  We made it.  That was too much for me :).  We anchored just north of the mouth of the Cumberland River.  It was windy at night so I didn’t get much sleep with the lap lapping of the water on the hull.  There was still plenty of tow traffic all night.  You could hear them drive by.

October 16, 2013 – We left the anchorage at about 7.  The Cumberland River is very narrow and we have pretty much left the tow traffic behind us.  There have been quite a few sand/gravel companies on the rivers as we head north.  Check out this one

Gravel Company

Cumberland River

As you can see the Cumberland River is pretty narrow.  We saw a tow crew waiting to be picked up

Tow Crew

You can see how the high water has eroded the river bank.  Look at those roots.

Erosion on river

We got to the Barkley Lock and Dam around noon.

Barkley Dam

This will be a 57 foot lift.  As we hadn’t seen any traffic, at all, we got right in.  This is such a cool lock!  It is sooooo BIG!  We tied up to the bollard again.  Gary took this one as I couldn’t lasso the bollard this time.  The lock walls were dry which tells me they hadn’t had to lock anyone thru in quite a while.  Again though, very impressive lock.

Doors opening

After we got out, ½ mile down the river there was Green Turtle.

Green Turtle

And so, here we are.  I’ll be updating with just pictures and a little more about the marina.  It’s laundry time and clean the boat time and get some exercise time for us.  We have full internet so we should be able to stay in the grid for the next few days.

Well that only took me 6 hours!  Thanks for reading and following our adventure.  Ta Ta for now 🙂