Category: Ohio River

Andiamo Flies the Gold

October 25, 2017  Wed: Paducah to Grand Rivers, KY

On October 11, 2016, we left our home in Port Townsend, WA, trailered Andiamo over 2500 miles to Grand Rivers, KY and launched her at Green Turtle Bay on Lake Barkley, October 25, 2016. Today, October 25, 2017, we crossed our wake, meaning that we are back to the body of water that we started from.

Since leaving home, we have been in two countries, the US and Canada. We have traveled in twenty-six states, nineteen by boat. We cruised rivers, lakes, the Intracostal Waterway, the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, and man-made channels/canals. We also locked through at least eighty locks from river levels to lake levels down to sea level and back up to rivers and the Great Lakes.  Along the way, we visited family and friends and forged new friendships.  The amount of history we learned was worthy of a degree. What an adventure!

We have traveled over 10,000 miles and still have over 3,000 to go as we travel to visit family and friends in Missouri and Arizona before returning to our home. To all that have made our journey an extraordinary adventure, we thank you and look forward to seeing you again. Special thanks to our lifetime friends, Karen and Henry Heflin, for joining us at Green Turtle Bay to celebrate “Crossing our Wake!”

Join us as we lock through our last lock and cruise into Green Turtle Bay Marina. The three attached videos, from the last mile of our loop, are 6x the actual rate, except where the lock is filling with water, which is 32x the actual rate. If you watch the left side of the lock you can see the increase of the water level.

 

 

Paducah, KY

October 24, 2017

Paducah is a fascinating town that was originally claimed by the famous American Revolutionary War hero, George Rogers Clark. When he died his claim went to his younger brother William, of Lewis and Clark fame. William, in 1827, platted a town at this northernmost point of what is now the Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway, an important part of the American Great Loop.

After being on the boat for three days it was a real treat to just walk around the town and experience the riverfront. Paducah is home to the National Quilt Museum, The Lloyd Tilghman House & Civil War Museum, Paducah Railroad Museum, an Art District, “Wall to Wall” Murals, and so much more. The weather was a bit cool and windy so we opted to wait for the warm weather next week to thoroughly explore the town. We can do that because, if all goes well we will “Cross our Wake” at Green Turtle Bay tomorrow and will remain in the area until we have the truck and boat ready to go west.

 

 

La Center to Paducah, KY

October 23, 2017, Monday

At 7:00 am we weighed anchor and continued up the Ohio River to make our way through the notorious, outdated, and often closed Ohio River Lock 52. A relic of the 1920s river control system, Lock and Dam 52 is the last of the old wicket dams. When completed, the Olmsted Project will replace Lock and Dam 52 as well as the now-defunct Lock and Dam 53. Scheduled to go online in 2018, the Olmsted Project is both the largest and the most expensive inland waterway project undertaken in the United States.

Although not yet operational, the Olmsted Lock is in place and we were required to request permission to cruise through. Lockmasters are the gods of the rivers, you don’t want to get them angry with you, they are the ones that can make or break your day. When I called to request permission to transit the area the lockmaster, in a very stern voice, informed me that he had 15 tows & barges in front of me and that it would take a while. When I meekly, with all the cheer in my voice that I could muster, asked what time he thought we could go through, he gave a great big belly laugh and said, “Awe, I’m just joking you, come on down and I’ll talk you and your buddy right on through.”

He talked us through the Olmsted Project and the remains of Lock and Dam 53 without incident and we were on our way to Lock 52 just 24 miles away. We had been in contact with a couple of our friends that transited the lock last week; one vessel had to wait four hours before being locked through and the other had to wait three hours, we were not looking forward to the wait. We were lucky, we only waited about forty-five minutes. However, as you will be able to tell from the video of Courageous, it was a bouncy 45 minute as we waited for the Captain Anthony to complete his lock through. In the pictures, you will also be able to tell why the lock needs to be replaced.

By 12:30 pm we were safely tied to the newly opened Paducah Transient Dock, where we reconnected with several of the loopers that we had met at the marina in Alton, IL.  This dock has no bathroom or shower facilities but has electricity, water, pump-out, and fuel.  We need a pump-out, water, and electricity to charge all of our devices after being without for three days.

Our time on the America Great Loop is coming to an end, the plan is to spend tomorrow in Paducah and on Wednesday cruise to Green Turtle Bay Marina where we put the boat in the water on October 25, 2016.  We expect to be greeted by friends Karen and Henry who are driving from the Kansas City area to help us celebrate us ‘crossing our wake’.

Castor River Diversion Channel, MO to La Center, KY

October 22, 2017  Sunday

As we were leaving our snug, calm anchorage in the Castor River Diversion Channel a northbound tow with 35 (5 by 7) barges passed the mouth of the channel leaving a 3 to 4 foot 2-mile long wake that made us want to turn around and stay in the protected waters of the channel.  As we pulled into the Mississippi River another northbound tow with 30 (5 by 6) barges passed us, between the two we felt like we were riding the old mechanical bull at Billy Bob’s.

With only 48.8 miles remaining of the Upper Mississippi River, we continued to stay vigilant as we watched for navigational markers, debris, and landmarks. Our first landmark was the Thebes Railroad Bridge which opened on May 25, 1905, and is still the only railroad bridge between St. Louis and Memphis. According to local folklore, the history of railroad bridge disasters in the 1800s caused people to be fearful of the new iron and steel bridges. In order to instill confidence in the strength of the bridge a long line of steam locomotives crossed the bridge at once. If the bridge could handle the weight of the massive locomotives, it could handle anything.

The river remained wild until we met calmer waters in the oxbows north of Cairo. At the end of the Upper Mississippi, we turned to our port and entered the mouth of the Ohio River. The Ohio River begins at the junction of the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers at Pittsburgh, PA and continues for 981 miles, we will travel just eighty-nine miles of the Ohio River and then take the Cumberland River back to Lake Barkley.

We were running at about 10.5 knots at 1200 RPM (11 miles per gallon) on the Mississippi River when we turned into the Ohio River, we immediately fell to 5 knots.  We increased RPM to 1600 and got another knot to 6 but fuel mileage fell to 2.7 MPG.

At one time Abe Lincoln also cruised the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, however, his trips were much different from ours.  In 1828 and again in 1831 he was a bow-hand on Allen Gentry’s two-man flatboat that was loaded with furs for the New Orleans market. It was through his firsthand experiences with the slave-markets in New Orleans that he developed his lifelong hatred of slavery.

Tonight we are anchored on the Kentucky side of the Ohio near La Center, KY in 18 to 20 feet.  The rain is pouring and we are kicking-back enjoying what might be our last anchorage of the trip.