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At 7:00 am we weighed anchor and continued up the Ohio River to make our way through the notorious, outdated, and often closed Ohio River Lock 52.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’.
