Paducah!

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 170 - September 17, 2017

I took Baxter to shore again, but this time, I just nosed in and let him jump off. His paws sank into the soft muck but he bounded easily to the upland solid ground of Boston Bar! He did his business, and then went walk-about for a little exploring, but he finally turned around and came trotting back to the kayak, where I had been sitting! Muddy paws but no muddy feet!

Boston Bar is at Mile 7, so it was a very short run down the Mississippi to the junction with the Ohio and we started upstream. As it turned out, I probably did not need to get the gas at the Little River Diversion Channel in Cape Girardeau, but I didn't know that until I started upstream.  We no doubt burned some gas, but I can see from the analog gauge, which usually shows less than we have, and at Paducah, it still read 3/4 full with 12 more miles up the Ohio and 31 miles up the Cumberland.

We had expected to see a lot of tows moving around at the junction of the Mississippi and the Ohio, but while there were a lot of AIS targets showing up on Coastal Explorer, they were all sitting along the shore not moving. There were a lot of barges parked in the middle of the river, but we had no difficulty going around them.

We transited three locks on the Ohio today. The first one was the Olmstead Lock, which is still under construction, and will replace Locks 53 and 52.  We had to wait an hour, even though this is a drive-through at this point. We found out that the wait was caused by the need for there to be more water in the upstream pool at Lock 52 in order to operate the lock. We were waiting with several other Looper boats, Pharm Life, Keokuck, and Heaven to Betsy. Finally the lock master released us to follow the helper boat through, which is kind of a miniature tow boat. This was a "drive though," but because the dam was up, all the current was funneled through the main chamber that we went through. It was like piloting a boat upstream through rapids! It took quite a bit of throttle to maintain control!

Olmstead Lock under construction. We drove through the main chamber on the left side.

The next lock was Lock 53, which Fern had told us had been removed. Not so!  The lock was ready for us, and we just drove right in, and were directed to raft to another boat. We rafted to a Pursuit that was tied to a bollard. They said they were going to reach Green Turtle Bay by the evening, The Pursuit is a very fast boat, we saw it go shooting by us on the Mississippi earlier. Lock 53 appeared to be in serious disrepair or in some state of deconstruction, but they locked us through. We then had 23 miles to run to Lock 52, and then 6 more miles to Paducah.

Lock 52 likewise was in a sad state.  Lock 52 had the Ohio River shut down for some period of time, which was a hot topic on the AGLCA Forum, with a lot of conflicting information. It was definitely closed to tows for quite a long period, but maybe pleasure craft were being locked though, maybe not. AGLCA was advising Loopers not to proceed past Alton until the situation was resolved, but some Loopers were reporting that they had been locked through at Lock 52. We decided to continue on from Alton, which turned out to be the correct decision.

The faster boats had to wait a little bit at Lock 52, but we made it just in time. The lock master said "Just keep coming, Cap, and drive her right in."  It was apparent that everyone was going to float this lock, as the walls were steel and in really bad condition. It was very interesting listening to the lock master talking to the tow captains on VHF 13. There were a LOT of tows waiting to go through, but although there was enough water in the pool to take the pleasure craft though, there was not enough to take the tow. He put them in order based not on their arrival but rather on their draft. Most of the tows needed nine feet of water, and some needed more than 10 feet. The lock master was really professional, and kept the tows informed as best he could. It must have been a very demanding task to keep everything straight for the tows!

After Lock 52, we continued on to the new Paducah Marina. It is still under the control of the contractor, as there is some punch list work to be completed. Other Loopers reported they had docked there overnight and the contractor was OK with it, or at least did not require them to leave, so we pulled in and tied up along with Pharm Life and Keokuck. The marina will officially open on September 21, when we will just be departing Green Turtle Bay!

This is a TINY marina. It is a single floating dock for side ties with five power pedestals on one side and three on the other side plus the fuel dock and pumpout. That means 16 boats can have power. The distance between the power pedestals indicates they are expecting mostly big yachts, which is probably reasonable. There are no restrooms, no dock master office, and only one tiny trash receptacle! They will no doubt be making some changes when they start operating. The power and water were on, so we were able to use our NuWave and microwave oven, after we figured out how to reset the GFCI switch on the outlet under the dinette! We are pretty sure the GFCI got tripped at Hoppies, where everything is kind of in disrepair! Daydream seemed minuscule on the dock with Pharm Life and Keokuck!

Paducah Marina, Daydream with Pharm Life and Keokuck.  Kind of like "Where's Waldo?"

Tomorrow it's on to Green Turtle Bay, a real marina with restrooms and showers!