Moving Down the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers

 

Sunday, September 6, 2009 through Thursday, September 10th

 

Reluctantly, we left the civilization in Grafton, IL for our journey down the Mississippi.  We ended up covering 218 miles in 3 days.   After the first 60 miles, our first overnight on Sunday was at Hoppies, in Kimmswick, MO, an old barge that is renowned with “Loopers” as a colorful stop.  Hoppie is the last descendant from a family of “Light Keepers” who would shine lanterns along the shore of the Mississippi so the river traffic wouldn’t run aground in the dark and fog.  Fern, Hoppie’s wife, gave us navigational tips for the next few days ahead of us.

 

On Monday, we had a short trip of 40 miles to the Kaskaskia Lock and Dam.  We got permission to tie up along the wall and that was a good stop.  Danny from “Potest Fieri” brought his dinghy over to take us ashore so Louie could take care of business.

 

On Tuesday, we traveled our longest distance in one day – 117 miles.  The Mississippi had a 4+ knot current in our favor!  I took a picture of the chart plotter showing our speed at 11.3 knots (around 13.5 miles an hour).  We thought we were going to need our seatbelts!  We anchored in “Angelo’s Towhead”, near Cairo, IL.  We were at the end of the Mississippi and at the mouth of the Ohio River.  If you look closely at the picture, you will see that 3 states and two rivers all converge in this small area.  We had a nice night at the anchorage and it became obvious that Danny is now Louie’s new best friend.  After “holding it” for 12 hours, once again Danny “rescued” Louie when he pulled up with his dinghy.

 

Wednesday was a stressful day for me.  We chugged up the Ohio River for 46 miles, going against the current.  We could hardly go 6 mph and then had to speed up (a relative term) to make it through the lock in the afternoon.  The lockmaster was determined to lock through all the pleasure boats in between the towboats that he had stacked up.  So there were 4 trawlers and 4 small fishing boats floating in this lock trying to stay away from each other while the lockmaster brought the water level up 10 feet.  It seemed to take forever.

 

One of major contributors to my stress level was that there was only one anchorage that we could reach that night, and the cruising guide said that it might be low on water.  The water level on the rivers fluctuates by the hour, the lockmaster told us.  Oh joy!  Well, it worked out well after all that worrying I did (Roger by the way, was not worried at all).  We stopped at the city dock at Paducah, KY and decided NOT to ask permission to overnight there.  No one kicked us out and we had a great night there.  We walked up the riverbank to the town and ate dinner at a nice seafood restaurant.  It was timely because I was pretty down, feeling as if I had joined the cast on “Survivor – Great Loop”.  A nice shower and dinner served by someone else does wonders for the psyche… And then we woke up to a boat that had been swarmed (thank God, on the outside!) by these flying creatures called Shad Flies.  Just take a look at the photo!!

 

At cocktails last night, we decided to cut down the Tennessee River (rather than go around to the Cumberland River).  The cruising books said that we might have a long wait at the Kentucky Lock, but we took our chances and Roger was really nice to the lady lockmaster.  She locked us through in just ½ hour and we have heard horror stories of boats waiting 4-5 hours to lock through at Kentucky Lock and Dam.  We saved 25 miles by going that way!  

 

The rivers seem to be getting better as we put them behind us and go to the next.  The Mississippi was better than the Illinois River (marginally).  The Ohio was better than the Mississippi, with water that was not as muddy but a current that was against us.  And we are now on the Tennessee River in Kentucky Lake area, which is just beautiful.  We are looking forward to the rest of the trip where we expect anchorages and marinas to be more available and have a little less commercial traffic and more to see on land.  

 

Meeting the towboats on the rivers is really exciting.  It takes our boat a long time to pass one and we have to watch for them as they try to go around the bends on the Mississippi especially.  They are pushing barges that are sometimes 1000 feet long  x 200 feet wide.  On those sharp bends, they have to back up, go forward, back up, go forward (like getting out of a parallel parking spot).

 

One thing we did learn on these rivers (especially the Mississippi and the Ohio where there is a ton of towboat traffic) to speak “Tow” --- not “Thai”, not “Taiwanese”, but “Tow”, a special language all its own.  You can see from some of the pictures how important it is to communicate with the captains of these tows (you call them tows, don’t call them tugs!).  Roger, who can make his way through Canadian French and Brazilian Portuguese, has in fact mastered “Tow”.  The only thing he cannot get is the lazy, word-garbling tones.  He’s much too distinct, but here’s a flavor of it.  He looks for the name of the towboat in his binoculars, then he starts the dialogue R=Roger, T=Tow Captain:

 

R:  “Upbound Harwell Tow, downbound pleasure boat Karen Anne at Thompson’s Landing Daybeacon, Channel 13.”   

 

T:  “Har..”

 

R:  “Cap’n, Karen Anne is downbound, where would you like us?”

 

T:  “See y’all on the one whistle.”

 

R:  “Thanks, Cap’n, see you on the one.”

 

For those of you who don’t speak “Tow” (let alone “Boat”), that means we will pass each other, port-to-port (the left side of his boat will greet the left side of our boat as we pass each other).  Hey, you ask, why didn’t he just say, “Pass me on my left side?  Who knows?  This boating life is a country of its own, trust me.