Hoppie’s provided a very bumpy and rocky night as the barges traveling up river at this point are going full throttle causing huge wakes which slammed into us broadside.
We left Hoppie’s early in the morning on Friday April 5th intending to go to Kaskaskia Lock to anchor overnight, but it was a pretty reasonable day and since we would be getting into Kaskaskia anchorage about 10:30 we decided to just continue the 110 miles, our longest journey yet, on to our next destination which was an anchorage in Diversion Channel, Cape Girardeau, Mo. for a 2 night stay. Also the next day didn’t look as good for travel, and what else are we doing?
Well, as our luck has been so far, shortly after we made that decision to travel on, we hit a stick on the starboard prop which resulted in a shimmy at over 1000 RPM. JEEZ! There is just no way anybody can get through these rivers without hitting something, which we have done several times. It just can’t be helped. There is so much crap in the water!
So we had to slow down, which in the Mississippi River current meant we were traveling at about 13 MPH, which still took us over 10 hours to get to the anchorage.
Along the way we came upon a Tug that was pushing 30 barges. He was long and wide and was going our same way, at a reasonable speed. Since we didn’t feel we had the power to pass him safely and efficiently, we tucked in about a half mile behind him and cruised. As it turned out, he kind of took us under his wing and while he was talking to other oncoming barges, he informed them that he “has a pleasure craft following behind him”. I thought that was very nice of him, so I just informed the oncoming tugs that we would be following passage on the same side as the barge pack. That way they knew we were aware of the passage instructions.
At one point in the river there was a very sharp and narrow turn that had to be negotiated by this 30 barge pack. It kind of took us by surprise because it looked like he parked the nose of the pack on the shore. We wondered if that was his final stop or just what the heck he was up to. We backed off and even had to turn around once to back further off while we were figuring out what he was doing. We watched his wake go forward and backwards in little spirts as he used the river current to help swing that giant packet around the sharp turn and through the narrow channel. That was amazing! and we are so happy we got to experience that. When he was through the channel he notified over the radio that he was clear of the turn and proceeding down river. Now the transmission he made as he came into the turn made sense (forehead smack). These guys are always notifying over the radio which way they are traveling, what bridges or structures they are coming up on and what curvy parts of the river they are on. That way other vessels have an idea of what their intentions are. These tug captains have a language all their own and it does take some time getting used to what they are saying, but we are getting there.
By the time we got to anchorage in Cape Girardeau the sun was setting and it was getting dark. Again, as our luck would have it, we had a hard time getting the anchor to set. When we were at the boat show while in Seattle, Michael bought a new anchor swivel as he didn’t like the way ours brought the anchor up into it’s place on the pulpit. As it turn out this one does not let the anchor turn pointy parts facing down when it gets in place on the bottom so the anchor doesn’t grab hold. Therefore; he had to make emergency anchor repair and put the old swivel back on as I kept the boat hovering in the channel. That did the trick and we finally got locked in. Sometimes new is just not better.
We hung out in Cape Girardeau for the solar eclipse on Monday April 8th. Our pictures didn’t really turn out that great, but seeing in live was pretty special.
We left that anchorage about 2 PM on that day and took off for our next stop, a little channel off the Mississippi outside Cairo, Illinois. It is pronounced Karo, and don’t even think of calling it anything other than that. That trip was a 50 mile trip and with river current took us about 5 hours to complete, getting us to anchorage at sunset again. This one was a little scary as this channel was pretty swift moving with a lot of big logs and crap running down it. But we finally found a place that we felt comfortable for the night. That, however, did not stop me from getting up in the middle of the night a couple of times to be sure we had not drifted out into the river traffic. In fact, our anchor alarm went off once indicating we had in fact slipped outside our set boundaries. Michael got up this time and looked but determined that we had really only come to the full stretch of the anchor chain and then quickly returned to where we should have been. I still got up a couple more time to check.
The next day was another early, sunrise out as we were leaving the Mississippi with the current going our way to heading up river, against the current, on the Ohio River. This was a miserable day 48 mile, 10 hour day. It was pouring rain and the wind kept blowing the pilot light out on our little propane heater. I found out that my “rain jacket” is not waterproof, who came up with that! Therefore, I was soaked to the skin, as was Michael, even with his waterproof jacket.
Once again we followed a barge pack up river. This was the Mae Etta Hines and her captain too notified other traffic that he “has a pleasure craft following behind him”. Again, a lot of crap with sometimes football sized debris fields that we had to negotiate. The barges are so big they just drive over the junk. Other than getting in and out of our locations each day, Michael has been doing the driving. Really this part of the journey takes both of us. He has to negotiate the river and the traffic and dodge the crap and I am on the charts identifying upcoming barges, of which there are A LOT! and doing the radio communication to all parties involved.
Part of this river requires going through Olmstead Lock, which can often take time due to the amount of commercial traffic. However! Since the rivers are so high, the lock itself is currently under water and the water level below the lock is the same as it is above the lock, so we got to simply go over the dam! That was a surprise.
Welp, we said goodbye to Mae Etta Hines and finally got into the Paducah Kentucky Transient Dock. It was a very long, wet, cold and miserable at sea. By the time we got here there was no one to around to grab lines as we came it, but we are pretty expert at it by this time so we had no issues. Besides there was no wind and it had stopped raining for a short time.
Paducah is really a pretty cool little touristy town with lots of shops, museums and restaurants. Dinner the first night, I didn’t really want to have to cook after the day we had, was incredible. We shared a Rib Eye steak that was literally the size of a small dog. The drinks were pretty good too! We are going to try the Cajun place tonight.
The National Quilt Museum is here in Paducah. We toured it yesterday, between rain storms. They had all kinds of quilts which were spectacular and it is one of those weird little things that you run across and just have to stop at while traveling.
This dock is usually very full during the regular Looper season, but traveling off season we have most places to ourselves.
We are on the riverside of the dock because of all the junk on the inside, even a floating door, which is not the first door we have seen floating in the river. The riverside is a little bumpy due to barge traffic up and down the river and especially today as it is very windy and raining again.
We will be here until Saturday where we will head out for another very early and long day, really only 40 miles, but with the prop issue we can’t go very fast up river and there is a lock we have to contend with. Commercial traffic has locking priority so our travel getting through will depend on barge traffic. We are heading to Green Turtle Bay on the Kentucky Dam Lake where we are scheduled to be pulled out of the water on Monday to see if we need to replace or if we can again repair the prop. The last place told us the props are getting pretty thin, which may account for so much shutter with only a pretty minor strike, so replace might be the way to go. AND they has a spa…ahhhhh!
Well, that’s it for this leg of the journey. We will be deciding if we are continuing on up to Louisville from Green Turtle Bay or not and if not, then what? Keep following us along. Love to all, Gina and Mike
