Hi all,
Just a quick note, while we still have internet access. We are at the marina just north of St. Louis with a 56' Carver motor yacht, getting it prepared for the journey south. We took an extra day to prep it, and did a little sightseeing in St. Louis today. Tomorrow we will brave the cold (it is currently 32 deg) and head south down the Mississippi River about 50 miles. With any luck it will be a lot warmer as we go south.
Our sightseeing included meeting a few of the Clydesdale horses at the Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis, and getting a view 630 feet in the air at the top of the Gateway Arch. Plus, we checked out a couple of casinos, just to make sure they were up to our standards. (We lost money at the first one, but not much. The second one, in Alton, IL did much better. We went in with $40 and came out with $70).
All is well. We will send more updates as we get internet along the way.
- Jeanie & Bill
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Update 11/12
Hi all,
We are making progress with this delivery, sort of. I can't call it a success until we get warmer! It rained all day on us today again, with temperatures in the low 50's, but that wasn't the worst of it. We made it as far as the north end of the KentuckyLake, just south of the Kentucky Dam. However, these good ol' boys that drive the tugs around, and the lock tenders who lock them through, are NOT in a hurry, by any stretch of the imagination.
We had 3 locks to go through today. The first one was on the Ohio River, about an hour from where we anchored last night. That one only took us about a half hour. It was an old rusty lock that only went up about 2 feet so we just sat in the middle of the chamber and waited for the gates to open for us. At about 9:30 we reached "Lock 52" on the Ohio River. This one goes up about 10 feet. But, we had to wait in line behind some of the tugs. Most of them were going through the 1200 long chamber, but some could fit in the smaller 600-foot long one. Those are the ones we had to wait for. When one went in just ahead of us, we thought the lockmaster would let us go with him, but no. We had passed a very small houseboat earlier that was now calling the lock asking for passage. It looked like a homemade rig on a small pontoon boat. They had us wait for that boat and locked us through together. We must have waited 10 minutes after we tied up before the houseboat got into the lock. It turns out they were two old people traveling from Milwaukee, WI to Florida! Friendly enough, but looked like a danger to themselves!
We now have something to add to our list of things we never expected to hear from a tug captain ... "okey-dokey". Most of the time we could not understand them anyway. It was like knowing a little bit of a foreign language. You know the drill, you pick up only a word or two, like up-bound, or down-bound. In between, you have no clue what they said. Two hours later we locked through # 52.
By 1 PM we were approaching the big one, Kentucky Lock and Dam on the Tennessee River. We had called earlier to confirm that he did not have a bunch of tugs and barges waiting to lock through and he said there was only one up-bound, and one down-bound. We had heard it could back up for days. With that nugget of information we chose to continue down the Tennessee River from the Ohio the 22 miles to the Kentucky Dam instead of going 10 miles farther up the Ohio to the Cumberland River, then going 25 miles down to the Cumberland Lock at LakeBarkley. We did hear a lot of tug traffic saying they were on the Cumberland. That made us think we did the right thing. We will never really know for sure.
OK, we get to the Lock and the lockmaster tells us via radio that he has a tow in the chamber right now,so it will take an hour and a half, and then he'll let us through. What? An hour and a half? For what? Well, it turns out that this chamber is small, so thebarges have to be split up and sent through piecemeal. The lock brings you up or down 56 feet each time. When we saw the gates open, we only saw barges. Then they S L O W L Y moved out just to the edge and the gates closed again! Waiting and circling. Then it opened again, this time with barges and obviously a tug. But, like I mentioned before, these guys are not in a hurry. 50 minutes laterthe tug captainfinally comes on the radio saying he'smoving outof the lock. Bill was speculating as to whether the captain had dinner before he moved out. We did not go in to that lock until 3:50 PM (almost 3 hours after our arrival). The sun goes down here at 4:30, and we were told it was a 45 minute locking procedure!
Visibility was down to about a mile in rain when we finally emerged from the big lock. Two marinas were standing by for us but daylight only let us go to the closest one. We called the other, nicer one and apologized for being too late. They understood. It must happen a lot.
We are now snug and secure with the heaters roaring away.No TV stations but we don't care. It's nice to at least have Internet. We will fuel up tomorrow before starting south on the KentuckyLake. Can't rush as they won't be coming to work at the marina until 8:30 anyway. Time to slow down, I guess.
More at the next Internet stop.
- Jeanie & Bill
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Update 11/13-14
Hi all,
Thursday morning at Kentucky Dam Marina started out MUCH nicer than yesterday. Weather is cloudy but not as cold. The forecasters are saying it should get in to the 60's today with even some sunshine. Took on almost 400 gallons of diesel, pumped out the holding tanks and bought a map of the Kentucky Lake because it showed much more detail than the Corp of Engineers maps we have onboard It is pretty up here, but it looks like we missed peak leaf-peeping.
No locks today, so we amused ourselvesby noting US highways as we passed under them. (US 68, US 79, US 70, I-40, US 412). Called ahead to a little marina called Mermaid Marina at mile 140 on the Tenn.River. He said he had room, and to not go past the restaurant or it gets too shallow. We can do that.
When we got there, it was absolutely empty, and no one around. We tied up on the face dock next to the restaurant (closed for the season). Walked around the neighborhood for a few minutes and only heard one voice and saw two big black labs. Very quiet place. The voice was at the house with the dogs, telling them not to bark. Right. That works at our house, too.
Here is a picture of the entry channel, taken from our back deck. Pretty narrow, nice mermaid on the sign though.
Friday --
Passed a set of fishermen in a small boat setting nets. White floats were easy to spot, but the channel end of their net was marked with a ‘high tech’ Mountain Dew 2 liter bottle. Once we figured that out, we knew where to go to miss the next net of theirs as well.
This area of the Tennessee River is about as wide as the ICW, but with high rock cliffs, lots of trailers, and the creeks are called sloughs (not pronounced 'slof' but 'slew' -- who knew?).
Our first lock of the day will go up 55' at PickwickLake. This is high point in elevation so from here on south we will be going down in the locks. Immediately after the lake we officially entered the Tennesee-Tombigbee Waterway. We went over 200 miles down the Tennessee River and now we are at mile 450 on the Tenn-Tom. So, 450 miles and 12 locksto Mobile, AL.
Through the 3 locks today, we were locked through with a dead-head tug (no barges). Each time we thought we had gotten away from him, the lock tender would hold and we would wait 15-30 minutes for the tug to arrive and tie up. Both the tug captain and the lock tenders referred to us as "that RV" or "the RV thing". Never thought of us as an RV, but I guess compared to a commercial vessel, we are definitely a recreational vessel. Just seems funny to hear it on the radio.
Tied up at the Midway on the Tenn-Tom Marina for the night. We were told that because it was Friday, that the restaurant was open. Works for me.
The restaurant must be THE place to be in Fulton, MS on a Friday night. It was quite busy. Food was good, and reasonable. Much better than chili dogs or leftovers on the boat.
5 locks tomorrow. Next update when I get Internet access again.
- Jeanie & Bill
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Update 11/15-16
Hi all,
Not a very exciting weekend, just going through locks, and dodging deer hunters on the shore (hunting season just opened). Saturday had us going through 5 more locks with the wait times ranging from 12 minutes to 63 minutes. The drops on these locks were between 25 and 30 feet for each one. Mostly uneventful. All except for the locks on the Ohio River, we have had the benefit of either a floating bit or a hydraulic bit that we can tie to with just one line at mid-ship with bumpers along the starboard side. On this boat there is a cleat just forward of the salon door on the starboard side that makes the whole procedure almost painless. Even on a bitter cold day like Saturday, you can just tie the boat off and wait in the warmth of thecabinfor the elevator to take you down. When the lock tender signals with a really big horn blast, you just untie the one line, push the bow and stern thrusters to port and put the boat in gear and leave. One of us just has to throw the bumpers on deck and bring in the line in preparation for the next lock ... and the next lock ...
Sunday dawned bright and cold. We drove right in to that big spot light most of the morning. Turns out it is really difficult to see those hunters who pulled their dark green boats up against the shore and then stand on the shore in their camouflaged gear and wonder why we did not see them in time to slow down. We tried! Most of the time we were successful. Only one guy had a variety of gestures that were universally interpretable.
We did see some nice scenery on Sunday. Who knew there were pretty white cliffs along this route?
Lots of snaking of the TombigbeeRiver through here. In the last five miles we have gone from SE to S to W to SE to E to NE to SE to SW to S !
Second time on this trip we have seen deer swimming across the river. First time was while we were at anchor on the Mississippi, just before the Ohio River. Luckily we don't think the hunters were in the vicinity of the crossing.
We are sitting just above the lock and dam at Demopolis, AL for the night. We will go down as far as Bobbie's Fish Camp tomorrow as there is NOTHING in between here and there, nor from there to Mobile. Should be an interesting stop. Maybe even a photo op.
More later. I'm sure we won't have Internet at the fish camp.
- Jeanie & Bill
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Update 11/17-19
Hi all,
We got underway early Monday morning in the cold. The river had not gotten as cold yet so we had a lot of convection fog to deal with. It took us an hour and a half to lock down 36 feet with 3 other pleasure craft, and then go very slowuntil the fog lifted. It was pretty impressive to see a tug and barge come out of the fog.
By 8 AM we had already passed3 tugs and barges. By 8:30 we had passed 3 more, and by 10 AM 3 more. Even with all of those slow passes we were to Bobbie's Fish Camp before noon.
I know we said we were going to stop at a fish camp on Monday, but we got there so early we decided to go check out the next lock down stream. We had been passing tugs and barges all day and thought that if we could get through the Coffeeville Lock before them, we might actually save a day of waiting. When we got to the lock, the tug Roy Baker with 1 empty fuel barge was pushed up on the shore just abovethe Lock, mile 117. He was willing to wait and let us and the Nordic Tug “Deborah Ann” lock through first. That was very nice. Deborah Ann had already been waiting for 2.5 hours.
We first had to wait for the northbound tug in the lock to come out and re-tie to his barges. The 6 barges take up the whole length of the lock (600 feet) 2 wide x 3 long so he had to set them in the lock, then untie the tug and put it beside them to lock through. At the end he has to push the barges far enough forward so that he can get behind them again.
We hada list of anchorage possibilities south of Coffeeville so we just looked them over as we got to them and ruled them out if we did not like them.
Finally decided on the Alabama River Cutoff canal at mile 52.7 after passing up Old Lock 1 at mile 100, and ThreeRiversLake at mile 64.
At the end of the day we had traveled for 9.7 hours and covered 163 miles, 2 locks, dropped down 76 feet, and passed 16 tugs and barges. The anchorage was nice and snug and we put out a bow and stern anchor to keep us in place. Turns out a front was going to come through overnight. We were fine. Here is what it looked like out the bridge window right after we anchored. We had turned around and were facing back out the river towards the Tenn-Tom Waterway.
The trees in the distance are across the Tenn-Tom. This river was perpendicular to the main waterway and we had a clear view of passing traffic, not that we watched much.
Tuesday we again underestimated where we thought we could get in one day. When we gave the ham net our position report via HF radio in the morning, we said we were going from the Tenn-Tom to Pensacola, FL. Well, we were there by 12:30 so again we just kept on going. We called the marina in Pensacola and cancelled our reservation then called Fort Walton Beach and made a reservation there. By the time we docked at ShalimarYachtBasin, we had traveled another 163 miles over 8.6 hours and passed another 10 tug and barge sets.
Over the past two days we saw an additional 4 deer swimming across our path, dolphin playing in our wakes and eagles flying overhead. Super.
With the front passing overnight, the winds had picked up from the north. Going down MobileBay was easy until we had to turn to port to head toward the waterway. This boat had never seen salt water before. We fixed that. Salt from stem to stern.
Wednesday we headed out with the intention of going either to Apalachicola or Carrabelle, FL. The weather gods were nice to us and the winds decreased enough to make a comfortable ride all the way to Carrabelle.
The forecast for tomorrow is for light N winds initially so we will take this weather window and head across the northern Gulf of Mexico (150 miles) to Clearwater first thing in the morning. The winds are supposed to increase tomorrow night, so this is our only window until next week some time.
Next installment will be from Clearwater or Fort Myers, then we will be so close to home it will probably be boring anyway. Hope you have enjoyed these updates.
-Jeanie & Bill
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Update 11/20-21
Hi all,
As we expected, the weather was really nice to us for the crossing from Carrabelle to Clearwater across the Gulf. There were a bunch of boats waiting for that particular weather break in Carrabelle. Some of the slower trawlersactually were leaving as we were arriving. After we were securely tied up at the marina we met 2 other boats who wanted to leave at the same time we did the next morning. One of the boats was quite nervous about the crossing so we did not mind leading the way. We were underway almost an hour before the sun came up.
It was without a doubt the nicest trip across the Gulf that we have ever had. Seas were flat and the light northerly wind just pushed us along. As you can see by our track, we really took the direct route.