After spending a couple of days in Alton, IL, we cruise down the Mississippi River and turn up the Ohio River to the Tennessee River. We anchor out for a couple of nights (rare for us!) and reach Green Turtle Bay, Kentucky, on the Ten-Tom (Tenessee-Tombigbe Waterway), where we are taking a break for a few days. It’s time for another oil change, checking and replacing zincs, and getting overdue haircuts, which we took care of care of while at Green Turtle Bay.
Day 155 – Fri, 10/27 – In Alton, IL
Alton Marina has a pay for 3 get 4 deal on dockage, and we decided to take advantage of it as the weather for the next few days was predicted to be rainy, windy, and cold.
Friday was pretty nice, with temps in the low 70s, so we broke out the bikes and took a ride into town to see the sights. We started with a stop at LuciAnna’s Pastries and picked up some goodies. They are one of the few bakeries that we’ve seen that make canollis the correct way, WITHOUT chocolate chips stuck to the end. When I was in high school, I worked for an Italian Baker who educated me on the proper way to make a canolli. These were very good!
We admired a few of the large wall murals in town and visited a couple of the boutiques. Aside from having a history in the glass-making industry and being a major riverboat stop, Alton was the home of the Alton Giant! Robert Wadlow was the tallest man in recorded history. He was born in Alton in 1918. He reached a staggering height of 8 ft 11.1 in and a weight of 439 lbs. He worked for the Ringling Brothers Circus and was the spokesman for a shoe company before his death at age 22 in 1940. The town honors him with statues and parks named after him.
After walking around, we stopped at Bluff City Grill for lunch, admiring their Halloween decorations. After lunch, we headed back to the boat and got ready for the change in weather in the afternoon. By 4:00, it was raining, and the temperature had dropped to the low 50s. That evening, we had a boat meeting to plan for the next leg of the trip down the Mississippi.
(Click gallery images to enlarge. Touch/Mouse over for captions.)
Day 156 – Sat, 10/28 – In Alton, IL
Saturday morning it was 47°, windy, and overcast. Our next lock, the Mel Price Lock, was just 2 miles down the river and is also the home of the National Great Rivers Museum. The lock gives tours, where you go up to the top of the structure a couple of times a day, so we timed our visit so that we could get on one of the tours. There was rain predicted for the afternoon, so we bundled up, jumped on the bikes, and rode to the lock and museum for noon.
The museum was very interesting. There was a lot of information about the impact of flooding on the rivers. They also heavily promoted commerce by barge, showing the economic advantages of shipping by barge. One 15-barge tow with 1 Tow Boat carries the same amount of cargo as 216 railroad cars pulled by 6 locomotives or 1,050 semi-trucks. Barges move 1 ton of cargo 616 miles on one gallon of fuel, while trains move 1 ton of cargo 476 miles on a gallon, and trucks move 1 ton of cargo 155 miles on one gallon. Barge traffic, aside from being a bit slow, is very economical for bulky heavy cargo.
One of the other features was a barge captain training simulator that lets you try to pilot a barge under a bridge with on-coming traffic, into a lock, and other simulations. On my first try, I didn’t do so well… Barges take a lot longer to turn than Frogs!!!!
When it was time for the tour, there were only 4 of us. The docent explained the workings of a lock (we were pretty familiar with it, but the other two people on the tour didn’t have boating experience). After the introduction, we took an elevator up 70 feet to the top of the lock and dam structure. There is a walkway there that provides an excellent view of the lock and the surrounding area.
We were lucky because there was not one but two barges coming into the lock. Even though it was cold and windy on the top of the lock, we watched until both tows were in the lock and had locked through. Fascinating!
On our last Loop trip in 2019, we had an “unfortunate experience” in the small chamber (Mel Price has two chambers to lock through). When we entered, the chamber was full of logs and sticks, and a submerged branch got stuck in our propellers and bent one. As we looked down into the small lock, it was full of sticks and logs. We silently prayed that we would get the large chamber when we locked through on Monday.
In the evening, we got together with Brand New Day and Mad Cruizn for another dinner visit to Fast Eddies Bon Air.
(Click gallery images to enlarge. Touch/Mouse over for captions.)
Day 157 – Sun, 10/29 – In Alton, IL
Sunday was our last day in Alton. It was cold, and it rained heavily all day. We pretty much just stayed on the boat. The bridges from here on out are all over 24 feet, so during one of the breaks in the rain, I put the mast back up on the boat.
At 5:00, we had a boater meeting to coordinate the boats leaving in the morning. Because of the cold and rain, we held it in the hallway of the bathhouse. After the meeting, we headed back to the boat and had dinner on board.
(Click gallery images to enlarge. Touch/Mouse over for captions.)
Day 158 – Mon, 10/30 – From Alton, IL to Grand Tower Island, IL – 124 miles, Travel Time: 11hrs 5min, Locks: 2
The weather had cleared up on Monday morning. It was still chilly but not as windy. Last night, I was nominated to communicate with the locks, so at 6:00, I checked the lock queue report and called the Mel Price Lock to see when we might get through. They said that one tow was heading toward the lock in either direction, but both were at least 90 minutes out. We planned to leave at 7:00, but with the window of opportunity, we decided to head out just after 6:30 to make sure that we got through before the barges showed up.
I radioed the lock as we pulled out of the marina, and by the time we got to the lock, we only had to wait a few minutes before the lock gate opened and we could get in. There were a few non-looper boats who saw us leaving and rushed to join us, so we waited in the lock for them to catch up. The locks like to do as many pleasure boats as they can in one go to get us out of the way, so they were fine with waiting a few extra minutes for them. In the end, we had seven boats in our flotilla.
We got the large chamber, which only had one or two small bits of stick in it, not like the tree-filled small chamber we had seen on Saturday. We dropped about 20 feet, the doors opened, and we all headed down the Mississippi toward St. Louis.
A couple of miles below the lock, there is a shipping canal that splits off to the left to the Chain of Rocks Lock. The main river continues straight to the Chain of Rocks rapids just north of St. Louis. There is a large sign with a big arrow that says “LOCK.” This spring, a sailboat failed to notice the sign and continued straight. They ended up stuck on the rocks, and after several days of trying to get their boat towed back upriver, it “vanished” overnight. They did find small bits of it downriver, but the majority was broken up on the rocks. “Don’t Miss The Turn!”
We all took the left turn into the canal toward our next lock. When we arrived, there was a tow boat coming upbound and we had to wait about 30 minutes before the lock was ready for us. Once ready, we all went in, dropped about 5 feet, and headed back into the Mississippi River (below the rapids) and toward St. Louis.
The famous Gateway Arch is about a mile after the lock. We had photos taken in front of the arch on our last trip, so as we were in the lead, we just kept going as we wanted to make it as far downriver as possible.
The rest of the day was very nice. Clear blue skies, light winds, and only the occasional tree floating in the river. On the Missouri side of the river, there are huge bluffs with natural stone arches eroded into the face. Very beautiful. We met an upbound tow about every 45 minutes. With our AIS (radio beacon that shows boat name, direction, and speed on our chart plotter), we saw the tows, and they saw us well in advance, and we were able to chat by radio with them to decide which side of the river was best for us to pass them on. AIS is great as you can see the tows as much as 5 miles away, long before they are visible, especially around corners. Many of the tows we saw were 24 barges (4 x 6). One was 9 wide by 6 long, so 315 ft wide by 1170 ft long, plus a 200 ft long tow boat pushing them. That’s over a 1/4 mile long. Think of 2 football fields wide x 4 football fields long coming at you around a corner in a river!
Our first option for stopping was a marina called Hoppies. This is two old barges run up on the bank of the river. There is power, and you can get fuel, but not much else. It was only about 11:30 when we reached Hoppies, so we kept going.
After Hoppies, there are no more marinas for 200 miles until you reach Paducah, KY. This means at least one if not two, nights anchoring out.
After Hoppies, the next popular spot is the Kaskaskia River Lock. The Kaskaskia River joins the Mississippi, and just upstream from the junction is a lock to lift boats to the level of the river. The lockmaster lets boats tie up to the back side of the waiting wall on the Mississippi side for the night. There are no services, but it’s a solid structure to tie up to. We stayed here on our last Loop trip.
Last night (Sunday), six boats stayed tied up to the lock. When we arrived, the entire lock waiting wall was gone, and the basin was filled with workboats. We had been advised that they would be removing the wall to dredge the channel starting today, but we didn’t think they would make so much progress in a couple of hours. So… we started looking for places to anchor. The issue with the Mississippi is the tow traffic. You can’t anchor anywhere near the main channel as the tows produce a very strong wake behind them and need lots of maneuvering room.
Some Loopers anchor out most of the time, and others, like us, prefer marinas. Our anchoring experience is minimal, and so we stress out a bit when we have to anchor. Anchoring is part science and part luck. The two biggest issues with anchoring are “anchor drag,” where the wind or current overcomes your anchor, and it pulls out, causing you to move with the current or wind. The second is “swing,” where, due to changes in current or wind, your boat will swing on the end of the anchor chain like a pendulum. If you anchor too close to something and your boat swings, you risk hitting something (like another boat), or drifting into shallow water where you can get stuck. (If you anchor where there is a tide, you also have to account for the water going down after you anchor and leaving you aground until the tide comes back in).
All along the Mississippi are structures called “Wing Dams.” These are walls of stone that run from the bank of the river toward the channel at about a 45-degree angle. They cause the water to divert into the main channel, keeping the silt buildup down. Some of these structures have space behind them that is large enough and deep enough to anchor behind. Right now, the Mississippi is about 5 feet below normal water level, so many of these dams are exposed however, the water behind them is not deep enough. An interesting note: when we came here in 2019, the water was so high that you could not see most of the wing dams, and the turbulence caused by the water being diverted by them spun one of the boats we were traveling with 360 degrees!
We looked at a few wing dams that were charted as anchorages. However, the first few didn’t have enough water. About 5:30, we got to the “Cottonwood Anchorage,” which is a large pool behind a wing dam. It looked pretty good, so we slowly stuck our nose in constantly watching the depth. At the entrance, the water got down to about 6 feet, but once behind the dam, the water was 20-30 feet deep. Almost too deep to anchor. We read a couple of notes from other boaters on the forum who suggested dropping anchor in the northwest corner. We got as close to that corner as we dared and dropped the anchor. We backed up to set it into the bottom, but it didn’t catch. So, we pulled it in and tried again. On the second try it caught really well! We sat for about 15 minutes, watching to make sure that we would not drift. There is a gentle whirlpool effect behind the wing dam caused by the current. We saw sticks and stumps slowly circulating around us, but we didn’t move much and were not getting close to shore. So, we figured we were good and settled in.
Just before dark, we saw a tow boat coming upstream past us on AIS and watched to see how much of their wake would reach us. As it passed, we barely felt any rocking, and the boat didn’t drift. We set the anchor alarm, had some dinner, and settled in for the night. The few times we have anchored in the past, I was up most of the night, stressed that we might drift. Surprisingly, I slept pretty good!
(Click gallery images to enlarge. Touch/Mouse over for captions.)
Day 159 – Tue, 10/31 – From Grand Tower Island, IL to Bandana, KY – 96 miles, Travel Time: 7hrs 45min
Halloween!!! We were only woken up once during the night by bouncing caused by a passing towboat, and otherwise, we slept pretty well. I got up around 5:30 and peeked outside, at first it looked pretty good. I could see the moon in the sky and the tree line in the distance. I looked at our chart plotter and saw that we had swung back and forth about 30 feet during the night, but the anchor had held fast. I turned on our bow light and was greeted with a wall of fog! The water temperature was around 58 degrees, but the air temperature was around freezing. This caused steam fog, and it was pretty thick! We had planned to head out by 7:00 but waited an extra hour until the fog dissipated some and we could safely see.
The other thing that happened was that somewhere upstream, a large amount of debris (sticks, logs, trash) was released during the night. The current on the Mississippi runs at close to 3 mph. I don’t know if a barge that had been docked to the side of the river and trapped the junk was moved or if it was related to the work on the Kaskaskia lock. We were surrounded by sticks, logs, and junk gently swirling in the current.
At 8:00, we pulled up the anchor and picked our way through the debris back to the river. Once in the river, it was slightly better, but we spent the next several hours dodging stuff in the water. As with yesterday, we met a tow boat about every 45 minutes to an hour. The Tow Pilots were helpful and advised us on which side to pass them on.
By 11:00 the fog had burned off, and the amount of debris in the water had decreased. We cruised past the Walled City of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Because the Mississippi River floods so frequently, the few towns along the banks erect high flood walls along the riverbank.
At 2:00, we reached the junction of the Ohio River. At the junction is the split of the Mississippi from the Upper to the Lower Mississippi. While you can go all the way to the Gulf of Mexico on the Mississippi, there are no recreational boater facilities (including fuel) on the Lower Mississippi until you get to New Orleans. Also, recreational boating is discouraged in the Lower Mississippi because of the volume of commercial traffic. Most Loopers take the turn at the Ohio and go up the Ohio River, then cross to the Tom-Bigbee Waterway for the southbound trip to the Gulf at Mobile, Alabama.
We turned up the Ohio River. Coming down the Mississippi, we were averaging 12 knots at 1600 rpm due to the 3 mph current push. Now, on the Ohio, we were going upstream and had to go up to 1900 rpm, just to keep 8 knots!
We picked our way through the barge parking areas and headed toward Olmstead Lock. Olmstead is our only lock on the Ohio River. This Lock was still under construction when we came through in 2019. The water was higher, and we were able to go right over the top of the Wicket Dam, which was lowered at the time. This time, we would have to go through the lock. At 3:30, we caught up to a group of boats that had left one of the anchorages on the Mississippi that morning and heard them call the lock for passage. The Olmstead lock is one of the busiest in the system and usually has two lock chambers to pass traffic. Currently, they are “adjusting” one of the chambers, and it is closed. So, we were told that our first available lockage was at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow.
There is an area just below the dam at the lock that when the water flow is low, makes a great anchorage as it’s out of the way and has relatively little current. There were 8 of us in the group, so we all made our way over to the anchorage and dropped anchor for the night.
This time we got our anchor to set the first time and settled in. I pulled out the drone and took some photos of the boats and the lock from the air before the sun went down. We got a spectacular sunset and a great view of the lights all around the lock as it got dark.
We turned in early as we were planning a 7:00 a.m. lockthrough.
(Click gallery images to enlarge. Touch/Mouse over for captions.)
Day 160 – Wed, 11/01 – From Bandana, KY to Grand Rivers, KY – 59 miles, Travel Time: 7hrs 15min, Locks: 2
We had another good night at anchor. When we first anchored, the wind was blowing, so we were swung with the wind. Overnight, the wind died down, and the current took over, so we swung with the current. Overall we had about 50 feet of swing overnight, not bad!
At 7:00 am, the lock said, “Come On Down!” so eight boats scrambled to pull up anchors and get to the lock before they changed their minds. The lock-through went smoothly, and we all continued up the Ohio River toward Paducah, Kentucky. Paducah is a popular stopping point on the Loop. For many, it is the first town, dock, and fuel stop since getting on the Mississippi. It is also the home of the National Quilt Museum, a very popular stop. We stopped for two days in Paducah on our first Loop.
Unfortunately, this year, while the docks are open, they have no power and fuel is not available due to construction work in the area. The town had talked about getting generators to provide power, but that never materialized. Brenda and I had already decided not to stop at Paducah if we had to wait to get through the Olmstead Lock. Paducah is only about 2 hours above Olmstead Lock, so it would have made for a short day. Instead, we opted to go directly to our next stop Green Turtle Bay Marina, in Grand Rivers, KY which sits at the north end of the Kentucky Lakes.
There are two routes to Grand Rivers, from Paducah, you can continue another 13 miles up the Ohio River to the Cumberland River, then take the Cumberland to Barkley Lock, and up into Lake Barkley and Green Turtle Bay. The other route is to turn onto the Tenessee River in Paducah, take the Tenessee River to Kentucky Lock, and up into Kentucky Lake, then use the Barkley Canal to connect to Lake Barkley and Green Turtle Bay.
The Cumberland River route is the most popular as there is less commercial traffic and is more scenic. The Barkley Lock is not as popular with Tows & Barges, so usually quicker to get through. It is the longer route at about 46 miles. The Tennessee route is shorter at just 28 miles, however, it is more commercial, with more tow traffic, and delays at Kentucky Lock can be several hours. On our last Loop, we took the Cumberland River route.
We had plotted both routes, and as we were cruising toward Paducah, we looked at the “Lock Queue Reports” and AIS to see how much traffic was at the two locks. We noticed that there was only one two barge that was on Kentucky Lake toward the lock, but would not reach it for a couple of hours. There was one tow stopped at the bottom of the lock, headed in our same direction but it had not moved, so we assumed it was parked. On the Cumberland side, we saw a bunch of pleasure boats, and two tows at the top of the lock, waiting to come down.
We decided to take a chance and go the Tenessee River route because we had not been on that river, and if we got lucky at the lock, it would cut about 3 hours off of our day!
We turned up the Tennessee River at Paducah and skirted several of the major Tow companies’ boat yards. There was lots of activity, but nothing moving up or down the river. As we continued up the river, we passed some huge chemical plants and a massive coal transfer yard. Again, there was activity, but it was all local, just shifting barges around. We made great time and arrived at Kentucky Lock around 12:30.
When we called the Lockmaster, he told us that he had a “Priority Government Vessel” downbound and that we should wait off to the side. The tow that was tied up at the bottom of the lock was still there, and there was no activity. Like truck drivers, tow pilots have limitations on the hours that they can operate before having to rest. We were assuming that the crew was in a rest period. We hovered at the bottom of the dam and watched our AIS system. The “Priority Government Vessel” was a Coast Guard Buoy tender. It took them about 30 minutes to lock down. While waiting, we heard the barge that was in Kentucky Lake call in. The Lockmaster called and asked us, “What is your beam (width)?” “14-feet,” we replied. That is an odd question in a lock that size. Then the Lockmaster told the barge to pull up to the waiting wall, and they would be locked down as soon as “a pleasure craft” came up.
As the Coast Guard boat came out of the lock, the Lockmaster radioed us and said we could come in. We were the only boat in a huge lock, and he opened up the valves full. It was a rough ride up, but fast! 15 minutes later, the doors opened, and we saw a wall of barges that looked like it was blocking the exit! As we pulled off the wall, we saw that there were about 25 feet between the barges and the far wall for us to sneak through. Now we understood why he was asking about our beam!
We left the lock and entered Kentucky Lake. It was just a couple of miles down the lake, through the Barkley Canal that connects Kentucky Lake with Lake Barkley, and then to Green Turtle Bay Marina and we arrived at 2:15, and got settled in.
A little over two hours later, General Fun (another Beneteau Swift Trawler), the first of the boats that we went through the Olmstead Lock with that morning, pulled in. They had taken the Cumberland River route, so we were happy to have taken the Tenessee River. It looks like we got lucky, as the next day, another Looper sat for over 4 hours waiting for the Kentucky Lock. It pays to watch AIS and the Queue Reports!
As we were settling in, one of the dock locals stopped by and told us that one of the boats we had been traveling with, “Cavalier,” would be crossing their wake when they arrived later that day. “Crossing Your Wake” means that you’ve gone all the way around the Loop, and you get to fly your Gold Burgee (or Platinum if you have completed it more than once). They were planning a Wake Crossing Docktail that evening to celebrate their wake crossing. We carry a spare Gold Burgee with us in case ours gets damaged or flies off (it’s happened before). We dug it out and brought it with us to the docktails event and had everyone sign it, then gave it to Melissa & Martin from Cavalier.
(Click gallery images to enlarge. Touch/Mouse over for captions.)
Day 161 – Thu, 11/02 – In Grand Rivers, KY
Thursday, we had a bit of an easy day. In the morning, we had to swap slips. We had arrived a day early since we decided not to stop at Paducah and had to take a temporary slip until our booked slip was available. On our way over to our new slip, we stopped to get fuel and a pump out.
Once in our new slip, I did some boat projects, and we scheduled to have our propellers swapped to our spares. We had picked up a vibration, probably from hitting a submerged stick on the Illinois River. They said that they would be able to do the swap the next day.
I pulled the spare props out of the hold and got things ready for the next day. We chatted with the next round of Loopers to arrive when they came in during the afternoon and caught up with some old friends.
In the evening, the Yacht Club restaurant at the marina was open, so we went to dinner with General Fun.
(Click gallery images to enlarge. Touch/Mouse over for captions.)
Day 162 – Fri, 11/03 – In Grand Rivers, KY
We had reserved a rental car so that we could run some errands and do a bit of sightseeing. Green Turtle Bay has loaner vans, but you can only use them for 2 hours, and like most “courtesy cars” at marinas, the condition of the vehicle makes you hesitant to drive it for more than 2 hours!
Our prop swap was scheduled for sometime after 1:00, so we grabbed the Courtesy Car for 10:30 and went to Hertz to pick up the car for 11:00. After getting the car, we returned to the marina, dropped off the courtesy car, then waited for the call to bring the boat over to the lift.
1:00 came and went. They were launching and working on another Beneteau Swift Trawler 42, “High Five”. Same model as ours, just a year older and painted a light blue. While we were waiting, Tom, the owner of High Five stopped by and introduced himself. It seems that they were trying to anchor next to a bridge, and ended up running up on an underwater concrete bridge pier. They got stuck, and had to wait several hours before two tows passed at the same time, and the wake lifted them off the structure. They were taking on a bit of water from some fiberglass damage but were able to make it to Green Turtle Bay and have it repaired.
At about 2:30, we got the word that the lift crew was ready for us, and we scooted the 300′ across the basin to the boat lift. The boat was out of the water quickly. We inspected the running gear, and there was no visible damage. The props looked fine, but we know that the starboard side was vibrating slightly. We checked the cutlass bearings, and they were fine. The zincs were in pretty good shape, but since we didn’t know when we would be pulling the boat again, we decided to swap them out. A service team of 4 swapped out the props and zincs, and the boat was back in the water within an hour. Once splashed, just we backed out of the lift bay into our slip.
That evening, we got together with three other boats for dinner at the Yacht Club. Thursday night, we had a great dinner, but tonight, the service was really poor. The meals came out one at a time, and mine never appeared. The waitress said that she had forgotten to put it in. By the time it came, everyone else had finished, so I had them box it up to take back to the boat. Good help is so hard to find.
(Click gallery images to enlarge. Touch/Mouse over for captions.)
Day 163 – Sat, 11/04 – In Grand Rivers, KY
Neither Brenda or I have had a hair cut since August when we were in Midland, Ontario and were long overdue! Brenda found a hairdresser in the next town over that could give her an appointment, and I found a barber just up the street from there.
Saturday morning, we drove to Kentucky Dam Village and had some breakfast, then headed to Calvert City for our hair appointments. On our way back, we stopped in Grand Rivers (the town next to the marina) and went to Patti’s 1800’s village. Patti’s is a classic restaurant in the area and very popular. The wait to get in can be hours. As a result, they have built a small shopping village around the restaurant. Think of a Cracker Barrel on steroids! There are 8-10 different shops and boutiques with walking paths between them to visit. Also, a few other shops have popped up across the street, so it’s a real destination location.
We walked around the village and visited some of the shops. At Christmas, they decorate the grounds around the village with lights, and we planned to come back that evening for dinner and to see the lights with some of our boating friends.
The day was really nice, sunny with temps in the upper 70s! After walking around the shops, we went back to the boat and gave it a much-needed washdown.
In the evening, 7 of us piled into the Courtesy Shuttle Golf Cart that the marina runs to bring people back and forth to town. It’s just under a mile, so it only takes a few minutes. We could not get reservations for Patti’s Restaurant, so we went to their sister restaurant T. Lawsons across the street. Again it was a story of “Good Help is Hard To Find” with lots of errors and delays in our orders. Still, we had a good time, then walked across the street to the 1800’s village to see the Christmas Lights.
Day 164 – Sun, 11/05 – In Grand Rivers, KY
Sunday, we took a ride to Paducah. We needed some filters for our air conditioning system and a few things from Walmart. We went to Lowes and got the filters, then across the street to Walmart. Brenda wanted to go to the National Quilt Museum, so after Walmart, we drove downtown. The museum doesn’t open until 1:00, so we found a place to have lunch and then went to visit the museum.
We visited back in 2019 on our first Loop. They change the quilts on display on a regular basis, swapping out five quilts every month. Also, they have visiting exhibitions, so there is always something new to see.
National Quilt Museum, is a 27,000-square-foot purpose-built facility in downtown Paducah. The museum features three exhibit galleries, with over 400 quilts on display, a gift shop, and a quilter supply shop.
We spent several hours at the museum. Brenda really enjoyed the quilts. The intricate stitching, even if many are done by machine, is fantastic! It’s hard to show scale, but most of the quilts were at least 4 feet x 8 feet!
One of the ongoing exhibitions is called “Quilts of Valor.” Quilters make patriotic-themed quilts, which are displayed in the museum for a year, and then on Veterans Day, the quilts are donated to veterans and active duty military. It’s a great program, and there were many fabulous quilts!
(Click gallery images to enlarge. Touch/Mouse over for captions.)
Day 165 – Mon, 11/06 – In Grand Rivers, KY
I spent most of the day Monday working in the engine room. If I don’t take care of my engines, my mechanic Michael will give me a world of hurt! (And charge me to fix it! Again!)
I started by changing out diaphragms on the fuel injector system. I was meant to do this several months ago when I first got them, but I waited to see if the new fuel injectors solved the problems. While the new fuel injectors have made a dramatic difference, I still get some blue smoke, especially at idle. I’ve been waiting to be in a place where there are mechanics that I could call on if I made a mess of the job, and Green Turtle Bay has some good ones. (Not as good as Michael and Mendy at A&M Marine in Georgetown, SC, but good.) I had watched Michael pull the diaphragms when we were doing the engine tuning after the rebuild, and it didn’t look too hard. Move a couple of hoses, remove three bolts, swap out the diaphragm, and put it back together. Simple!
So… three hours later, having fished the same bolts out of the bilge a couple of times after dropping them. I finally got the diaphragms swapped out. The part is in a tiny crevice in the engine with limited access. Michael did them both in about an hour. I guess that’s why he charges the big bucks!
Anyway, I got it done. Then, replaced the sacrificial zincs on the engines. (Michael will be happy to know that they were in pretty good shape overall) Changing the zincs dumps a bunch of water into the bilge space under the engine, so cleaning that up was next on the list.
After that, I had a switch that runs one of the bilge pumps that needed replacing, so I took care of that and vacuumed the junk that accumulated in the bilge out and flushed it with fresh water. While I was doing that, I noticed that there was water inside the stringers that the engines sit on. When we went over the marine railway on the Trent-Severn, our high water alarm went off due to the shifting of the boat, and I think that it flowed into the stringers when that happened. The water was pretty gross, with lots of slime and sludge. Definitely not recent. There was some oil in it, so I couldn’t just pump it overboard. I got a 5-gallon bucket, hooked up my oil change pump, and started to pump it out. I ended up getting 25 gallons of water and gunk out! (I’ve been watching it since I did it, and the area has stayed dry, so it’s not a leak)
While I was working on the boat, Brenda and a couple of other boaters took the rental car to Walmart for a supply run. Brenda has learned that when I’m focused on boat projects, it’s better to leave me on my own. ????
Dez from MAD Cruzin had made reservations for us at Pattie’s, so again, 7 of us piled into the Courtesy Shuttle Golf Cart and went into town for dinner. Dinner was amazing! Pattie’s specialty is a 2″ thick Pork Chop and baked potatoes half the size of a football! They also feature “Flowerpot Bread” (see the photos below) and HUGE pies! Pattie’s it seems, must have all of the “Good Help,” and we all had a great meal!
After dinner, we waddled around the 1800’s Village, looking at the lights before catching the shuttle back to the marina.
(Click gallery images to enlarge. Touch/Mouse over for captions.)
Day 166 – Tue, 11/07 – In Grand Rivers, KY
Tuesday morning, we returned the rental car. When we got back, I changed back into my engine room clothes and finished my engine maintenance by changing the oil. (Yes, Michael, and the filters! I also did samples for Blackstone Labs and will share the results when I get them). After giving the engines and engine room a good wipe-down and new diapers under the engines and bringing my used oil up to the disposal tank, I got cleaned up and took a well-earned nap.
I worked on the Blog in the evening, and we had the leftovers from last night.
Day 167 – Wed, 11/08 – In Grand Rivers, KY
When we booked our stay at Green Turtle Bay, we didn’t know when we would be able to have our props swapped. They said they would fit us in, but it might be midweek before they got to us. So we booked an 8-day stay. Wednesday was our last day, and we spent it doing laundry, re-arranging the boat, putting away things we wouldn’t need, and putting our Halloween decorations into deep storage while breaking out our Christmas stuff.
In the morning, we said goodbye to a few of our fellow Loopers who were heading out. Most of them we would see again in a few days at Aqua Yacht, the next major stop on the Loop.
I worked on the Blog again for most of the day and picked up the last of our Amazon deliveries. I have to admire the Amazon algorithms. Earlier in the week, while ordering supplies, a “Neon Frog Prince” showed up in my “recommended items” list. Boy, do they have us pegged! It made a great addition to the boat!
In the evening, Brenda and I took the shuttle cart back into town and went to the local tavern for dinner, this time it was just burgers but they were quite good! As we were leaving, we noticed that the local park had been decorated with Christmas lights, so took a stroll through.
(Click gallery images to enlarge. Touch/Mouse over for captions.)
Thanks for visiting! –Tom & Brenda
2 Comments
Tom, i don’t remember a lock “Queue report”? Where do you find it? Is it an app for that?
Love your story telling. It brings back many memories of our 2019 loop and makes me look forward to looping again next year.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
The Lock Queue Report is published by the Army Corp for all of the locks that they manage. It shows the recent Lockthroughs, what is waiting, and for how long. You have to take it with a bit of a grain of salt, as we’ve seen delays in updating.
One of the tricks is to look at the number of barges. If there are a lot, depending on the size of the lock, they will probably have to split it and do two lockings. You can see that if there are two entries for the same Tow name, in the same direction, in a row.
The report is at: https://ndc.ops.usace.army.mil/ords/f?p=108:3
Pick the River System, then pick the Lock Name.
Cheers! Tom & Brenda