Wednesday, September 5, 2012

What a day!  It began at 4:45.  We were up and dressed and waiting for the sun to come up enough to see the buoys.  Lightning made such a gorgeous light show for us, but made us unsure whether we should stay or leave.  One forecast was a 30% chance of rain.  The other forecast was for a stray severe thunderstorm.  We decided to go ahead and leave because there are no places to get fuel until you get to Kentucky Dam and we were using fuel to run the generator.  We pulled away from the lock wall at 6:15 with 135 miles to go to the first safe place to spend the night.  We were cruising along the Mississippi at 13 mph.  That's really good for us.  The current helped, but John pushed a little harder than usual.  There were so many barges, both moving and moored.  The eddies in the Mississippi are legendary.  They push you around and you have to be paying attention or you end up where you don't want to be.  Finally, we made the turn into the Ohio River.  That sounds so wonderful, like we're almost home.  However, when we reached the Olmsted Lock that is under construction, the cells and the shore were full of barges and tows waiting to lock through Lock 53 which is a couple of miles farther up river.  At that point, we didn't know what to do.  The Lockmaster would not answer us on the radio and he would not answer the phone.  The only safe place listed in our books is on the other side of Lock 53.  The Lockmaster at Lock 52 told us that they are having problems and the barge traffic is backed up 24 hours.  We had no choice but to pull outside of the channel and drop anchor.  It isn't the place we wanted to be, but there was no place else to go.  In the morning, the plan is to try to reach the Lockmaster at Lock 53 again and see when we will be allowed to lock through.  If he doesn't answer, I guess we'll pull up close to the lock and let ourselves be seen.   We knew today would be a long day.  We cruised for more than 11 hours and then spent another hour fiddling around trying to decide our best course of action.  Tomorrow may turn out to be equally as long (or longer), depending on how long it takes to get through the three locks (Lock 53, Lock 52, and Kentucky Dam Lock).  We are so close to crossing our wake and being finished with the Great Loop.

This morning's sunrise.

 

The beginning of the Ohio River.