River #2

Greetings from the Ohio River. Yes, that’s correct - we have left the Mississippi River and if all goes as planned we won’t be back to it until next fall.  

We weighed anchor early this morning since our goal was to get through the Olmsted Lock on the Ohio River today.  The Army Corps of Engineers starts maintenance on the lock tomorrow and it will go down to only one usable channel for getting both pleasure craft and tows through for over a week.  Given the more or less continuous barge traffic we’ve experienced since leaving St Louis, MO, we didn’t want to risk waits longer than those we had seen on the Mississippi.

We continued to enjoy the effects of the Mississippi current by flying (by Dragonfly standards) at double digit speeds until we turned left onto the Ohio River at around 1:30 PM. Once on the Ohio, we were headed UP river.  Also, iI’s always important for the prudent mariner to know whether they are headed up or down river since that determines which side of your boat you pass the buoys to.  In this case we now had to keep the red “Nun” buoys to our right (red right returning) which we reminded each other for a bit this afternoon.  At this point we also left Missouri and were now traveling between Illinois and Kentucky (for those of you learning geography along with me, KG).

Once we took entered the Ohio, our speed plummeted to 5-6 mph which felt glacial after the morning.  The first part of the Ohio continued to be a full of barges being loaded, staged AND being towed.  We also came upon some that were beached - we weren’t sure if these were intentional or not, but don’t imagine they will be coming off any time soon with the low water.

Around mile 970 on the Ohio we came upon the biggest hydraulic dredging operation we’ve seen to date.  The Corps sets up the barge and hydraulic lines across the river and in order to pass safely through and not disturb the operation AND not damage your boat, you have to call the dredge operator and they send a tug out for you to play “follow the leader” with through the buoy field that marks the hazards of the operation. 

I’m happy to say we succeeded in making it to the Olmsted Lock this afternoon. And, as luck would have it, a down bound tug was coming out of the lock as we arrived and we were able to get right in.  This was our first experience in a dual chamber lock where both chambers were being operated simultaneously. It was also our first time being raised in a lock (since we were headed up river).  Thankfully we had 27 locks-worth of practice, since this was also the first one where we didn’t have one of the lock employees there to make sure we knew what to do.  In this picture the Reverend Hartley tow is headed into the river-side chamber and I’m headed into the shore side.

Once out of the lock we were back to our “slow life” cruising speed of 7-8 mph as the dam takes away much of the river’s current.  The Ohio River suddenly became very wide and peaceful.  We enjoyed comparing and contrasting the Mississippi and Ohio River foliage as we made a beeline to our anchorage which was about 5 miles further on the Kentucky side of the river.  All-in-all we traveled 71.8 miles today - our farthest day yet.  We had a lovely dinner in the cockpit as we enjoyed this sunset.  

This will be our third night in a row where we are unable to go ashore (Kaskaskia lock wall doesn’t count since there was only about 3 feet of wall we could step on to tie up the boat).  I’m happy to report that we’re still enjoying each other’s company despite the close quarters and limited social interactions.  Barring unforeseen circumstances, we hope to make it to a marina by days end tomorrow.