Hello and Goodbye Mississippi River!

Greetings everyone from Green Turtle Bay, Kentucky. I hope Everyone is enjoying your extra hour sleep. I for one am trying very hard to not get adjusted to it as next week we have some very long days where we will now be leaving by 6:00 vs 7:00. So…. The captain however is enjoying the extra hour and will have to pull his butt out of bed very early next week. But that is for another post…

We had one last night in Alton and ended out a Halloween party at a restaurant some interesting characters indeed.

We made our way through the first lock of the Mississippi and off we went.

Photos:

-Yes, that is a penis🤪

-Leaving Alton before Dawn

-This is the sign to the second lock on the Mississippi. Miss this and you will end out in The Chain of Rocks, where a boat infamously landed a few years ago and the people on board had to be airlifted off. Needless to say, the boat didn’t survive. They couldn’t even free it. I was a tad nervous about missing it.

The Mississippi - What a powerful river she is! She is also muddy, full of debris - we are talking logs - and there are plenty of those pesky barges - or tows as they are called when being pushed by a tug.

Beginning of tow— end of tow——-

Bit of trivia here—

• The white boat that pushes the barges is a tug. It reminds me of a minion as it is such a work horse and does so many things on the rivers.

• The containers are the barges

• When you combine them, they are a tow. When you are talking to a captain, it is wise to use the correct terminology or they get very upset.

Also, when conversing with captains, there is no passing on port (left) or starboard (right). You will pass on the one whistle (or the 1) or the two whistle (or the 2), this all seems very confusing at first as you can either overtake a vessel or pass by an oncoming vessel.

But the truth is, 1 always means go right and 2 always means go left.

Relatively easy enough to get right( no pun intended 🤣). Occasionally even a tow has to correct himself though- so we all have those “blonde” moments.

Why am I giving you so much information about these tows, well, they have something to do with a lot of conversations Mike and I had. I am now considered the “rear admiral” as I was up his butt a great deal about when and how to talk to the tows. 😝.

If I were to do this river again, especially in a group of boats, I would have one more UHF radio - 13 is the working channel, 16 is emergency and then you choose a working channel just for your group.

I would also have a much more powerful main radio and a much more powerful AIS antenna. Any of those things would have made our lives a little bit easier with each other.

Anyone who knows Mike, knows he has a lot of talents. He is a visionary, a thinker, a doer, what he doesn’t really love to do is to communicate - especially when its not in writing.

Usually, that task gets passed off to me. But for some reason, he wouldn’t let me talk to the tows. Maybe, it’s because it almost became a competition with us. A game called - who could stress the other out more 😬😳😈

This is how it goes with the tows-

you see them on AIS. You radio them on 13 and ask them for instructions on passing.

Many of them have deep southern drawls and chew tobacco, so it’s like talking to someone with marbles in their mouths.

They are quite friendly though and give you instructions that include one of the following:

1. Your ok to pass on the 1 or 2 - their choice.

2. Hold back until they get around a turn and then pass on their side of choice

3. Back up and let them get further up before passing.

4. You get the drift.….

You then follow their instructions, and if you are point boat, let everyone else know the tows instructions.

I wanted to call the tows early, especially when we were the point boat for a group of boats. He always thought it was too early - they were too far away. This led to some heated discussions. Sometimes our AIS wouldn’t pick up on something and now you have a tow quite close and 6 boats behind you that are waiting instruction.

AIS (Automatic Identification System) is an identification system that commercial boats have and pleasure boats may have. It is communicated to other boats who have it via satellite and it is optional for pleasure boaters. When they first appear on AIS only their AIS number appears, it takes a few minutes before the vessel name shows up.

But it allows you to see boats around you and get their names for hailing purposes.

Needless to say, some conversations went like this:

Des: A tow just showed up on AIS- call them.

Mike: They are still two miles out.

Des: We have 6 boats behind us call the damn tug.

Mike: It is too soon.

Des: Give me the fu*#ing radio and I will call them.

Mike: Their name hasn’t event appeared yet.

Des: Our AIS sucks. Give me the damn radio.

Etc…..😬🫣

Who was right about when to call? Who knows. Probably both of us- I over communicate, Mike not so much…In my defense, I have been reading about how dangerous these tows are for years, so I was already “spinned” up a bit.

But the truth is, plenty of boats do this without AIS, and if the tows feel you are in danger, they will contact you. Either by your AIS name or something to the fact of - southbound vessel at MM X. Do you see me?

Maybe in this case, some ignorance is bliss. 🧐

The rivers are also historically low and they have temporary channel markers spread through out the river in places you wouldn’t think would be correct. A lot of times having you hug the shore.

We would sometimes see the markers a fair amount in advance and another conversation would go like this:

Des: Do you the see markers? I would then give him the color. Mike is color blind so this is something beneficial.

I would then expect to see him moving over. When he didn’t it would go like this:

Des: why aren’t you moving over?

Mike: Because they are a mile away.

Des: But you know you have to get over. Why don’t you just move over?

Mike: I will when I get closer.

Des: But why not now???

Mike: I don’t want to….

And so forth. So, now I am a Rear Admiral….UP HIS BUTT..🤓

As far as being the point boat on the rivers: At the end of the day, there was another boat who had better electronics, had done the loop before and was happy to take point.

And for us, when we weren’t in charge- travel was much less stressful then when we were running point. Mike got to be the captain without me interjecting every time I felt the need and I wasn’t thrown overboard. 😂

We will continue to have tows all the way down to Mobile, so we aren’t though this yet.

If we are on our own, we certainly have more time to call and if we aren’t , we will do our best not be the Point Boat. 😅

As The good news is we aren’t getting a divorce and we are ready to move on . 🛥️

***This is a good time for a break.

The details of the trip itself :

We ran 218 miles on the Mississppi and 58 on the Ohio, which for the first 20 miles wasn’t any better than the Mississippi. In some places the barge congestion was actually worse.

We traveled the rivers with 6-8 other boats, so once again, a bit of a caravan.

Our first night we stayed at the iconic Hoppies. A Couple of barges that you tie off to. They do have power that you can plug into- as rough as it is, and fuel. After all, these barges are filled with fuel.

We all pulled up to Hoppies together and some of us had to wait over two hours to get tied off as they pulled people and fueled them in a certain order. But honestly, it made no sense. Anyways, we were the second to the last boat, so we hung out on the Mississppi watching the other boats -one by one, go in.

Honestly, Mike has done an amazing job navigating these rivers and at Hoppies—after waiting , he needed to turn the boat up into the current and dock it at the barge. He did a great job.

The rivers are challenging for sure. But no Jinxing. We are 550 miles of 1300. Still a ways to go….

Photos:

Hanging out on the river.

Hoppies at night

We were rewarded with a beautiful sunrise at departure.

It was a quiet evening as all restaurants were closed due to Halloween. But we had an early rise so all good. We got waked pretty good throughout the night from the barges, but all part of the adventure.

We arose the next day before daybreak and traveled to the Little Diversion canal, where we had a very peaceful anchorage with 5 boats rafted in back and 3 boats rafted up front

Taking the dogs out was fun as there was mud and burrs everywhere. The tender, the boat, and my shoes were filthy. No big clean though as we were traveling 3 days with only onboard water. Had to conserve.

Photos:

That’s a small log.

What’s lurking below

Our anchorage for the night.

After we got off of the Mississippi, we traveled the Ohio to Paducah Kentucky.

The first twenty miles of the Ohio were rough. As soon as you turned up the Ohio, there was a serious barge parking lot and it was very unclear as to where to go. Our point captain, talked to the tows and they guided us through.

There was still plenty of barge traffic until we hit the Olmstead Lock. After the lock, the Ohio became a much more pleasant river. Less Barges and cleaner water.

The power at Paducah dock was being worked on and the docks were already winterized for water, so no power or water. All good. We knew about it.

Photos:

A bridge somewhere

Look at the pillars and the rocks. This is the Ohio, but the Mississippi is the same. Look at how low it is and how it gets!

Paducah turned out to be an adorable downtown with a great restaurant. The Chef‘s clain to fame is that she was on Top Chef. I don’t know how far she made it, but her food was creative and tasty with plenty of unique vegetarian/ vegan offerings. There was also a quilting museum and some fun after dinner bar life. Our life has changed so much - dinner at 6:00 bed by 9:00 or 10:00. For the group to go to the piano bar after dinner was a real treat.

Photos:

The Paducah waterfront is surrounded by walls. They have painted the walls showing its history. It’s super cool. Their biggest era was when they had a strategic uranium enrichment plant used by the defense department for the production of atomic bombs. Hmmm

None the less, a great time with a picture depicting our incredible dinner.

Then there was that quilting museum. I’m not super into fiber and Mike had no interest. Everyone kept raving about it though, so since we had a pretty short run from there to GTB, we decided to leave a little later so I could run up in the am and visit it. Man, was it worth it . Super cool quilts. I had no idea!

These are all quilts. I mean, unbelievable. On a few, I took a close up as well so you could see the detail behind the work. Pretty amazing.

We had a very uneventful run to Green Turtle Bay Via the Cumberland River. We only saw one tow - (albeit on a turn) but it was warm and pleasant all the way here. So far the only turtle we have seen, is the little plastic one the marina gave us…. But its beautiful and peaceful here.

Photos:

1 and 2. there were plen of rock quarries on the Cumberland . Check out the tug doing its job keeping the barge on land. Cute little minion.

3. Banks on the Cumberland

4. A deer on the property

5. The marina

6. The beach. The big cylinders are tie offs for the barges waiting for the lock. Your view, could in fact, be of a barge. Fun to watch…or disruptive of the peace….

If everyone remembers from my last post, I was so excited to get here. Restaurants, a spa, civilization woohoo!

The bar is closed for the season, the restaurant is understaffed and the spa was completely booked - had been for weeks. I suspect they are also understaffed.

Big bummer- we were scheduled to be here for 4 days, but contemplated leaving today. Everyone keeps telling us that we need to go to this restaurant in town called Patti’s though and today was the only day I could get a res for us and our friends. So, stay we are.

We did run into Grand Rivers two nights ago for dinner with our small group of 3 boats that we have been with consistently off and on, and this town is a hoot! One street, but a hoot. Patti’s is really the center of town and behind that, they have a big mercantile of boutique stores.

And guess what, this weekend was their christmas lighting festival. They go all out in this little place. We walked around after dinner and will be back there tonight to check it all out again.

Photos:

Christmas in full swing here in Grand Rivers

Mike got himself some Goodwood…

The first restaurant we ate at here was understaffed and like so many restaurants in the mid west, nothing vegetarian outside of a salad. But I have high hopes for Patti’s. turns out its owned by Patti’s - still, high hopes

As for that massage, our next big stop is in Iuka, Mississippi, where we are having some boat maintenance done. What is close to Iuka? Muscle Shoals. It is an hour drive and we have decided to rent a car and go to Muscle Shoals for the weekend.

We already have tickets to the museum, and I already have a massage booked at the Marriott we are staying at. Where there is a will, there is a way. 😆

That is it for this post, two days of travel to Iuka starting tomorrow. Then 4 days in Iuka, Mississippi and Mussel Shoals, Alabama.

I will say, these states all run together. We were in Missouri for a minute, then we will be in Kentucky through tomorrow night. Wednesday will be Tennessee and Thursday will be Alabama. There is a point where you have an intersection where Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi all meet ….

Thanks again for reading and have a great week.

**wix was being difficult. Excuse anything that is spelled, spaced, or anything else wrong. Just happy to get this out today.