Now for the rest of the story... We pulled out of Alton, IL on the Mississippi River today at 5:50am. We ran through the first lock without any issue all at. We were in and out by 6:15am. A great start to the day. At the second lock just before St Louis, we had a big delay. We were third in line behind a couple of tows. The nice thing was that the lockmaster kept us in our place. Normally we go to the back of the line behind commercial traffic. Here, as commercial boats came to the lock, they did not put us to the back of the line.
So after a 3 hour delay, we got underway again. At 9:45am, we had only gone about 25 miles. Once out of the lock and on our way south, we made time the best we could. The Mississippi was at flood stage. The good news about high water is that we picked up about 3 to 4 mph on our cruise due to the swift current. Instead of traveling at 26 mph; we were cruising most of the day between 29 and 30mph. The bad news, when the waters are high in the river, there is a lot of debris and crap floating down the river.
We dodged some doozies today. We made a quick 20 minute stop at Hoppie's Marina (just south of St Louis) around 11:30am to top off the fuel tanks since we weren't sure if we could make it to our next fuel stop without it. While we were tied to the fuel dock at Hoppie's which is directly on the Mississippi River, we had a tree about 20 feet long and a foot in diameter get stuck under the boat. David worked at it for about 10 minutes as we were fueling before he was able to get it dislodged. In the meantime, Hoppie, who is about 80 years old, is in front of the boat pushing trees and stumps away from the front of our boat with a big pole. It was an absolute rodeo for the 20 minute stop. I have never been involved in anything like this before. Bruce (on Miss Darlin) said there are those that love the Mississippi and those that hate it. You can firmly put me in the hate it category. I felt like it was pretty dangerous conditions today; especially with the pods hanging down
As quick as we could we topped off the tanks and got going. We slalomed down the river dodging huge trees, stumps and all kinds of debris. Finally, at 5:00pm we finished the Mississippi and made the turn east at Cairo onto the Ohio River. Yeah! Now we only have another 981 miles to go with 20 more locks along the way.
Well, the first 2 locks on the Ohio were perfect. The wicket dams were down, so there was no lock to go through at all. We were able to ride right over top due to the high water. The third lock was the Smithland Lock. I called the lockmaster on the phone about 3 miles out. The guy could not have been any nicer. He said the lock was open and he was ready for us when we got there. We were in and out in about 20 minutes. Perfect! We were fighting daylight and this was the make or break. If we were to have a delay, we would have gone back about 3 miles and anchored for the night behind one of the islands.
Once through the lock, we now had the final 20 miles to go to the marina as the light was fading fast. David did an unbelievable job driving the boat to our final destination. We came off the river with just enough light to see the entrance to the marina. We came in and got tied to the fuel dock at 8:45pm. The power cord was just long enough to make it to the power pedestal and one of the locals provided us with the codes to the restrooms and showers. Now we just need to wait until the marina opens at 8:00am to take on some fuel and pay for our dockage. A banner day!
We are now eating some frozen lasagna fresh out of the microwave. And for those in the know, I am having a few Oreo cookies for desert.
So here are some stats:
Miles traveled so far: 1,833
Miles to go: 902
Fuel: 2,562 gallons
Bodies of water traveled:
St Lawrence Seaway
Lake Ontario
Welland Canal
Lake Erie
Detroit River
Lake St Clair
Lake Huron
Lake Michigan
Calumet-Sag Channel
Illinois River
Mississippi River
Ohio River
One of the tows that locked through with us just north of St Louis
St Louis skyline
St Louis Arch
Not a good picture of the debris, but multiply this by 5 and you would get some idea of how much stuff was floating down the Mississippi River all day.
Construction at the Olmstead Lock
An Army Corp Dredge on the Ohio River
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