Oops

It was our last day on the Mississippi River

We picked up anchor from our wingdam anchorage and headed out to the main current of the Mississippi.

Several towboats with large sets of barges came by our anchorage overnight going in the direction we were going, and as we were faster, we had to maneuver our way around some of them.

I spoke to the captains, getting their permission to pass them the safest way.

“Take it on the one”.

“Take it on the two”.

“If you let me get around this corner, you can get by more easily.”

They all were courteous and professional, albeit sometimes they had an accent that was difficult to understand, and I’d ask them to repeat things to be clear.

After about an hour or so, we entered the confluence where the Ohio meets the Mississippi.

We turned left and headed up the Ohio.

We have been going downstream the last couple of weeks at probably an average of 10 to 11 miles an hour.

Suddenly our speed was down to 60% of what we had traveled before.

Selkie seemed to handle it just fine, although being slower it took more time to go the same distance.

We went up to the Olmstead Lock, which was the only lock we were locking through.

We arrived about noon.

There were several other loopers behind us that we knew about.

I called the Lockmaster and asked them to give us guidance in terms of being able to lock through.

They appreciated the call and said that when the last boat got there, they would lock us through as soon as they could.

We decided to drop anchor to wait. The winds were blowing against the current, making for a choppy water situation.

We headed over close to shore in a nice little area that looked like it would be out-of-the-way and out of the wind.

We were easing slowly in close to the shore in 15 feet of water under the keel, just like our charts said, when suddenly and unexpectedly, Selkie slowed down and stopped.

We had finally done it.

We had run aground.

The depth had gone from 15’ to 4’ in a boat length. Selkie draws 4.5’

The sand bar we ran into was not charted.

Libbie and I were both a little frantic about the situation, perhaps more due to embarrassment than anything else.

Selkie was certainly handling it better than we were as it was soft sand we were sitting in. We went ahead and tried to work the boat off by ourselves. Sometimes you can back out of the situation but it was no avail.

After a while, a friendly fisherman came by and towed us off.

I did a quick systems check. Selkie was fine, albeit the propeller was probably a little more polished than before.

Selkie is a tough boat, well designed with a full keel and a skeg protecting the rudder and propeller.

We dropped anchor, licked our wounds, and made lunch.

Some of the boats we were locking with were were pretty slow (even slower than Selkie), and we knew we had quite a wait.

By the time everybody got up there, it had been five hours.

Finally, we got the call from the lock master and thankfully locked through.

It was dusk and the light was getting low.

We chose an anchorage and rafted up with another boat.

Three other boats rafted together up current from us.

It was a great anchorage for the evening.

As it turned out, the boat we rafted to was another Kadey Krogen, a KK44. The owner invited us over for dinner, and so we joined him and his crew, who happened to be the owner of another Kadey Krogen 39 just like Selkie.

We brought a nice bottle of wine, a salad and dessert.

It was a great evening with good stories after a long and sometimes upsetting day.

During our dinner we suddenly heard a bunch of yelling from the boats ahead of us.

We couldn’t understand what happened until the captain of one of the boats texted me this picture:

That confirmed the rumors of the big catfish in the water in the area.

The next morning we split up the rafted boats, and went up to Paducah, Kentucky, where there is a public transit dock that we could all stay at.

Paducah is a fun little town, with a great little old downtown renovated with lots of restaurants and bars and museums.

I’d recommend a quick stop there sometime for an overnight if you have nothing else to do in the area.

We rode our bikes around.

I did some more engine room work, just to clean up some things.

We settled in for the night.

There was a good round of docktales that evening as we had 12 boats all looping.

We all sat and told stories and talked about the next day.

The next day we were going to continue up the Ohio river a little ways, and then turn up the Cumberland river.

The Cumberland and the Tennessee river come together at Kentucky lake behind two dams and two locks.

You have the choice of going up the Tennessee river or the Cumberland. The locks we had to choose from were either the Kentucky lock on the Tennessee or the Barkley lock on the Cumberland.

The Tennessee is a much more active waterway with a lot of towboat and barge traffic. The Cumberland is twice as long, but rarely has towboats going through the locks.

Everybody chose to go to the Barkley Lock.

A couple of boats that were traveling with us were going to cross their wake (complete their Loop) the next day so we were all more than a little excited for them.

This lock was a tall one. We estimated we were going to be elevated about 5 stories up.

We proceeded up the Cumberland and arrived at the Barkley Lock.

The gates were mammoth.

Our destination was going to be Green Turtle Bay Resort on Lake Barkley, which follows the riverbed of the Cumberland.

Lake Barkley is at the same elevation as Kentucky Lake, which follows the Tennessee riverbed.

There is a small waterway that connects the two, so the two lakes sit at the same elevation.

Libbie and I were looking forward to getting to Green Turtle Bay Resort to stop for a few days.

Libbie’s sister was coming down from Chicago to be Green Turtle Bay Resort with us.

We were staying for a couple nights and then moving Selkie to another less expensive marina close by for four nights while we went to Nashville for three days to see the sights and some cousins.

We haven’t been to Nashville for any length of time, so we are looking forward to our stay there.

We are also looking forward to shorter, easier days transiting the waterways the Tennessee River, the TenTom canal and the Tombigbee River to Mobile, Alabama.