Another early start and a beautiful sunrise at "Hoppie's." We awoke to find ice on the bow, which Rich quickly discovered when he slid across the bow, as he went to disconnect the power cords. Luckily no broken bones - just wounded pride. It was definitely time to be further South!
Much to Reggie's dismay, no marina tonight. We had to anchor in Diversion Channel in the Little River. It was a quiet night at anchor and not nearly as cold. The generator ran the heater just fine.
The next mid-morning we left the Mississippi and rounded up on the Ohio River. Now we were traveling UP river, against a 2+ knot current, much different than traveling DOWN river on the Mississippi, with the help of a 3.5-4 knot current.
We arrived at our first Ohio River Lock, Lock 53. We were instructed to "float on through" by the lock master. This was our first experience locking through in this manner. What he meant, was that we didn't have to tie up to the lock because we were the only boat being locked through. We entered the lock, he closed the gate and in a few minutes and many hundreds of thousands of gallons of water later to raise us, he was ready to open the other gate, and we motored out. It was really pretty cool!
We arrived at Lock 52 by 2:30P, hoping to be able to get through this lock quickly, too. Our overnight destination was a free dock in Paducah on the other side. No such luck - the auxilliary lock which pleasure craft use, was inoperable. The main lock had a mechanical problem and was operating at reduced capacity. The lock master had a large backup of tows and barges in both directions.
We were finally told to anchor at the red buoy off the lock for the night and he would get us through as early as possible the next morning. We have found several lock breakdowns along the way. So with that, and tows and barges always having lock through priority, one has to learn to be patient. With the short days, we plan to be safely docked/anchored by 4PM each day.
We later found out that the free barge (dock) that we had planned to use in Paducah was removed recently. Our options would have been limited, had we been able to get through Lock 52 later in the day. Someone was watching over us.
We spent a quiet night at anchor. Reggie has learned how to go potty on the sun deck when absolutely necessary - FINALLY!
We called the lock master when we first got up the next morning and he locked us through at 0700 with a tow. Note the gorgeous sunrise in Lock 53. We feel it was our "window of opportunity" because when we continued up river, we found numerous tows and barges waiting for the next lock throughs.
