We played dodge the logs and wait for locks
today; although I must say we did not need to dodge as many as on the
Mississippi. We all started out at our usual time today 7am and ran until about
11am when we reached Lock 52. This Lock and dam are very busy with Tow traffic
and they are also making some repairs to it. The lock was originally
constructed in 1928 and according to the lock master, every year they have to
replace about 35 of the 700 pieces of concrete that make up the dam part. Check
out the pictures I posted below of the barges right against the dam wall as
they work. I got a close up of a few of the guys working right over the dam.
They are directing a piece of concrete into place and they are perched rather
precariously. They are much braver then I.
The wait at this lock was 2hrs long, so we
actually dropped our anchor to wait it out. Easier to make lunch that way. When
we went into the lock it was a bit different than the usual. We had to have 25
foot long lines which we attached to a hook that the lock master and helper
had. They hoisted our lines up to the top of the lock (12 feet up) and then
dropped the line back down to us. We had to hold on tight. There was a bit of
excitement because the boat tied up behind us; which was Estrellita; did not
have a line long enough to go up and back down. The answer was to tie two lines
together. Part way through the lift, the tied lines came apart and immediately
their boat started to turn sideways. Quickly Burk went to start the engines but
did not take the line out of the water. I yelled at him to bring in his line
first, but he did not understand what I was saying. Moments later, I heard
Sarah from the boat behind them yell out, your line...your props...stop. Fortunately they got the line out of the
water before it got caught up in his prop. I know how that feels and it is not
nice. But the water is much warmer here!
As we exited the lock we found out that the
wait at the next lock could be equally long. We had two options, Up the Ohio to
the Kentucky lock or up the Cumberland River; which is 20miles longer but no
wait. Then we found out that the lock on the Cumberland was closed because they
had to blow up a bridge on that river, so they closed all traffic until the job
was done and cleaned up. The decision was to go Kentucky and run the risk of
not getting through before night fall or go Cumberland and anchor out at the
Cumberland island and wait out the lock. We picked the anchoring and we ended
up here by 3:30 pm. No party tonight, I think we are all partied out and there
are 10 boats here at the moment. Perfect Balance can only hold about 14 of us
on the Lido deck; 20 is pushing it a bit too far. Randy and Sherrie came over
for crackers and water (I can't handle all this drinking) but left around 5:30
and Jim and I had a quiet dinner on deck. A lovely night, a lovely view and
tomorrow we dodge and wait again. Nighty night. Oh I forgot to load the Olmsted lock construction picture for yesterday's blog. Here they are below. How many cranes does it take to build a lock?
No comments:
Post a Comment