So…….this’ll be a long blog entry. After five long days on the Mississippi, Ohio and Cumberland rivers, anchoring out in the middle of nowhere and almost no facilities, no marinas, no fuel stops, we are at Green Turtle Bay Marina in Grand Rivers, KY. It's a beautiful, large, full service marina at the North end of Lake Barkley, which, with Kentucky Lake, forms the "Land Between The Lakes", a huge natural recreation area that is effectively a 30 mile long, 5 mile wide island with thousands of miles of shoreline, islands, and scenic beauty. We'll be staying here at least 4 days to explore the area, see Paducah and enjoy the ease of marina life compared to boating and anchoring out.

On Thursday, Oct. 19th, we left Alton IL for the trip down the Mississippi, up the Ohio River to the Cumberland River and down to Lake Barkley. The boat performed well all 5 days and the fixed engine riser manifold is a complete and permanent fix, working as it should.


Going by St. Louis was a ho-hum because they've done nothing with their waterfront. No places to stop or see, all dirty commercial stuff except to see the arch as you pass. However, all the river days were eventful and somewhat of a hassle due to almost zero boating facilities.








Thursday night, we stayed at Hoppie's Marina on the Mississippi. The "marina" is just 4 large barges with some floating docks, all floating in the current of the Mississippi. They were completely full, with about 20 transient boats and maybe 30 small resident boats tied up there. They did have fuel, water and electric there. We walked up a long gangway to the bank and about 1/4 mile into the town of Kimswick for a very nice dinner. There were lots of long walks with Daisy. The picture of Hoppie's shows the barges and one mega-yacht with 3 Hatteras yachts in a row behind it. We're the last (and smallest) Hatteras in the lineup. Very unusual to see 3 Hatts together.......is that a "Hatt trick"?

Friday night we tied up to the lock wall at the Kaskaskia River lock. It was an easy, uneventful day and a fine place to tie up for the evening. The only problem was that we could only get off the boat and walk on the large lock walkway on top of the lock entrance walls. It was not connected to land, just a long narrow cement walkway. We walked the dog on the walkway, but she really prefers grass so she was hesitant to do her thing on the cement. She did, once, on her 3rd walk at about 10:30 PM, and then wouldn't on the next morning's walk, so she had to wait 18 hours until 4:30 PM Friday when we anchored and got out the dinghy. That was a record, but she made it. There was literally no place to stop between Kaskaskia and Hoppie's.

On Saturday we went down the Mississippi to the Ohio river and up the Ohio towards the Cumberland river. We have been running at "slow cruise" speed, which saves a huge amount of fuel and makes it easier to dodge the logs, branches and whole trees and other flotsam in the Mississippi and Ohio. There were plenty of "deadheads" which we dodged. (No that's not Greatful Dead groupies floating down the river.....a “deadhead” is a large log, some the size of telephone poles, that is so waterlogged that one end sinks down to the bottom of the river and only the top few inches is floating above the surface. VERY hard to see and dangerous to hit because they're big enough to destroy props, rudders, etc.)



Surprisingly, the Ohio river was twice as muddy and had ten times more flotsam than the Mississippi. It's probably just a condition made by storms in the Ohio Valley making the rivers rise and picking up silt, mud, logs, refrigerators, etc. There's a picture of the confluence of the waters between the Mississippi and Ohio where there's a line separating the two colors as they first contact each other. The water at the boat is the Mississipppi and the Ohio is muddier and farther away, halfway across the water.

Saturday night, we anchored in a small diversion channel which had about 10 ft of water depth but was very narrow. We put out 2 anchors and stretched between the stern and bow anchors so the wind wouldn't blow our stern against the shore, grounding our props and rudders. We had to run the dog in the dinghy all the way across the Mississippi to a huge, beautiful sand bar beach which was about 2 miles long, 1,000 ft wide and totally uninhabited except by millipedes and one beached red channel marker. Daisy liked it fine. That evening, another Great Circle Route boat, “Loose Stones”, came to anchor in the channel behind us. I explained to them about our bow and stern anchors and they did likewise. They also had a dog named Daisy, a large yellow lab, and I explained that the channel we were anchored in was too muddy and rocky to work well so the beach across the river was best. I had marked a good dinghy landing spot where the sand was steep enough on approach to beach the dinghy. When we first went, I had to get out in one foot deep water and haul the dinghy the last 6 ft to shore, so I walked the beach and found a deeper landing site. We invited the other couple, Bill and Jane Stone, over for drinks and munchies on our aft deck. They are a very enjoyable couple and we have stayed cruising together for the last 3 days. They’re 3 slips down the dock here at Green Turtle Bay Marina and we enjoyed a dinner with them last night here in Kentucky near the marina.

On Sunday, we awoke to find that the stern anchor worked fine overnight, but the bow anchor had dragged and the boat was crosswise in the channel with the stern in the center of the channel and the bow was almost onshore. The boat was not grounded, but as it turned it hung up the stern anchor line on the rudders or props so I couldn't raise the stern anchor. Kathy didn't like going all the way across the Mississippi and the shipping channel, so she wanted to take the dog up the muddy banked channel and land on rock fill under a bridge, which we did, only to find everything all big rocks, muddy and Daisy got full of burrs and did nothing. So we took her across to the big beach again and she was happy. After we got back and put the dinghy back on the roof, I figured I could haul in the bow anchor and the current would push the bow downstream, possibly turning the boat releasing the stern anchor line. It worked and the stern anchor tension pulling astern freed the anchor line from whatever it was caught on under the boat and the anchor held us in the middle of the little channel against the current. The only problem was that the bow anchor rope had tangled in an impossibly tight knot around the anchor winch capstan and it could not be released. The only way to unwrap the knot was to take the shackle off the anchor and manually unwind the rope from the winch. That worked fine, but as I took the shackle off, I let the anchor slip and it launched itself, just as it is designed to do, into the diversion channel............with no rope attached! It’s still there at the bottom of that channel. I believe this qualifies as my dumbest stunt ever in boating. No harm, no foul, but our backup anchor became our primary anchor.

Then, of course, Sunday night became our most challenging anchoring situation. “Loose Stones” had cruised with us that day an we planned on anchoring together behind a sand bar on the Ohio river where some cruising books recommended that there was anchoring room out of the channel in about 10 ft. deep water. When we got there, the sand bar was completely under water and the anchoring spot was really just anchoring in about 20 ft. of water out in the river about 300 ft. from shore. The current was strong and a 10 to 25 knot wind added 1 ft. waves. I could get our anchor to set and hold, but it wouldn’t hold against the power of an engine in reverse, which is a sure way to know it will hold all night. Bill Stone had a second anchor that is identical to ours, but had 50 ft. of chain that helps hold it down. He loaned us that anchor to try. It would set and hold, but not much better than ours without the chain, but we decided to stay the night there because there were no better options and I don’t want to cruise at night. The current was running fast under the boat, making lots of lapping gurgling noises, and the fast current was causing our port propeller to freewheel, turning at about 100 RPM with the motors off, and making a whoosh, whoosh, whoosh sound in the aft stateroom. I went to the port engine room and tied a rope around an engine support and wrapped it around the tunring propshaft, which stopped the propeller from turning. Our Allison marine gears don’t like freewheeling the props, so it’s better to stop them.

With the whooshing, lapping and gurgling of the current, the blowing wind, the dinghy horsing against the stern rope and bangint the swim platform and the possibility of the anchor dragging, Kathy couldn’t sleep at all. I offered to stand watch, but she just stayed up all night. I shoed her how to check our position versus the shore with our big roof mounted searchlight, but it didn’t help much. I’m sure she felt that if she went to sleep, we’d wake up back in the Mississippi and halfway to New Orleans or as a bow ornament on a barge.

Monday morning came with a welcome and pretty sunrise and we took both dogs to shore in our dinghy and finally got what was an “early start” about 8 AM. It was a nice cruising day and the water color was much better in the Cumberland river than the Ohio, no longer muddy brown. We made it to the Barkley Lock and Green Turtle bay about 3 PM Monday.

Today is Tuesday and Green Turtle Bay Marina can get me another big main anchor by Friday morning. They had a used 45 lb. CQR for $150, but I wanted the larger 60 lb. CQR anchor shipped here “3 day select”, so we’ll have a new, maybe better anchor, and I’ll have a $1000 story to tell. (ouch!)

We have an Enterprise rental car for the next 3 days to see the area and go to Paducah. It should be fun. Wait! That’s what I said before we started out on the last 5 days! Oh well, some of it was fun…………and we’re getting further South!