Ohio River

Today we began the final phase of our journey; we are on the Ohio River. Our lock through at Kentucky Dam went great this morning. No body waiting on either side, and we locked down 55 feet. (I don’t get it; we’re traveling north, but lock down?!?) While in the lock the lockmaster gets a call on the radio saying, “I’ve just released the troops and we’ll have 12 coming through”. It would seem we made it through just in time before the long wait. This lock had a great echo "hellooooooooo". The last 20 mile stretch of the Tennessee River was pretty uneventful, lots of industry. It’s very understandable why Paducah is not ‘pleasure craft friendly’, so many tugs and barges on both sides of the river. It’s a large location for tug dry docks.

Once we hung a right onto the Ohio River we hit a small current and slowed down to 5.8 knots. We passed by where the Cumberland River joins up with the Ohio and slowed down even more, for a bit.

We’ve passed a couple of large barges and seen only a few fishing and motor boats today. The weather was not conducive to great water sports. We did come across a dredger, just before the lock. We traversed the first of 6 locks on the Ohio today, the Smithland Lock. This lock has two channels like the Pickwick. We locked through with a couple of small fishing boats and a gazillion mayflies. We hear they only live a few days, don’t bite and don’t eat – but they do swarm and attach to anything that’s not moving (YUCK). In this lock we rose 22 feet.

We pulled into and tied up at the Golconda Marina just as a storm pounded the river. They wanted to put us into a covered slip, but we were too tall. It’s nice to be docked when there’s a storm brewing; lots of lightening, thunder and rain. The air is fresh and cooler now that it’s passed. Maybe we’ll see the sun tomorrow.