July 30 Whooopeeee! Annies on the Ohio

Well, Annie got her taste of the Ohio yesterday.  Locked through Barkley lock on the Cumberland River  without incident although it took some time to get the lockmasters attention.

 

Barkley Lock

 

Called him on the radio several times with no response. Then blew the horn and Ron pulled the manual cable to no avail. Finally called him on the phone and he answered and locked us right through. There was no traffic at all on the Cumberland. Finally got onto the Ohio about 2 PM. Dropped in line with the many tows pushing barges. First dam was Smithland Dam, just a few miles up river

 

Smithland is the first lock for us on the Ohio.

 

. Callled the lockmaster and he locked us right through. They have two active locks and we were right in back of a tow. If we had had to wait for thoe tow it would have cost us an hour or two. . As it was he opened the lock doors just as we motored in. After clearing the lock we dropped in line with the up bound tows. It was about 21 miles from Smithland dam to Golconda Marina. We were dragging bottom getting here. There is one other big boat but probably not enough big boat activity to keep the channel blown out so were sitting in soft mud. But that’s OK. The electricity is good….not that we needed the air conditioning. It must be in the 50’s this morning with a little fog on what I can see of the river. The marina opens at 8 so we have to hang out here till then. They have a pretty nice ships store from what I could see through the window.  We had called ahead and had been given instructions where to tie up. It’s a nice marina but apparently very underutilized in that half of the slips are empty. . There a very intriguing foot bridge over an adjacent creek that leads to town

 

Footbridge over the creek

 

. not a very big town but cute. Apparently it was founded by Sarah Lush who in the 1800’s ran a ferry across the river, Initially the town was called Sarahville but somehow later the name was changed to Golconda. Population is about 700.We walked into town to check if out.  Has a few antique stores and gift shops, a pharmacy and a food market. There was several pubs all of which were like little restaurants. We had taked some hamburger patties out to thaw and were going to grill some burgers but ended up eating at the Divers Down Pub. Actually it was quite good.

 

Today should be another 50 mile day with not much to see or do except watch for commercial traffic and stay out of their way. They run about the same speed we are making which is about 7.5 mph. I estimate we have a 1.5 mph current against us going up stream.  Trying to overtake and pass them is quite a chore as we can pick up about 1 mph by throttling up but it takes forever to clear them so it easiest just to drop in line and keep your distancce. Tonight will be our first night to anchor out as there are no marinas within range. Ron has studied the cruising guifdes and has an anchorsge all picked out for us. we have seen NO pleasure boats so far and from what we gather the Ohio is not a prime cruising ground but were looking forward to it and if the first day is any indication of what were looking at its going to be a tremendous experience.

 

The marina is supposed  have wi-fi and my laptop sees it but cannot log on and our air card cannot lock on to the signal so internet access made be intermittent at best along the river. I was planning to post every day but that is not likely going to happen.

 

We appreciate everyone’s concern about Hillary. She is a little better although she cannot stand or walk. Carol is feeding her pedialyte and chopped up chicken sand at least she is eating a bit and drinking.  I got up at 5:30 to make coffee and watch the sun come up and Carol was asleep laying on the floor in the salon where we made a bed for Hillary. Next few days will tell what is going to happen.

 I wrote this post last night and we have good news. Hillary was able to stand up this morning. Carried her down the dock and found some grass and she was able to do her doggie thing. She was able to walk all the way back to the boat but she’s still drunker than Cooter Brown. She was able to stand and eat on her own today .She’s not out of the woods yet but appears to be on the mend.

 

 

Ron Beberniss

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July 28 Ohio River Cruise…Green Turtle Bay

Were tucked in at Green Turtle Bay. Very nice marina. It was pretty hot yesterday. 102 with the heat index yesterday but the ACs kept us cool.

We have some pet problems. Hillary went down yesterday. she couldn’t walk or stand up. Keeps her head cocked to one side. . Carol spent a few hours  on the internet and after talking to a local vet they concluded that she has some type inner ear problem apparently common in older dogs. She’s almost 15 years old. so were going to take the courtesy car and going to the vet today..

Have some boat chores to do today. Boat is in desperate need of a good scrubbing. Hasn’t been cleaned good since we were out of the water. . Need to change the oil in both main engines and clean the bottom of the dinghy. The dinghy in the water really adds drag.  Good news is that a cool front .blew in last night and its in the low 70s. Absolutely gorgeous day so far but its only 8 am.

Met a couple on the boat two slips over. He and his wife had cruised the Ohio extensively and he had a copy of an unpublished book on the anchorages on the Ohio. He brought it over and Nansue took it  to the marina office and photocopied it.   Most of it was on a CD and I copied it onto a flash drive. It will take hours to go through it all but its pretty interesting. Has charts and a written description and photo images of his chart plotter locations.He gave us a two hour one on one question and answer session on the Ohio.

We received the mounting bracket for the new chart plotter yesterday and mounted in. works pretty good. Had to move things around a bit. Its a little tight with the radar and the chart plotter but the plotter is much more important for what were doing but its pretty big and didn’t have too many options for mounting it.

     Probably will spend another day here depending on what happens at the vets office today.

 

 

 

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July 27 Sunday AM Ohio River Cruise

 

 

 

Annie at Pebble Isle

Good morning world!

I have decided to date the posts rather than number them so further additions will be by date.
My dailly ritual begins with my doggie duties. Hillary is awake at sunup and as soon as her feet hit the floor she starts her morning “I’m ready to go for a walk dance.” which is pretty hard to ignore…so I, in somewhat of a stuporous state put on something to wear and find the leash. Meanwhile she is jumping up and down by the salon door. So we head down the dock looking for some grass. Now all boat dogs are in the same position, so they all use the first piece of grass they come to to make their first deposit. Hence,  the first plot of green abounds with the wonderful smells of all of her predecessors. Then she gets into the sniffing mode…ahhhh……..so many wonderful smells and so little time. And then its back to the boat for a delightful meal of this nasty  stuff in the green can. Actualy it looks quite gross but she doesnt seem to mind it too much. This whole process is much more difficult when we are anchored out. It involves getting the dinghy along side and then getting Hillary and me into the dinghy and not into  the river. Then we head off to find some place to go ashore. We generally try to anchor close to a boat ramp because they have docks which makes getting her ashore easier and there are usually cleared areas to walk her. And then the same thing in reversse…get her back in the dinghy and then getting her back on Annie and putting the dinghy away.

Today I have to get in the engine compartment and pull the water pump off the starboard engine and replace th impeller. Actually its not too bad except for the one bolt behind the pump that is impossible to get to with any  wrench known to mankind. . Have not done it in a good while and seems like I had come with some tricks to get that bolt out but right now they elude me so will climb down there after while and stare at it and maybe two neurons will fire at the same time and I will remember how to do it. Eating up impellers is just a fact of life on a boat and you always keep a bunch of spares. Both main engines are the same but the two generatos both  have different ones so there is a big box of engine impellers plus impellers for all of the other pumps on the boat.
Today will be a short day. After I replace the impeller its a 30 mile run down Kentucky Lake  to Green Turtle Bay Marinaon the Cumberland, Barclay Lock and then onto the Ohio.

 

This was a railroad bridge we passed under on Friday. The flood gauge on the pylon said we had 25 feet and we needed 23 feet. Sent David up topside to watch as we eased past. Cleared if by two feet. We could have called the bridge keeper on the radio and had him raise the bridge for  us but we made it.

Downriver gates opening at Pickwick Lock

The last day we have been on Kentucky Lake which is impounded by Kentucky Dam. Its a big wide lake  probable 5-7 mile wide in placesand we have to stay in the channel which is right down the middle so its unlike the rivers sections and not too much to see or take pictures of.

 

 

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JUly 26 Finally on the River

Apologies to those of you trying to follow us along but we have had no internet connection for the last two days. In spite of a Verizon wireless air card, two wireless ipads and wifi at the marina we could not connect to the internet. Some places on the Tennessee are pretty remote. I think some areas still use smoke signals to communicate! We finally got in the water Thursday morning at Lee Spry Marine. It took about two hours to get to Pickwick dam from Spry’s boatyard and good fortune smiled upon us there and we had no delays getting through Pickwick lock. Below the dam there was an estimated 1.5 mph current in the river which gave us a good boost. That coupled with a clean and freshly painted bottom on the boat gave us about 10.5 mph which for us was “flying.” Ron Cowan was under the weather with vertigo and decided to postpone joining us till he felt better. David Quinn left with us from Yellow Creek and was great crew. David is an old sailor and used to captain a 90 foot sailboat out of Florida. David is obsessive about some things and I could not get him to stop working and cleaning the boat. It was and still is pretty dirty having been in the yard for a week and as usual we had stuff stacked everywhere to be put away. We made Clifton,Tennessee the first night and spent the night in the Marina. First days run was about 60 miles. Left Clifton yesterday morning and put another 50 miles behind us and got into Pebble Isle Marina at New Johnsonville about 5pm. I had talked to Ron and Nansue earlier in the day and he was feeling better so they met us there. Since we had a vehicle we took advantage of it and went out to eat in a little town called Camden which also had a Walmart where we picked up a few grocery items. The weather the last two days had been absolutely glorious. Probably didn’t even need the air conditionings but we ran it anyway.
Coming into Pebble Isle yesterday, the 15 kw generator overheated and shut down, so we fired up the big generator to make our grand entrance to the marina. We fired up the calliope and played a few songs for the boating crowd. As usual there was a plethora onlookers on the dock to see the show and help us tie up. This morning we moved the boat over to the fuel dock and took on about 500 gallons of diesel fuel. Ron Cowan and Carol filled diesel tanks while I laid in the bilge changing out the impeller on the generator. It was due an oil change so we accomplished that also at the same time. We had the little generator up and running about the time we were finished taking on diesel. David Quinn departed taking Rons truck back to Florence. Got out of Pebble Isle around noon and ran on down the river another 50 miles to Kenlake State Park Marina. We were on Kentucky Lake most of the day which is very wide with a marked channel you have to follow. Probably 5 miles wide or more in places so there was not a lot to look at or see Coming into the marina this afternoon we had the same problem with the starboard engine that we had with the generator. It overheated so I shut it down and let is rest for a few minutes and then fired it us just as we were docking. The wind was pushing us off the dock and I needed both engines to get along side the pier. Haven’t looked at the engine yet pretty sure its an impeller so will get to play in the bilge again in the morning pulling the water pump off and changing out the impeller. Met Barbara the owner of the marina and she drove us to a local restaurant where we bought her dinner for her effort.
Tomorrow will be a short day…about a 30 mile run down the Tennessee River to about mile 25 where we go through the Barkley Canal and cross over to the Cumberland River. The canal is only a mile or so long and then will be on the Cumberland. From there its only a few miles down the Cumberland to Green Turtle Bay marina where we will spend the night. We should have mail waiting for us….parts for the new chart plotter and my new glasses. Monday we head down the Cumberland and it’s only about 25 miles to the Ohio. We should have internet tomorrow so will post some pictures then.

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#7 Ohio River Cruise …departure Today

It’s 7am and have not heard from my crew. Invited David Quinn to go for a few days…at least to Pebble Isle and he is going for sure. Have not heard from Ron Cowan yet.  He was going to see how he felt when he got up. Expect phone to ring any minute. John Moody is taking us down to Iuka and bringing our car home. He has just had a knee replacement and is off work so has lots of free time. . He has physical therapy this am and will be here as soon as it’s over. We have several boxes of last minute stuff to take with us. I could be here for six months and still find stuff that absolutely needs to go that we can’t make it without. If we stayed any longer I would have so much junk on the boat we would have to haul Annie out and raise the waterline. have to run to grocery store and get milk and bread and a few last minute items for sandwiches until we hit Pebble Isle tomorrow evening. 

Not sure if they will wait till we get there to splash Annie. I would prefer to be there on the boat when she goes back in to check the bilges and make sure all is ok and she is not going to sink in the slip.

 

more later…”

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#6 Ohio River Cruise – Leaving in the morning.

Departure is eminent. Just talked to the marina and the boat is up in slings and ready to go in the water in the morning. They just finished painting the patches where the jack stands were. Ron Cowan is feeling bad today. Has some type of vertigo issue so not sure if they are going to be leaving with us in the morning or not. There are plenty of stops along then way to catch up, all within an easy drive from Florence. If they meet us somewhere down the line it will just be a matter of shuffling cars around.

We spent the day at the boat yesterday. Carol spent most of the day in the galley, inventorying and discarding stuff that was old or out of date and restocking with staples we had brought from the house. We have enough food for the four of us for several days. Plan is to spend the night at Pebble Isle Marina in 2 days and use their courtesy car to go to Walmart and do heavy provisioning there. Have to make use of the transportation when we have it. Will also get diesel fuel there at Pebble Isle. It has the cheapest diesel fuel on the river. Its $3.87 per gallon and the next marina with fuel is Green Turtle and its $4.11 a gallon. The idea is to fuel up wherever we can get the best prices so we will probably take on 500 gallons or so. That equates to 1 3/4 tons of diesel fuel. Sounds like a lot but since the boat weighs about 75,000 pounds it amounts to less than 2% of our gross weight. Not all marinas have diesel fuel so we need to always have some reserve. Actually, we should likely have enough fuel aboard to make it to Pittsburg.
I spent the day yesterday compounding and waxing the hull. My good friend David Quinn came down and helped out. I told him I needed someone with a strong back and shoulders and a weak mind because anyone with a lick of sense would know better than to volunteer for the job. It was in the 90’s with 95% humidity and you’re holding a 12 pound buffer above your head for hours at a time. The buffer kept getting heavier and heavier. I swear by the end of the day it must have weighed at least 50 pounds. We were at it most of the day and finished by about 7 pm. We were pooped at the end but Annie really looked pretty good for a gal with a nearly 20 year old paint job that had been banged against docks, piers, lock walls and unseen buoys up and down the rivers. I still have a lot of stuff to rearrange and put away but that can be done once we get under way. We have no clue what time we will get going, but need to be gone by noon. Only one issue is how long it will take to lock through Pickwick dam. It’s a busy lock handling all of the Tennessee River traffic plus the boats heading up or down the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway from the Ohio. Once we clear the lock its about a 60 mile run to the Clifton Marina where we spend the first night.

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Ohio River Cruise departure within 48 hours

We’re down to the wire. Its really out of our hands and depends on when the boat goes back in the water which is probably going to be tomorrow  Wed.. I ‘ve been running back and forth to the boat taking things down  and stowing them. I finished installing all of the screens on the engine, generator and AC intakes to keep them from stopping up. I am in the middle of  compounding and waxing the hull and repairing some minor dings’ in the hull. Hopefully I can finish waxing the hull today so I can concentrate on putting stuff away and checking all the systems.We have had to order stuff and are having it delivered to marinas on the Tennessee for fear it would not arrive before we leave. Have a few things I have to do here at home  this morning before we head to the boat. Probably going to take a load of food products with us today as we are emptying the house while were gone.Will likely post again this evening.

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#5 Ohio River Cruise minus 3 days

Its been raining almost continuously for the last three days which has made the outside chores I have to do, difficult at best. There has been grass to mow, fence lines to weed eat and spray with herbicide, downed trees to cut up and move to the burn pile, driveways to clean and boats and compressors to move, and the old barn had to be torn down. Had a break int the rain yesterday and have almost ail that stuff done.

Today is the day  to move the donkeys. They are going to Greenhill, Al which is about 25 miles from here. We have a friend with a farm who has some unused pasture with water and he has kids to play with them. As some as Carol gets up we will begin the donkey rodeo. The donkeys don’t like to ride in the trailer because they know that usually something really bad is about to happen…. like going to the vet to get gelded or a long, long trailer ride. Will make two trips up there. Getting three or four donkies  in the trailer is a job. When you get three or four in the trailer , those three or four are doing their best to get out while you are trying to convince #5 to go in. Meanwhile #6,7,and 8 have convinced themselves they don’t want any part of this so they are as far away in the pens as they can get and don’t want to be caught. This is why we call it a donkey rodeo. Could qualify for the worlds funniest video.

 

 

 

The dining room table looks like a garage sale. There are stacks and piles of all sorts of random things that are going to go. Some will need to find a home on the boat relegated to the back of a drawer but there in case we need them  and  some will need to be in stalled….12 volts fans for the guest room and a new chart plotter for the wheelhouse.

My life right now seems to consist of many long lists that seems to contract and expand hourly…lists of things I need to do before we leave and things that need to go to the dinig rioom table..I scrarch a few things off, .and then see something else that needs to go or something that I need to do and it gets added to the list. At some point you reach the realization that you probably don’t need 95 per cent of the stuff anyway and just give it up and go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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#4 Ohio River minus 10 days, or maybe it’s 8 days or maybe 7

Watching the sun come up at Grand Harbor Marina.

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A tow pushing coal down the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway to somewhere beyond

Annie up in the slings

Annie going for a ride

Pressure washing the bottom

Well, we are sitting on the boat hanging in the slings of the boat lift at Lee Spry Marine on Yellow Creek, actually swinging in the wind. They started pressure washing the bottom and she looks real good. I went over the entire bottom of the boat, rudders, shafts, props, etc and  I saw nothing at all that is an issue. We will need to put some new zincs on but other that that, no problems. . I will come down one day and bring my high  speed buffer and compound and wax the hull but all that is just  cosmetic.

Talked the the folks  at Alabama Electric about out pump motor and I emailed the motor specs and pictures and they are on it as soon as we walk in the door with the motor..

Ron Cowan is on the way down from Florence  to pick us up and then were back to Florence doing all the little things we need to do.  Even though we’re out of the water they are backlogged so they probably won’t get started for a few days so I may not post another entry till  get back down to Iuka where the yard is located.

 

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#3 Ohio River minus 11 days

The run down to Florence went as planned. Takes  about 3-1/2 hours if we don’t get hung up at a lock with a commercial tow. We locked through Wheeler Dam and Wilson Dam with minimal waiting. Ron Cowan was on board and is my auto-pilot.  He loves to be at the helm which is great because it bores me to death. He doesn’t like locking the boat through or docking so when that comes up I am back at the helm.  Ron ran the boat while I put stuff away. When we left Joe Wheeler Park where we keep the boat we unloaded our lockers and dock boxes and stacked everything on the aft deck. I spent most of the run down to Florence putting stuff away and stacking it in piles to be stowed somewhere later. Stowing it is not the problem…its trying to remember where you put it sometime in the future when you need it. We found that things on a boat tend to migrate around until they find their natural home. Annie is a pretty big boat with lots of storage space, which means there are more places to put things which sometimes makes them harder to find. Carol and I are getting ready to head to the boat at Florence Harbor and head down to Iuka, about a  40 mile run. Will take most of the day to get there. The river is pretty wide along here with gentle hills sloping down to the water, interrupted by occasional creeks and sloughs. The river is sparsely populated downstream. No towns on the river between Iuka  and Florence and the only way across the river is the Natchez Trace Bridge about 15 miles downstream . We will be staying at J.P. Coleman State Park Marina tonight and don’t know if we will have internet access there.

 

Amazing  how best made plans change. We called ahead and made reservations at Coleman State Park and gave them a credit card number.  When we got there it was further from the boat yard than we wanted to be for an early morning run to the yard and we decided to go about 10 miles further down the river. So we called back and tried to cancel the reservation. The girl at the desk said that our credit card had already been charged and they couldn’t reverse it.  Well, not wanting to blow off  60 bucks we decided to go ahead  and stay at Coleman.  We motored into the marina and found  (1) the slip they had for us was 20 feet wide which is one foot wider than the boat. That leaves 6″ on either side of the boat. Maybe could make it in there if I had a 55 gallon drum of K-Y  jelly handy and the wind wasn’t blowing. (2) the slip was covered with a roof and was about 5 feet  to low for us to get under, and (3) they only had 30 amp power on the dock which means we couldn’t run the air conditioning. So we had a long talk with the head dog at the park and got our money back.     Nothing of major consequence happened today. Carol took the wheel most of the day while I fixed stuff and rebuilt pumps. And put stuff away. Got most everything stowed for the trip and have a big pile of stuff to leave here that we won’t need that’s just taking up space. This is actually the first time we have  really fired up everything on the boat and ran it for long periods, four air conditioners and all of the associated pumps, engines, generators.

Looked at the charts tonight really for the first time and sort of planned the run down to the Ohio. Well, the run down is really the run up. Heading north but going downstream.  We’re currently in Yellow Creek at mile 215 on the Tennessee. We go down the Tennessee River to about mile 25 where we take the Barclay canal over to Lake Barclay on the Cumberland River. That puts us about 30 miles from the Ohio River and if all goes well should take us four days, unless we decide to stop and smell the roses along the way in which case it might just take us two weeks…but….who cares???

Tomorrow we pull the boat and are hoping for no surprises…but who knows… It is a wooden boat and if there an issue, it could kill the trip. So we just hope!

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