Life On Orion

 I will try to catch you up on our travels by giving you the short version.  I have to be honest - after my mom died my concentration has not been the same and I haven’t had the mental energy to blog every night.  There have been lots of arrangements to be made, details to attend to and loose ends to tie up.  I have been in constant contact with my brothers in MN and FL and last weekend I flew up to Minnesota to meet them and begin sorting through her things and emptying her apartment. We made a lot of progress and will finish up when I get back there mid-November.  We have to have her apartment empty by Nov. 30. We have continued to travel down the river system and are now in Columbus, MS at Columbus Marina and will stay here until Saturday. One of the highlights along the way was our stay at New Johnsonville TN at a marina 2 hours from Nashville.  Johanna and Ben drove over Saturday afternoon and stayed on the boat, leaving Sunday morning. We used their car and drove into town and to

 We’re in Tennessee! We left Green Turtle Bay Marina about 7 am and the trip here was 5 hours.  We traveled on Kentucky Lake and it was beautiful and relaxing. We ended up in a group of 5 looper boats, but we were spread out so there was no drama. After the river currents and barge traffic this was a welcome change and this state park is beautiful. We got a pump out and topped off our fuel and then pulled into a nice, wide slip right next to the office. Madison is very excited about the short walk to grass! It was a mostly cloudy day, but no rain for our trip.  The rain began, however, about 2 hours after our arrival and will probably continue until the morning.  Our plans to grill out were thwarted - another night I guess… We grabbed a bite to eat at the restaurant here and then just snacked for dinner. We are reveling in the good WiFi and are actually watching some Netflix! There is a bird of prey sanctuary here and they rehab owls, hawks and eagles, so I hope to be able to go see th

 We spent the last 2 full days here at Green Turtle Bay Marina in Grand Rivers, KY and it has been good for the soul. Yesterday morning I was the first one in the marina laundry and got 3 loads of wash done by mid-morning. I met a woman who is not a looper, but she and her husband live on their sailboat full time and they are going down the rivers to Florida. We ended up going over to her boat later in the afternoon and Tom and her husband did a lot of “boat talk”.  Hope we run into them again down the river… After lunch Tom and I took Madison for a long walk around the property.  It is a full resort here with condos, 3 restaurants, a ship’s store, a small grocery and 2 pools. We discovered on our walk that there also is a beach, although not too inviting. We made a trip to the ship’s store where I found some treasures and Tom found a couple of things he needed for boat maintenance. Steve and Kathy had chicken stir-fry with us on our boat and we enjoyed an evening of lively conversatio

 What a long day! We left Paducah at 7 am and 8 hours later, we are tied up to the dock in Green Turtle Bay Marina. We had a decision to make leaving Paducah - take the Kentucky River and go through the Kentucky Lock, or take the Cumberland River and go through the Barkley Lock. The Kentucky route has less current, but more barge traffic and you can wait 2-5 hours to get to lock through, whereas the Cumberland River had 4 knots of current going against us, but it is less traveled and the one lock is pretty laid back and easy to get through right away. After calling the Kentucky Lock early this morning, we decided on the Cumberland route. I will say the current was fierce and slowed our speed down to just around 4 knots per hour - half the speed we normally travel.  Besides that, the water was full of debris to dodge - floating logs, trees, branches and a huge rope that had come loose from a barge tie-up somewhere. We managed to avoid it all, although one of the 8 boats traveling in our

 It was a grey, windy and stormy day on the Ohio River, so we stayed an extra day in Paducah rather than travel in bad weather. Steve helped Tom take the windlass apart and it really pays to have a friend who is an engineer, because he thinks he fixed the problem.  One of the gears inside the mechanism looked to be slightly bent, so Steve filed and sanded it and re-installed it.  We haven’t been able to test it out in these tight quarters, but when we get to our next marina we will see if it’s fixed.  Fingers crossed! While the guys worked on the windlass Kathy and I walked to downtown Paducah and there were some cute shops that were actually open.  I got some cute appetizer plates and small bowls that I can use on the boat, so I’m ready for docktails now. The afternoon was spent making salads and hunkering down during the downpour. Tonight we shared a homemade spaghetti dinner on Kathy and Steve’s boat, topped off our water and prepared for our departure tomorrow. There should be 6 bo

 Tom and I took Madison and walked to a quaint coffee shop in the Lowertown Arts District of Paducah, again about a 10 min walk from the boat. Clearly it is a neighborhood favorite and Madison greeted every person on their way in from our outdoor patio table… I had a delicious cappuccino and they serve homemade quiche on the weekends, so I got a piece hot out of the oven.  Yum! When we got back, John, the harbormaster was ready to “move boats”. Several loopers had left this morning, and he was expecting several more to pull in this afternoon, so all of the men helped John move the boats up to the front of the dock by hand and re-tie them. It’s a great system and every day the new arrivals pull up behind the line on either the inside or outside of the dock. Once that was done, the 4 of us tried to get. Lyft to take us 7 miles to a fancy  Bourbon store/tasting bar as well as Walmart to pick up a few grocery items.  No such luck…. John heard us talking about it and offered to drive us the

 First, the good news - the vibration is gone!! We must have gotten some weeks wrapped around the prop when we made the 90 degree turn onto the Ohio River, and either it floated off during the night or came off when we reversed the boat, but we’re not broken!!   We left our anchorage around 7 am and arrived at the Olmstead Lock an hour later.  They always lock commercial traffic through first, so there were some barges ahead of us.  We only had to wait 2.5 hours and by that time, 3 other boats had joined us, so the lock master felt more justified locking us through and making the next barges wait.  The Olmstead Lock was new 4 years ago, so it was in great shape and worked beautifully. We came up about 10 feet and were on our way to Paducah. We arrived here at the city docks about 3 pm and John, the Harbormaster was waiting to help us tie up. One by one we all got tied up to the floating docks and we are pretty cozy! John is a magician when it comes to moving boats up and down the 2 sid

 We woke up to solid fog this morning and couldn’t even see the front of our own boat.  That happens this time of year, I guess, and it was burned off by 10 am so we could be on our way. It gave us time to actually fix breakfast and get showered, so it wasn’t all bad. The first several hours of our days journey were uneventful and even pleasant. Then we turned from the Mississippi River onto the Ohio River and all hell broke loose! Out of nowhere our whole boat began vibrating. Now, the current on the Ohio is against us at about 3 knots, and I t slows our speed down by that much, so we were confused as to whether the current caused the vibration. It’s well documented that a vibration is never a good thing and usually means a dinged prop or damaged propeller shaft. Typically this happens when you hit something in the water, or run over a floating log.  We did neither that we know of and are puzzled as to why this started suddenly after turning up the Ohio.  The vibration is all but gone

 After a fitful nights sleep for both us we started to prepare to leave our anchorage about 8 am.  I can’t even describe in writing what that struggle was like, but it took all 4 of us, no one lost a limb, no one was injured, and our anchor is up on the boat and secured until we can have the windlass repaired.  It was over an hour of stress and manual labor.  I drove the boat so we could maneuver over the anchor and almost threw up several times as I drifted closer to Steve’s boat, or worse, thought my stern ( and propeller) were going over his anchor chain. We survived - just another thing I don’t ever want to do again. Several tugs and barges passed us during the night, but the good news is, they didn’t cause us to roll in the water because their speed was slow and the current kept their wake down. Both of us were up and down all night because of nerves and even Madison had trouble settling down. Madison has learned to pee on the pads provided out on the bow like a champ, so that is

 We left Hoppies around 10 am for our 2nd leg on the Mississippi and arrived at the desired anchorage spot (in the middle of nowhere) about 2 pm.  There were 3 boats ahead of us that had left Hoppies before us and we could see they were already in the anchorage.  You were supposed to lock thru the Kaskaskia Lock and anchor upstream of it and the dam, but the narrow entrance to the Kaskaskia River was clogged with dredging equipment, tug boats and there was a barge coming down that river who planned to lock thru towards us.  The lock master said we would have to wait out in the Mississippi for at least an hour, so we proceeded to “station keep” which was a struggle in the swift current. As luck would have it a tug with a huge load of barges was heading up river our way, so Steve radioed him as to where he would like us to be when he passed.  Keep in mind, these things are like being passed by a Boeing 747 on water, so we were not excited about this.  The tug captain instructed us to go

 We are tied up at the legendary Hoppies “marina” which is actually a huge barge with an office built on part of it.  It is absolutely part of the looper rite of passage to stop here and it didn’t disappoint…. It was started in 1934 and originally there were 3 barges. The Hopkins couple started it and lived just up the hill from here.  Now there so and his wife are in their mid-eighties and have managed it for 50 years! Fern has had a stroke which left her wheelchair bound and Hoppie himself is not in good health either - however they still answer the phone when you call for a reservation and Hoppie sits out on his screened in porch and doesn’t miss a thing. Their daughter, Deb, pretty much runs things with her husband now and she gave a “river talk” tonight at docktails, giving us advice and hints about anchoring out the next 3 nights.  Side note - I think I might throw up….  Scary stuff, but Tom says we’ll just take one night at a time.  Sand bars, debris, shallow water, wing dams, r

 We arrived at Alton Marina in Illinois last Tuesday after 3 of the hardest days for me on the loop.  It was a  huge relief and I felt like I was part of the civilized world again! We planned to stay for 3 nights in order to give ourselves time to rest and re-group, but circumstances and weather made us extend that stay. The weather report for this past weekend originally called for rain and thunderstorms both Saturday and Sunday and we certainly did not want to travel down the river in that, so we cancelled our Saturday night dockage reservation and the first night we could get in again was Tuesday (tomorrow) night. Just so happens that this marina loves loopers and not only is the cost of a night $1/ foot ($43 for us), they have a deal where if you pay for 3 nights you get 3 nights free! So - we had an economical stay here… We have met new friends and re-connected with old ones as we all begin to converge on the river system doing down to the gulf coast. It has been such fun seeing p