We had planned on spending 6 days in Alton and touring St. Louis, but this was not to be. We did boat projects and laundry the first couple of days and took a dip in the swimming pool. The local grocery store came to pick us up and delivered us back to the boat! Nice service. We rented a car for the weekend and got our shopping done on Friday, intending to tour St. Louis on Saturday and Sunday and even attend church! After talking the weather over with other Loopers, three of us decided to leave the next day as Irma's remains were going to be moving north and the rivers would be rising and the currents would be much worse on the Ohio River and would take a couple of weeks for it to settle down. We were so sorry to miss St. Louis but grateful we could beat the weather. We returned the rental car early and prepared the boat to leave.
Our last night in Alton - the sunset was gorgeous.
We had a beautiful departure day.
This is the beautiful bridge we were docked near. It was a little noisy at night but beautiful, none the less!
Fishermen out for the early fish.
More fishermen competing for the fish!
Our new boating buddies for the next few days - Jolly Mon and Pili Lani (Almost Heaven)
Our first lock of the day - we were the only three in the lock. You can see how low the water level is on the river. We have already dropped - you can see the wet portion of the lock. Normally when we lock "down" we start at the top of the lock wall. Here we started a good 8 feet below!
Leaving the lock
We passed a dry dock area for tow boats. You can see the huge propellers in their tunnels under this tow boat.
This is a different tow boat for this area and I thought it extra pretty.
A local casino docked in back of a tow boat - the casino makes the tow boat look small doesn't it?
Jolly Mon passing a tow.
Entering our second lock of the day. These locks are huge! We have been so lucky not to have to wait long for each lock. We have heard of boats having to wait hours to get through.
The three of us feel minuscule.
Instead of doors, this lock has a "wall" that comes up behind us. Doesn't it remind you of a submarine surfacing?
The "dolphins" or the posts surrounding the tower are to protect it from the tows hitting it during high water!
Two beautiful bridges with St. Louis arch in the distance.
Another beautiful river boat.
We planned to take pictures of each other like we did at the Statue of Liberty, but the current was so strong that it was hard to hold a position long enough for good pictures, but we did our best. Katy on Pili Lani takes the award for the best picture - ours! Thanks, Katy!!
The has got to be the largest dredger of all!
The dredge in action - that's a lot of pressure!
Jolly Mon with another beautiful bridge in the distance.
Katy also got this picture of us!
We stayed the first night at a marina called Hoppies. This was one of the most interesting places to stay and an icon with the Loopers. The marina consists of 3 barges held to the shore by ropes.
Approaching the "marina"- a little on the rough side!
Approaching the "marina"- a little on the rough side!
Not the most secure looking attachment!
Our boats tied up for the night.
It's very run down, but the family running it are very friendly and down home type folk. Fern does an evening talk about what we are going to experience as we travel down the next stretch of the river. There are no marinas and very few anchorages. We will need to travel 110 miles the next day. Luckily it is all down stream on the Mississippi so our speed increases by about 50% as the current carries us along. She explains the safest anchorages and warns about hazards that the low water level has uncovered. We really appreciated her information.
The town itself is a small tourist meca. Many, many souvenir type shops and a few restaurants. Oprah made one of the restaurants famous when she raved about its mile high apple pie. The ladies of our group made an excursion to try it out only to find they were already sold out for the day! We sampled a few of their other treats instead. All yummy but so sad that we couldn't sample the pie.
A picture of a picture of the "mile-high apple pie"
One of the cute shops in town - "The Purple Pickle" - a Joni special!!
These "castle" type walls were all that was left standing of some by-gone home, but no one appears to know its history!
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The Anheuser Estate is a neighbor to the marina. Fred was the last working Anheuser at Anheuser-Bush Brewery. There was a wedding today so it was closed to the public :(
While we attended the briefing on the barge, we looked up to see this red buoy floating down the river. These are supposed to be attached, marking the channel. Evidently a barge hit it and jarred it loose. A very unusual sight!
We left the next morning to continue down the Mississippi 110 miles. Most of the river was either industrial or rural with a few houses and gravel pits thrown in. Some of the houses were quite spectacular.
And the there are the cliffs that mimic castles
The prettiest stern wheeler so far!
We see many larger tows - this is the largest we saw - 30 barges! 6 long by 5 wide.
We stayed at a beautiful, quiet anchorage Sunday night. We dropped the dinghy and gathered on Jolly Mon to discuss plans for the next two days. Wind and rain were arriving on Tuesday. The other two boats can travel faster than we can (decreasing their miles per gallon significantly) and so decided to travel the entire 130 miles in one day to Green Turtle Bay.
Leaving our anchorage at 6:30 AM
Jolly Mon up on "plane" passing Pili Lani. Sorry for the wild video - that's how choppy the water was!
We missed our lead boats - it's always nice following someone. The river through this section was a little on the rough side (i.e., turbulence). They say its the weir dams below the surface of the water in the center of the channel. These are to help channel the water and eliminate some of the need of dredging.
This is a "wing" dam that does some the of the same thing only these extend from the shore. Some of these are under water during high water so you must be careful to avoid them. They are exposed now because of the low water levels.
The Mississippi isn't as wide here as it is further south.
One of the new dams being built - and not soon enough! One of the dams it is replacing is having serious problems and has been closed to barge traffic for many days. We were one of the last pleasure boats (if not the last - we are waiting to hear if one more got through the next day) to clear the old lock. I don't think I've ever seen 1) a dam being built, and 2) so many cranes in one place!
As the dam is not functioning yet we just motored right through the lock - strange feeling.
Barges are "parked" all along the river banks, waiting for the old dam to be fixed. At this time there were supposedly 28 tows waiting. What a back log that will be to lock through when they do open!
We tied up at Paducah for the night. It is a new marina that has not officially opened yet, but the dock (one) is done. It was a safe place to tie up with high winds being predicted for early morning. Thankfully the winds were much milder than predicted and we were able to continue on to Green Turtle the next morning, going through two more locks.
Getting ready to leave the Ohio River - we have been going UPstream on the Ohio driving our speed way down.
The Cumberland River - very narrow but although we are still going upstream, the current is not as bad so our speed is better.
A large gravel operation
Fully loaded barges - notice how low they ride in the water!
Our last lock of the Cumberland is a deep one. This guy was hoping the water movement would provide a nice meal for him.
We arrived at Green Turtle Bay and joined about a dozen Loopers already there. Here are some of the guys the marina is named for!
Docked at Alton 9/5-9/8
Docked at Hoppies 9/9
Anchored at Little Diversion River 9/10
Docked at Paducah 9/11
Docked at Green Turtle Bay Marina 9/12
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