A few days of Chill'n

Saturday morning we pulled anchor at 6:30 - Yes, O dark thirty!  We made our way up the Ohio River then turned up the Cumberland River and through the massive lock at the entrance to Barkley Lake, Kentucky.  This was a lift of over 50 feet.  We pulled into the Marina at Green Turtle Bay for two nights, but think we will stay for 3.  Don and Jane Woods drove down from Nashville Saturday evening and we barbequed steaks, had a few pops and they spent the night. Thanks to them, we have fresh veggies and more beer!  We had a great visit with them.

Sunday, after a load of laundry, Cliff and Deb Wilkins also came down from Nashville bearing gifts of fruit and we went out for lunch.  We can't thank you guys enough for taking the long drive to come see us!  You are true friends.

You will have to see this to believe it, but Brigitte bought a Christmas tree for the boat today.  You will have to wait to see it on a post in December.  Will post in a few days.

Pics for the last few days

Day 9 Friday

   I will try to catch up a bit as the Internet has been spotty, or we got in too late!  We have been making very good time averaging 6.5 knots over water but 11-13 knots over land with the current.  We have had great weather knock on wood!, NO WIND!  Locks, have all have been very timely, except a few with an hour plus wait.  Wed.  we blew an impeller on the Generator so called ahead to a marina near Grafton Illinois and had a Tec put in my spare!  I watched him do the job so next time I will do the work. Took less than an hour!  We spent the night at the Alton Marina, it is just south of where the Illinois River joins the Miss..  We are now on the official Great Loop Route and have started to meet  Loopers in all shapes and sizes. Thursday we spent the night tied on the back wall of a lock off channel on the Kaskaskia River. We met 5 other boat doing the same. This was mile mark 117.  From about mile 156 there are no marinas until you reach the   Tennessee River off the Ohio!  I total distance of 177 miles. Today was a big day for us.   Ever thing was big.  The river is very wide down here,  The barges are big!  5 X 6’s and 4 by 7’s compared to north of St Louis where they are all 3 x5’s.  We have now gone through every lock on the upper Mississippi River 26 of them on this trip.  There are only 3 more looks on the entire Miss. And they are in New Orleans.  We started our run on the Miss. At Mile marker 812 and today me left the Miss. At mile marker 0 and turned up the Ohio which is also very BiG.  We are anchored for the night behind the Olmstead Lock and Dam at mile marker 694.6.  Tomorrow we will make Green Turtle Marine and Resort  On  Barkley Lake Kentucky,  where we can take a few days off and chill!

This is our 6th night on the river!  and we have covered 544 miles on our trip of approximately 2000 miles! We have now gone through 21 lock and dams.  The last two days we have been blessed with great weather, calm winds and until the last 2 locks today great passages!  We have determined our best cruising speed which is 1200 RPM's and with the current we are making around 10 knots at 2.6 miles per gallon. In one of the post pictures you will see our first lock this morning at about 7 AM  this lock is 1100 feet long and a 35 foot drop on a floating bollard.  One of the locks we went through today had a field of crap so large the lock stared filling the lock with water  with the gate open to blow it out of the mouth of the lock so we could exit, this including a log larger than a telephone pole.  It took a great deal of maneuvering but we got out with only a few bumps on the props. No damage.  There have been some face book pictures Brigitte has been circulating the show me resting. 
At 10-11 hours a day it is well deserved.  There are two pictures of Brigitte working out just for the record.  As you can also see Cody has adapted well. Lastly for our friends at Sunnyside we have a picture of our empty slip,  we miss you all very much! I will post in a couple more days. God bless!

The previous pictures, slightly out of order, are the American Queen in Winona, Sunrise on Lake Pepin, and Cruising down the river.

Today we left Dubuque at 6:30 AM  and made 94 miles in about 10-1/2  hours  at 1200 rpms,  Looks like we have our fuel burn to about 2 miles per gallon cruising at 10.2 knots including the current - the checkbook is going to thank me!  Cold blustery day,  with winds out of the northwest at 10-15, not made for cruising since we were getting a little push, but the three locks we went through were challenging.  Had to wait for locks for over an hour - two out of three stopped about 8 miles short of our goal and are staying at Isle of Capri Marina and Casino in Davenport, IL.  25 bucks a night!!!

Couple of highlights of the day:  Some bridge masters (Sabula Iowa) and Lock masters (Clinton) like to prove they are in charge!  Government workers at their finest!  The fast majority are outstanding and have been of great help!  We saw a buck (deer) swimming across the Mississippi at a very wide spot. He took one look at the boat and turned around!

Below is a picture of Cody having a rough time adapting.  So far so good - he has proven he can hold it 10 - 11 hours.  Til our next entry, be well our friends.

Day 2 & 3

Day 2 we left Pepin Marina at 6:55.  We cruised for 10.5 hrs burning a gallon a Mile to Lansing Iowa.
We ran at 2160 rpm's and made 15 knots over land with a 4 to 5 mile current .  The sun was out but we ran into 20+ mile head winds out of the south.  Holding on to the lines in the lock was a B____! 100 miles,  6 locks, 2 RR bridges!

Saturday we ran at 1600 and made 1.5MPG , we made about 80+ plus miles to Dubuque.  A great day with 3 perfect locks. BS'd with a tow boat captain for 45 minutes and got great tips on anchorages and fishing in Mobile. AIS is a great add to anyone doing the Miss. You can see Tows in advance and time the locks for best time and optimize fuel.  I even had 2 captains contact me with info! Dubuque municipal Marina is brand new!  What a great Marina,  a 10!  We will come back next year for 3 nights on Wicked Waters! Pictures to follow!

Day One, yup it did happen!

I will not go into all the gory details but after parts arrived by UPS, we replaced 2 senders, and still one gage read 220 degrees and one read 100 (should be 180 degrees).  We started swapping around the 4 temperature gage's until we finally figured out I had one dead gauge that was making the other one to read hot.  No new gauge to be found so Sunnyside is looking for a gauge, once obtained they will mail it to a Marina down River.

We cast our lines off at 1:38 and headed south on a beautiful sunny afternoon.  We got through the 4 no wake zones, 2 RR bridges and the Red Wing Lock . ( had to wait about 40 minutes)  we made it to Pepin Marina at 7:30 PM .  Cheers!

What was once was a distant dream is now our new life!

Wednesday, September 17,  Putz'n Around left her slip at Sunnyside Marina for the last time at 7:06 a.m.  Jillian, Eric, and Cubby were there to see us off.   We were just out of the no wake zone, when the port engine appeared to overheat.  We were back at Sunnyside by 7:30, where all hands came on deck!  We pulled the boat to check water intakes and props.  Everything's cool - it appears it  is a temperature sensor issue.  The guys found a part in Ohio, which is being air shipped in.  If all goes well, the part should be here at 10:00 am and we should be on our way again around noon!  That's boating!!!! I can't thank the entire staff  at Sunnyside enough for their assistance!!!!!!!

enough for their assistance!!!!!!Our rigid plan of  infinite  flexibility will have us travel the first 9 days at a pace of 100 miles a day to reach Paducah,  Kentucky by Sept. 25th.  Our plan is then to slow it way down and enjoy the new waters of the Tennessee, and the Tenn-Tom Waterway.  We plan on making Mobile  around October 14th and Fort Meyers by Nov. 15th.  We will post a couple of times a week so enjoy the ride as you wish!
Cheers!
Scott and Brigitte
This a link to our SPOT  tracker, click on the link and you see our path of travel.

https://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=1rhbt7UOVhqbLfiD2BO41MCq2ijcKaK4W