Stats for Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Origin:  Paducah Docks

Destination:  Green Turtle Bay Marina

Distance:  45 miles

Speed:  6.9 mph

Time on the Move:  6 hours and 31 minutes

We were the last of 4 boats that pulled away from the Paducah Dock this morning. We were last because we needed some extra time to figure out how we were going to get out of our tight spot at the dock. A trawler was about 8 feet in front of us and a sailboat was about 4 feet behind us so we didn’t have much wiggle room. Mike figured it out just fine, and with the help of some other boaters to give us a good push off the dock, we pulled away no problem.

The water was very calm and that seemed to hide some debris that was floating in the Ohio. We had a day off of looking for logs, so it was a rather unwelcome sight to think we might have to get back to debris watch. It didn’t last more than 10 miles or so, though, and the debris ended. We didn’t even hit anything!!

There are two ways you can get to our destination—either the longer route of going the Cumberland to the north, or remaining on the Ohio to the south. Either option ends with a lock right where you enter into Lake Barkley, so the guidebooks tell you to call the locks and see which one will be the shorter wait time. However, the word among fellow loopers is that the lockmaster at the end of the Ohio doesn’t like pleasure craft and has been known to send boats all the way back around—about an extra 8 hours. Now I don’t know if this is really true, but everyone I know that has gone thru this year went by way of the Cumberland. We heard it is a nice scenic trip, so we didn’t even bother calling the locks.

We had a nice quiet ride on the twisty river. We had some sneak peeks of fall color change. A few tows kept us on our feet. A fox (or maybe it was a wolf?!) came down the the bank of the river to see us go past. That was about it for excitement, and that was just fine with us. About 10 miles from the lock we got word from one of the other loopers that there would be a 2 1/2 hour wait to get into the lock because a double tow was just starting to head up. At that point we put it just above idle and slowed down significantly, to avoid wait time at the lock when we would just have to idle and maintain position. In the end we still had to wait about an hour for our turn to go up the 57’ lock, but with some cleaning, exercising, and sing alongs, the time passed quickly.

We also made a quick game plan about what we would do if the lock gates failed and water started rushing towards us. I’m not sure much could really be done, but it’s good to have thought about these things in case of an emergency. The lock was pretty impressive, as we haven’t seen many that big. It seemed to have a fair bit of turbulence in the middle, where we were tied up, but we handled it just fine. We did watch our fenders scraping rough concrete pretty hard and adjusted our method to help keep the boat a bit further off the wall.

Lots of locking pictures today–I must have thought it was quite scenic!

After we pulled out of the lock, we had a quick 1 mile trip to the famous Green Turtle Bay, a known looper refuge.  In this 1 mile stretch every single boat in our group called the marina in succession for slip assignments and to share intentions of filling with fuel or pumping out. We chose to fill up and pump out before heading to our slip. It takes about an hour to do both of those items and by that time I was freezing again!! The brightness of the afternoon sky was replaced by cloudy, cold dusk, and I was ready to tuck in for the night and get warmed up!!  Mike grilled us some hamburgers and hot dogs and we cranked the heat on before bed. The kids were thrilled to have internet to download some new apps on their kindles and I was just fine with that!!

The next day we started off with chores before we took off to explore the marina. I did 5 loads of laundry and chatted with some nice folks in the laundry room while Mike scrubbed the boat down. The kids were anxious to feed the turtles that they heard lived around the marina, so we bought some turtle food and filled up their little bellies. The turtles could hear us walk on the dock and would come swimming up, looking for food. Of course Creature Boy loved this past time and Hayley seemed to love it as well. She would ask to go feed the turtles every once in a while throughout our stay when she didn’t think they had been fed for a while.

 

Next, we also took off for the indoor pool (which wasn’t exactly warm) but it was definitely swimable.  Toby practiced without his life jacket and the kids swam around with some other kids that were already in there.  It seems like it has been forever since we swam!!

That afternoon the Zeeffs from Living the Dream arrived at the marina so after our swim, we got showered up for happy hour and dinner out at the Thirsty Turtle Tavern.  The whole Green Turtle Bay complex is pretty all inclusive, so we got to ride on the courtesy stretch golf cart shuttle to the restaurant.  When we walked in I think the record skipped and all the “regulars” turned to see who in the world would bring all these kids out to eat on a Wednesday night at 7 pm.  Just us!!  Crazy loopers!!  Once again, the kids had their own table for dinner, which was amazing.  Except for the part where Toby cried for 10 minutes because I told him he couldn’t actually drink the Dr. Pepper he had somehow ordered from the waitress.  Then, Mike somehow knocked down the toilet paper dispenser in the girls’ bathroom, and we were told our children shouldn’t go to the bathroom unattended anymore.  Sheesh…don’t these people know how to have fun?!

The next day we did a fair amount of bike riding and playground exploring in the morning, so we decided to push our luck and head back to the Thirsty Turtle in the afternoon for some outside bean bags, steel tipped darts (not always child friendly, but we made it work!), and life-sized chess.  We started off all playing games, but eventually the kids were running rampant through the woods and the adults were standing around a bon fire, finishing our beers.  We were chatting with a new boat we met, Cloud 9, which is from MacRays, our home marina back in Harrison Township, Michigan. What a small world!!  One difference is that these loopers left home on 10/1 and were already at GTB.  We left mid-July and were just now at GTB.  They obviously burn some wicked amounts of fuel and are on a much faster time schedule than we are!  Regardless, it was nice to meet them and see a familiar marina name on their boat.

The INNTW and Living the Dream crews ended up back at the Zeeffs’ boat for the rest of the evening, hiding from rainstorms.  Hayley and Allison serenaded us with a concert.  Colin and Matthew talked about Pokemon and a new game they are creating called “Monsters and Magic.”  Toby pretty much ran between the 2 bedrooms terrorizing kids, with a bit of terrorizing adults with very loud keyboard playing.  The adults made plans to take over the Bahamas this winter and then the rest of the world later.  And we drank all of the Zeeffs’ wine and ate their dinner.  It was a good night.

 

 

Soon it was time for INNTW to head out for our big Nashville trip we’ve been planning with the Herbon family.  We are thrilled to be on schedule and chose to leave Green Turtle Bay a day earlier than necessary to make shorter days and give us another night in an anchorage on the way.  We had a great time at GTB, but we were excited about the next adventure!  Thanks for reading!