All the Way to Green Turtle Bay

(Saturday Sept 15 - Dist: 74 mi; Avg Speed: 7.5 mph;

        Locks: 3; LWT: 0 hrs; TTT: 11:45)

Locks #53 and 52 on the Ohio River are the worst, by far, of all the locks on the Great Loop.  Fortunately both will be replaced by the Olmstead Locks and Dam, that is if it ever gets completed.  I could not notice any progress from two years ago.

By the time I woke up the early birds had already arranged to lock through at 7:30 AM.  It was ugly.  The three largest boats were rafted together at the only flat section in the lock while the two shorter boats had to "back down" on a bow line.  Headquarters and Q's End were the lucky ones.  Toucan held both of us off the old rusty lock wall.  There were jagged bits and holes so fenders were not very effective.  With the help of Tony and Shirley we were thankful that there was little or no damage. 

After the two Ohio River locks and an incident of poor, discourteous, seamanship (fortunately no one was injured) by another Looper we had a very pleasant ride up the Cumberland River. 

For whatever reason there are numerous quarries along the river; huge, huge quarries.  The shoreline was interesting and does show the rock layers.  Here is a small cave or break in the wall.

Soon we arrived at the Barkley Lock and Dam.  At 57 feet this is one of the higher lifts thus far and one of the higher ones (#3 I think behind Wilson and Carillon) in North America.  We have done them all and even did the Carillon on the Ottawa River in our previous boat, the 18 footer.

Tony and Shirley on Headquarters

All five of us arrived at the Marina / Resort just after 6 PM and were greeted by some fellow Loopers, the Hawg Pit crowd from Grafton, who informed us that the van was picking us in 45 minutes to go to Patti's restaurant the institution in Grand Rivers... and a good time was had by all after a very long day.

Since there is only one day left of our week stay here as I write this, I figure I might as well fill you in on our mini vacation.  Green Turtle Bay has two pools, one an indoor pool with saunas and exercise room, a restaurant, a yacht club with good food and courtesy vans and golf carts to get around.

We took advantage of the van to go into the beautiful town of Paduach.  I just have to show more photos of the levee wall even if you remember them from 2 years ago.  Another meal of fine dining, we have done 5 so far, and some provisioning; mostly wine.

One day we managed to go golfing at a very fine course called Mineral Mound, a Kentucky State course.  On another, we went to the State Park on "The Land Between the Lakes".  Here we saw a herd of American Bison and some Elk in a conservation area.  The rest of the time was spent updating the blog and attending activities in or near the pool.  The indoor pool was a great spot for Happy Hours.

Do not be surprised if my next updates are a number of days away.  We are going to do some anchoring on Kentucky Lake.  It probably will be a good thing to ??? de-compress?? no, dry out?? maybe.  Anyway here are some more photos.