Kentucky: Bean Branch Creek to Grand Rivers Green Turtle Bay Marina

Day 93
NM Today: 55
NM Total: 2050
Locks Today: 1
Locks Total: 82

Sunrise at Bean Branch Creek

 We awoke at 6:20 and were underway by 6:50 - record time for departure.  We arrived at Lock 52 at 8:30.  Once again we received direction to drop anchor this time near the red buoy.  Sigh!  Another long wait is in store for us.

We sat and sat and finally got word at 10:50 that we could pull up anchors and proceed to enter the lock.  The lockmaster told us to split up - some on port and some on starboard tie up to the lock walls. He also announced that we needed 2 lines of 100 foot length each.  Fortunately, Frydaze had posted an update to Active Captain so we were prepared for the need to have long lines available.

We sounded off on the VHF radio - "Jammin Jane takes port"; "Kat in the Hatt takes starboard" to avoid confusion in the lock itself.  Sea Moss prefers and claimed starboard side tie.  When we pulled up to the wall, a lock attendant was present to take our lines from our boat hooks we held over our heads, wrap the line around something we could not see, and pass the line back to us to secure to the boat.

When we finally reached the top of the climb (we're going up river on the Ohio), we could see the railing we were tied to and the spillway beyond.

Spillway at Lock 52

Tied up to the railing at Lock 52

We finally exited the second of the dreaded Ohio locks at 11:30.  Now we had a decision point - take the Tennessee River and face the heavily used Kentucky Lock or take the Cumberland River and add 16 miles travel time to our trip.  We checked the barge queue at the Kentucky Lock and found they had 3 barges waiting to go up and an equal number waiting to go down.  Jammin Jane asked the Lock 52 lock attendant about the Kentucky lock time and was told "it's a crap shoot".

Before we entered Lock 52, we had received a phone call from Kat in the Hatt saying that they planned on taking their chances on the Kentucky Lock.  We told them that we would let them know our decision when we got closer to the final decision point.  We called Kat in the Hatt at the critical moment and told them we had decided on the Cumberland - rather a sure thing than a crap shoot.  We also prefer moving for two hours extra instead of sitting idle for three (or even two) hours waiting for a lock.

Finally on our way 

I was interested to see what happened when we came to the decision point, so I sat watching with binoculars out the back of the boat to see who went where.  As I watched, three boats were clearly on the Tennessee side of the channel and three were on the Cumberland side.  The one boat in front of us had already told us they planned on taking the Cumberland River option.  It looked like we'd be 3 Tennessee and 5 Cumberland.

When it came right down to it, not one of the 8 boats that locked through together took the Tennessee River and the Kentucky Lock.  (The 9th boat that locked through Lock 53 with us - the mystery boat - disappeared somewhere along the way and did not lock through Lock 52 with us.)  Apparently no one wanted to test those waters after all.

We passed some commercial traffic on the Cumberland, but it was mostly peaceful and pleasant and less stressful than the Mississippi or the Ohio Rivers.   Clark took the picture below on the Cumberland River.  He seemed fascinated by the maze of conveyor belts moving sand and gravel to the water's edge to be collected by barges.

Web of conveyor belts moving sand and
similar materials to the barges on the river

At the end of another long day, we came to the Barkley Lock on Barkley Lake.  This lock had no queue up or down.  Three boats, Adventure III, Sea Moss, and Gimme Time, had sped ahead of the others in the pack and arrived at the lock together.  The three of us locked through as the rest were spread out behind us up to about 45 minutes behind us.

Locking through in Barkley Lock on Cumberland River
(life jackets required)
We tie one line only to the floating bollard shown

The Barkley Lock was very fast.  We went up very quickly and exited the lock in record time - certainly compared to any of the other locks we have encountered on the western rivers.  Immediately after exiting the lock we came to our destination for the night - the Green Turtle Bay marina and resort.   We pulled into the marina at 5:30 and refilled our fuel tanks and emptied our holding tank before pulling into our covered slip where we plan to stay for a full week.  We pulled into our slip for the night at 6:30 and by the time we had our lines secured and the boat settled in place, we completed yet another day of travel where we began at sunup and ended at sundown.

Earlier, as we sat at the fuel dock, the crew of Adventure III invited us to join them for dinner tonight at the marina restaurant.  After racing around to get the boat settled and ourselves showered and presentable after hard travel, we managed to meet them at the restaurant at the designated time of 7:30 where we had a lovely dinner and conversation that lasted until 10:30.  Having gotten up and underway so early, we were all exhausted by then and more then ready to call it a night.  Although I needed to get blog entries done, I opted for the bed instead.