Ohio River: Little Diversion Anchorage to Bean Branch Creek

Day 92 (9/24/2015)
NM Today: 67
NM Total: 1996
Locks Today: 1
Locks Total: 81

Sunrise at Little Diversion

 We pulled away from the anchorage at 6:40 a.m. Seeing great sun ups as well as sun sets seems to be coming a common occurrence.  The big question of the day was "what are we going to encounter at the Olmstead Lock and Dam?"  Jammin Jane had called ahead and was told to "come on down", so we did.

We arrived at Olmstead Lock on the Ohio River, which is a new lock under construction, at 12:30.

Olmstead Lock and Dam -
Under Construction on the Ohio River

We made a set of 6 boats coming together from Hoppies:

     - Gimme Time in the lead
     - Kat in the Hatt
     - Sea Moss
     - Movin' On
     - Jammin Jane
     - Knot Sew Easy

When the construction crew is present, boats must be led through the work zone to Lock 53 on the other side.  We were told to pull over to the port, out of the channel, and drop anchor.  The expected wait was said to be two hours.  As we sat there waiting our turn, Elizabear, sailed up and dropped anchor to wait with us.  At 2:30 Gimme Time called the lock for an update on status.  We were told it would be another 45 minutes wait.

At 3:45 yet another boat joined the group, Adventure III.  When he called the lock to request passage through, he was told that he would have a 45 minute wait to pass.  Some time after Adventure III another mystery boat joined the set of pleasure craft to lock through.  "... and then there were 9 ..."

Finally, at 4:30, we got the call from the lockmaster that our turn was next.  We finally got the go ahead to pull up anchor and proceed to the lock entrance at 4:40.  The lockmaster said, "9 Pleasure boats - line up like a wagon train and meet up with the lead boat to guide you through the lock".

A boat named Maverick led us through the under-construction lock.  As we proceeded to line up, we heard the lock team joking about our "wagon train".  Someone said they wanted "wagon train" music to be playing and another asked where they could find the chuck wagon.  It added a little humor to an otherwise dismal experience.

Wagon Train through Olmstead Lock

Maverick led us to the entrance to Lock 53 and then fell back to return to the Olmstead Lock.  The lockmaster at Lock 53 told us we needed to raft up to expedite the locking (and minimize the lockmaster's work to tie us up to the wall.)

By the time we got through with the rafting up and the slow fill of the lock, we finally exited Lock 53 at 6:05.  Now we had a problem.  We had to find an anchorage for the night and fast.   Clark handed me his iPad to look at the app Active Captain for an anchorage.  The only logical choice was Bean Branch Creek, so we headed there.

As shown in the picture below, we were racing the sun.  Could we get the anchor down before the sun disappeared completely?!   We managed to but just barely.  We had our anchor down at 7:17 and sunset occurred officially at 7:15.

Sunset at Bean Branch Creek

Given the full dark situation and the proximity to shore, we decided to eat in the near total darkness to avoid attracting a swarm of who-knows-what to our boat.  We had romantic, candle-lit leftovers!

We face our next hurdle, Lock 52 on the Ohio, tomorrow.  Early to bed, early to rise, ...