Lady V - Great Loop Voyage: DAY 37 - LITTE RIVER DIVERSION CHANNEL TO GREEN TURTLE BAY

LITTE RIVER DIVERSION CHANNEL TO GREEN TURTLE BAY ( 138.5 miles)

Thursday, August 18, 2016 - We brought our anchor up at 6:15 am with me at the helm and Frans on the windlass button. The anchor has full of mud but it held us all night without moving an inch. We are back on the Mississippi River on another cloudy morning for the next 48.8 miles. At 9:30 am we entered the Ohio River (MI 981). We are now heading north against the current and the red buoys are on our starboard. This area is congested with tugs and barges tied up on the right descending bank and to our starboard just out of the channel. We have two locks in the Ohio. The first one still being constructed at MI 966 is the Olmsted. It will replace the two locks on the Ohio with completion date 2020. All traffic through the new lock area is escorted by a boat to prevent any waking. It was just amazing to see all of the construction going on to build this lock. At our second lock ( MI 939) Lock Dam #52 the wickets are down and we just sailed through at 12:30 pm. We had another hour on the Ohio River before we began our Cumberland River route at mile zero. The Ohio River was much more enjoyable than the Mississippi. It was wider, cleaner and fewer barges. The Cumberland River has a current of 1 - 2 knots against us. The scenery was breath taking and only a few small tows use this channel. After 30.6 miles on the Cumberland we go through the Barkley Lock and Dam. This lock has a 57-foot lift to Barkley Lake, which was formed when the dam was completed in 1966. This beautiful lake has a thousand miles of shoreline. We proceeded on the Barkley Canal to Green Turtle Bay Resort. This large marina was an excellent place to spend a few days to rest. It was quite a day - traversing on three rivers in one day and I hailed and passed two tows on my own today!