September 23 / Day 125 / Little Diversion Channel to Padukah / 85.5 NM

Today we climbed a mountain whose peak is 'Lock 52'.  Up early, walked Millie at the nearby shore and she sunk right in the mud - lovely (mud on Millie, Tim, the dinghy and then Observer).  Anchor up and headed out of the channel.  We announced on channel 13 "securite, securite, this is the pleasure craft Observer heading out of Little Diversion Channel @ mile marker 48.8 heading southbound.   All concerned traffic respond on channel 13, Observer out."  We did check our AIS just before exiting but made the announcement as an abundance of caution; we did not want to get squished. 

The exit of Little Diversion Channel out to the Mississippi

We encountered a great number of tows again today. Fortunately all went well.  We finished the Mississippi by 11 - yeah! We then started up (and against the current ) on the Ohio.  The Ohio seems wider and so far has less barge traffic.  Our aggressive goal was to get through the Omstead lock, then locks 53 & 52.  The Olmstead lock is the Ohio version of the big dig. 

It is supposed to replace locks 53 & 52.  It's way over budget and over schedule.  We were directed through this lock area and joined other Loopers waiting for lock 53.  About an hour later we were all free floating in the lock. Most of us then set off for lock 52.  We have heard horror stories about Loopers waiting as much as seven hours for a lock through as the lock master has been passing tows through, but not pleasure craft, in a timely manner.

We arrived about 6:15 and the lockmaster was pretty good about getting us all in at the next up bound lock through.  The challenge of the day is after 7:30, we will be running in the dark.  We both have terrible night vision and soon realized the chart plotters and other electronics were making our visibility that much worse.  We made some adjustments to the dim settings of the electronics. Once we figured out where the lock entrance was, seven of us Looper boats entered the lock chamber and free floated til the lock doors opened.  Between our chart plotter and AIS we made it another 45 minutes down the river to our boat slip for the night.  The great news was the docking was a piece of cake.  Thankfully, many of the boaters on the Padukah dock came out with flashlights to help guide us in and catch our lines. The day could have been a lot worse, but it was pretty long day just the same.