GLORY DAYS ON THE GREAT LOOP: HAPPINESS IS BEING TIED UP!

DAY 108, MON. SEPT 26, 2011
AM EARLY FOG, LATER CLEARING
DEP. LITTLE DIVERSION CH. 8:00 ARR OHIO R. MM 966.2 12:45
D. 63.6 sm / 2133.7

I woke up at 2:30 am to check the anchor. The good news was we had not moved at all. The bad news was the anchor chain looked like it became a home for beavers. There was a lot of driftwood caught on a good size tree that had snagged the chain. Leaving it there might put too much strain on the anchor causing it to break loose and setting us adrift in this small anchorage in the dark. With 6 boats downstream of us, not a very comforting thought! After struggling with the boat hook for 30 mins, I finally pried the tree loose and cleared the rest of the debris. AMEN! Then the thought struck me that all this could cause another boat to break loose, but there was not much I could do. Fortunately, everybody held and was present and accounted for at 6:00 am. There was some fog in our anchorage, but we had reports from tow captains that the Miss. R south was socked in. By 8am it cleared enough for us to get under way, and so we headed for another fun day on Old Man River. This is our last day on the Miss. R. and none too soon for me. Although we had a very favorable current the whole way down it is not my favorite kind of cruising. The water boils with current, it is dirty, and there is a lot of commercial traffic. At 12:40 we entered the Ohio River for a roughly 60 mile trip upstream to the Cumberland R. As soon as we made the turn, the speed went from 10–12 mph to 7-8mph. The current against us in the Ohio R. was about half of the current that was with us in the Miss. R. The Ohio seemed a lot tamer as it was much wider at this point, and there was more room to stay clear of the many tows. Unfortunately, there are very few places to tie up overnight so most vessels have to anchor as close to shore as possible, out of the channel and clear of tows. Not my idea of fun. Fortunately, the most current cruising guide showed some federal “mooring cells” just south of the Olmstead Lock construction project. We called the lockmaster and he said it was OK to tie up there overnight. This called for another AMEN! This is when we coined the phrase “Happiness is being tied up!”