AquaFennatic Great Loop Blog: Little Diversion Channel MO to Green Turtle Bay KY

Sept 22^nd – Do I sound like a broken record … It was a hot and sunny day. We left our anchorage in Little Diversion Channel early in the morning since we had a long run ahead of us. We traveled 92 miles via the Upper Mississippi river and the Ohio river and left Missouri and entered Kentucky. As we approached the Ohio river we saw a very clear line between the two rivers. The Mississippi was very muddy and then all of a sudden you cross into the Ohio river and the water clears up so much that you can see large numbers of carp swimming along the top as we travelled. Even though the Ohio river seemed to look clearer it’s not one of my favorite rivers since we hit two submerged objects. We hit the first as we passed under a bridge on the Ohio river and hit another as we were escorted by a red and white tow through the Olmstead lock since it was under construction. The tow took us through both the new and old lock. We continued on to the next lock which was Lock 52 which has had it’s problems the last few weeks. It was starting to get dark and the group decided to go through the lock, however at the last minute I changed my mind and anchored out for the night before the lock. I was worried about hitting another object in the dark and we felt it wasn’t worth the risk. We figured we could catch up with the other boats the next day.

Sept 23^rd – It was a hot and sunny day. We left our anchorage at Lock 52 on the Ohio River and traveled 33 miles to Green Turtle Bay Marina via the Ohio river, Tennessee river, Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley. The other boats that went through the lock last night got ahead of us, however we caught up to them by giving the boat a good run on the Tennessee River. The Lock Master told us if we didn’t catch up to the group in front of us then we would be in for a long wait at the Kentucky Lock. We did successfully catch up and actually had some time to go for a swim while we waited for the lock to open. Rob from “Over Ice” put his Lilly Pad in the water and we relaxed and cooled off, however the water was extremely warm … just like bath tub water! I put on my diving mask to see if I could determine if the props were damaged by the submerged objects we hit. It was difficult to see clearly, however the blades of the props felt OK, however one of the blades may have a slight ding/bend. We don’t feel any vibration thus we are going to leave everything as is for now and check it later when the water is clearer. Once we arrived at Green Turtle Bay marina we all went up to the pool with our Coolers and just relaxed for the afternoon. We were getting low on beer and found out that we were in a dry county (they don’t sell alcohol or beer), however we were relieved to hear that we didn’t have to drive too far to load up. We have a courtesy car for tomorrow morning to make a beer run. After we got back from the pool I found my laptop sitting in the sun on the table. I tried to turn it on but it was dead. I Googled a number of remedies, however they all failed to work. Darn! We then went up to the Yacht Club for docktails with a large number of Loopers and afterwards we went on a boat called “Crazy Love” with a number of Loopers and just talked the night away.

Sept 24^th – Another hot and sunny day in Green Turtle Bay. Maria went with a few Loopers in the courtesy van to Walmart to buy some beer while I stayed back to reconfigure the wiring on our new inverter/charger so that the charger would work when the generator runs. Success! I also had to recharge the salon air conditioner since it couldn’t keep up with all this hot weather. It seems to be OK now. We borrowed the courtesy van to go to Best Buy to have their Geek Squad help us revive the laptop, however they said the motherboard needed to be replaced and it wasn’t worth it thus we were forced to buy a new one. The Geek Squad did help us recover the data on our laptop, for a price. Finally we got to enjoy the afternoon by first taking a swim in the pool and then we went for a Seafood boil with over 200 people including a number of Loopers and local Yacht Club members. Afterwards I went back to the boat to set up the new laptop to ensure it was working properly before we go to Nashville on Tuesday. Best Buy called to say they recovered our data thus we plan to go back Monday morning to pick it up.