Week 3 – Wednesday 9/30

Wednesday (9/30/15)

Wednesday is a big day of locking through. For those who have never been in a lock, it is really quite simple. We hail the Lockmaster about 30 minutes to an hour out, let him (so far they have all been men) know we are on our way, and ask how his traffic is. Pleasure crafts take second priority after government and commercial vessels so if there is a barge waiting they get to go first. Once we get to the lock and get the green light to enter, Mike pulls the boat up close to the wall and I lasso the bollard (a post or pin built into the lock wall that moves up or down with the water) and secure the rope to a cleat on the boat. We let the Lockmaster know we are secure and they close the gates, lower us down, open the gates, I untie the rope, and we use push poles to push off the lock wall and depart. Easy, peasy…we have heard some horror stories about people getting turned around in the locks or having other issues but, thankfully, so far we haven’t had any.

Whitten Lock

So today we did 4 locks:

Whitten – at mm 411.9 – lowered 84’
Montgomery – at mm 406.7 – lowered 30’
Rankin – at mm 398.4 – lowered 30’
Fulton – at mm 391 – lowered 25’

I drove the boat awhile today to give the Captain a break. It is so peaceful and interesting to drive. There are so many sights, sounds, and smells! We have seen all types of houses on the rivers.

Today I saw a ramshackled old house sitting on the edge of an impossibly green meadow. The yard was strewn with water toys, different kinds of boats, floats, etc. There was a small dock at water’s edge with old chairs looking out over the river. There was no one around but I could just see people enjoying that place…nothing fancy and a bit run down but a happy place to live or visit and find peace, enjoy nature and family. It reminded me yet again that money doesn’t buy joy or peace.

A little further down there was a lone plastic lawn chair on a slight bank on the water…nothing around but grass and trees. The trees seemed to wave at me as I drove by. There were beautiful cranes standing in the water or floating in the wind overhead. I love to watch them glide across the water dipping just the tips of their wings in the river. We have seen all types of birds, cranes, herons, eagles, and some we have no idea what they are. We’ll have to get a book on birds!

It was another cloudy, windy day but we were lucky and it didn’t rain. It was a really windy night and we didn’t find a great anchorage but it was right by the next lock so we anchored down and rested well.