Grand River, Kentucky

Day 59, September 30, 2009

Everyone was up to leave at 0700. Unfortunately so was the fog and we didn't actually get going until about 0830. We moved over to the channel to pass through lock 52 which is a wicket dam. The wickets can be raised or lowered depending on river conditions. If the river is low, the wickets are raised and you use the locks as normal. If the river is high, the wickets are lowered and you use a buoyed channel to pass over the dam itself. Good news! The wickets are down and we don't have to wait for the lock. Bad news!! No one told us about the increased current and the turbulence as you pass over the dam. When we began to pass over the dam, the engine was wide open, the knotmetre was reading 6.2 knots because of the current, and speed over ground by GPS was 0.0 knots. We weren't moving!!! Twice 's' Nice with their bigger engine was able to crawl through but Periwinkle was sitting next to a red buoy that just didn't want to move. Paul called on the radio to try zig zagging. We tried this and low and behold, we started to move very slowly. After about half and hour, we were back up to our speedy 3.5-4.0 knots and on our way. Four miles later we reached the Tennessee River. After 22.5 miles up the Tennessee, we reached the Kentucky Lock and Dam. The lockmaster told us that there would be about a two hour wait as a large tow was going through the lock in two sections. Paul and Sue tied up to two I beams sticking out of the water and we rafted up to them for the wait. After about an hour and a half, the lockmaster called to say he was ready for us but when we arrived it was confusung because the second half of the tow hadn't gone through yet. We found out that the tow captain was letting us go first which is unusual because pleasure craft are low man on the totem pole for locks. We thanked everybody especially the tow captain and we were raised 57 feet to the Kentucky Lakes section of the Tennessee. Surprise surprise, no current above the dam!! After two more miles, we pulled into the Lighthouse Landing Marina at about 1730. The poor old engine had run wide open for two straight days and we still had two jerry cans of fuel left. Mast up tomorrow!!