Big Lock & Racing for Barges to Green Turtle Bay (#59)

Our trip into Green Turtle Bay from Paducah was an adventure. We left at first light from Paducah with three boats, and the second wave of 4 boats left later in the day. We were coordinating with two different groups on channel 72.

Our travels from Paducah would be up the Tennessee to the Cumberland and into Lake Barley to reach Green Turtle Bay.

We started off with a beautiful day.

We made our turn on the Cumberland River which is more scenic with less commercial traffic, but a longer route. We also were going upstream so still struggled to get our 1-to one or better gas mileage. We try to travel 1-to-1 (1 gallon per mile) but this one about 2 gallons per mile.

The Cumberland is more narrow and beautiful. Pictures don't really capture the beauty.

We monitor channel 13 and call to the barges when were are approaching. Our lead boat in our flotilla for the day. The tug captain on David Work contacted us earlier and said we needed to hurry up and pass him before he got through the bend because he was so big. The four of us sped up, and the Sparkling Star burned up about twice the normal amount of fuel. We were also going against the current at the time.

We were amazed by all the traffic and movement of goods on these rivers. We were able to see a dumptruck load rock from the land directly into this barge.

The second adventure with a tug required that we all speed up and tuck together behind a bend in the river. We had to wait at idle about 30 minutes for him to arrive, and in the meantime 6 other boats caught up with us. We were in the last bend heading to the lock with a 10 boat flotilla.

At the size of 10 pleasure boats, the lockmaster wanted to get us through. There was a barge that had been there for 1.5 hours getting his goods through. After the barges are through, the Tug captain goes through and reconnects with his barges. The lockmaster asked him if we could ride in the tug and he said yes. The Lockmaster told our lead boat captain that we could join him only if we did exactly what he said and responded immediately to him. At one point in the confusion, our lead captain wasn't responding. The lockmaster said we were in danger of being kicked out of the lock and having to wait what could be 3-5 hours. Ted responded immediately for them and we gassed it into the lock. We had six boats on bollards and four rafted up to four of the boats. Everyone else followed suit and we made it with a huge sigh of relief!

Arriving at Green Turtle Bay was a huge reunion of Loopers we have met along the way with new Looper friends.

We spent our time socializing with dinner at Pattis, Docktails, Tiki Turtle Dinners, and trips back Paducah for groceries and supplies. Laura did a yoga class at the fitness center and enjoyed long walks. We picked up new batteries to run our Starlink underway without the generator. Ted also worked with maintenace crew to replace a radiator line. We had anticipated needing to pull the boat but our issue resolved itself.