Thursday October 7: On the Ohio River!!

We have made it to the Ohio River! It's a turn we didn't want to miss for sure :-) From Chicago we have have now traveled 560 miles on the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers - all downriver which is nice! We hit an all time high of 14.5 mph at our normal cruising rpm (which would move us at 8.3 or so in still water).

Yesterday morning was quite foggy as it was in the 40's again overnight so after waiting for a while for the fog to clear we headed out. The river fooled us. No sooner had we left our nice little current free anchorage than the fog became thicker than ever. Couldn't see Selah or Surona ahead of us. Quick radio talk indicated we were all headed back upriver to wait out the fog lifting. So we tread water going upstream for about 15 minutes and were then able to move on. The tug waves continue to be really large as they fight the current upriver. Finally we were at the junction of the Ohio River. It runs over 900 miles from Pittsburgh to Cairo Ill and is the largest tributary of the Mississippi - who knew??!

The difference in the water was amazing! No more really brown silty water but instead an almost blue with a brown tinge. There are still no marinas available to spend the night so it will be the third night at anchor (or tied to the lock where you weren't allowed to walk around). The place we tied to tonight was a round 30' in diameter concrete pillar. Ever try to tie a straight sided boat to a round pillar? It was interesting and Steve spent some time trying to lasso the "cleat" to which we tied. Eventually all was tied well enough for Selah to tie to us and then Surona to them.

This is a picture of Sleeping Bear tying to the same type of pillar up river a bit. Note the debris on the top of the pillar - including the misplace buoy! It's suprising how many buoys are spotted either on shore or in a place that clearly can't be right. It was an easy to make supper with the guys taking care of cooking steaks and dinner on Selah's aft deck.

The Ohio River is quite amazing and very different than the Mississippi. About twice as wide but only about 15 - 20 feet deep (the Mississippi was usually about 35 but sometimes 80 feet deep). Tomorrow we will be turning off of the Ohio and heading up the Cumberland River for about 35 miles to our first real marina in 5 days! We are all ready to be pampered by marina life again :-)