Ohio River
Rollin’….rollin’….rollin’ down the river!!! We have navigated the Mississippi, Ohio and Cumberland rivers, and now have entered the Tennessee River. Currently we are at Grand Rivers, KY in Green Turtle Bay Marina. These areas have been setting record-high temperatures (mid to high 80’s) and they have been dry as a bone until today. Water levels are way down, and unfortunately, these are not good conditions to get pretty fall foliage. But this part of Kentucky is beautiful and reminds me SO much of Beaver Lake that I find myself a little homesick. We will hang out here a couple more days until the rains from Hurricane Nate have passed.
Along with Edouard and Sabine (the Frenchies), we have been traveling alongside a couple from Ohio who are relatively new to the Loop, Tim and Patti. She was a hospice nurse, so we have that same sort of twisted (?) humor that comes along with the profession. They have a labradoodle named Riley who is getting to know Gypsea in small increments….more for his benefit than hers!
Our friendship got physically close to Tim and Patti when our boats collided on the Mississippi River! Donna Mae was already anchored facing the current in an area that was once 15 feet deep, but now only 5-7 feet due low water levels. Tim and Patti were the last to arrive at the anchorage. As Tim was searching for an adequately deep spot to anchor near us, and listening to directions from Edouard, he ended up perpendicular in front of us with his beam (side) against the strong current. The current carried his boat about 50 feet sideways right over our anchor line which caught his rudder which swung his boat into our bow. Patti and I, thinking we had super-human strength, were trying to push 24,000-lb boats apart at the railings while Derek was frantically dropping the anchor line with the windlass. Luckily, our anchor line didn’t get wrapped around his propellors which would have caused both our boats to be hooked together, incapacitated, and moving down the Mississippi at 5-6 knots into the barge traffic. The damage is only a small gash on our bow at the water line made by Tim’s swim platform as the boats made contact. We’ll fix it when we can, but for now it serves as another war wound with a story to tell and a lesson to remember about NEVER underestimating how the current can take total control over a boat.
Two other blog-worthy incidences have happened during our week-stay at Green Turtle Bay. First, a few nights ago we had Edouard and Sabine over for dinner, and as always, imbibed in a couple bottles of wine. After dinner, Derek poured everyone coffee and went to sit down on the foot stool. He plopped on the edge of the stool, it shot out from underneath him, and the full cup of coffee came straight up out of the cup as he went straight down on his butt onto the floor. The scene ended with the coffee coming back down on top of him like an avalanche. We all couldn’t help but laugh, admittedly at him instead of with him, but he took it in stride. Soon after, the Frenchies left and I took Gypsea out on her leash to talk to other Loopers that were congregated on the dock near our slip. A lady with a black cat (also on a leash) had unknowingly walked up behind us. Gypsea turned, saw only the golden eyes of the black cat in the dark, and jumped right in the lake!!! Luckily, I could pull her out by her harness and leash. She looked pitiful, all wet hair and huge eyes, clinging desperately to my shirt. When I brought her back to the boat, Derek was lying down saying his head felt funny and there was blood on the pillow case. Little did we realize that he had hit the back of his head on the drawer knob when he fell. Now I had a traumatized cat, a wounded husband, and a wine buzz. I cleaned the cut, dried the cat with the blow dryer that made her schizoid, then went to bed praying that my husband wouldn’t have a stroke from an internal brain hemorrhage before the morning. Thank God, all survived the night!
The second incidence is even more weird. Derek and I went to a restaurant called ‘Patti’s” with 14 other Loopers. The restaurant looks like it once was a large house with many small rooms connected by hallways. It is famous for it’s 2-inch thick pork chops…and one of it’s bathrooms! Not knowing about the latter beforehand, I opened the bathroom door which triggered a life-sized Indian chief mannequin in full costume, lying in a claw-foot bathtub, to start talking and moving his head and eyes. It was like a Teddy Ruxpin meets Tonto with a little Chuckie thrown in!!!! After the shock wore off, Patti and I couldn’t help but go back in and take some pictures of us having a tete-à-tete with Chief Sitting-in-a-bathtub Bull… in the tub with him. All we lacked were some candles and bubbles!
I’ll end this latest blog with with our excitement yesterday. Derek needed to change out the macerator hose which had the small leak that I had mentioned in an earlier blog. Just to refresh your memory, the macerator grinds up and pumps our waste from the black-water tank to the sea when it’s turned on. Although the valve was closed on the tank (no dumping is allowed on the rivers), as soon as he took one end of the hose off, all of our pee/poop soup came flowing out into our forward bilge!!!! Now mind you, Derek starts gagging if he even has to pick up a small dog turd, so you can imagine how this latest snafu is affecting him. And perhaps you can imagine the smell. We still don’t know why the waste came out with the valve closed, but Derek finished the repair and we flushed out the bilge, but he is NOT gonna mess with it anymore to find out! All is now good down there and we hope to never have to talk about poop again in our future blogs.
Enjoy the pics and please keep us in your prayers. Love y’alls!
Along with Edouard and Sabine (the Frenchies), we have been traveling alongside a couple from Ohio who are relatively new to the Loop, Tim and Patti. She was a hospice nurse, so we have that same sort of twisted (?) humor that comes along with the profession. They have a labradoodle named Riley who is getting to know Gypsea in small increments….more for his benefit than hers!
Our friendship got physically close to Tim and Patti when our boats collided on the Mississippi River! Donna Mae was already anchored facing the current in an area that was once 15 feet deep, but now only 5-7 feet due low water levels. Tim and Patti were the last to arrive at the anchorage. As Tim was searching for an adequately deep spot to anchor near us, and listening to directions from Edouard, he ended up perpendicular in front of us with his beam (side) against the strong current. The current carried his boat about 50 feet sideways right over our anchor line which caught his rudder which swung his boat into our bow. Patti and I, thinking we had super-human strength, were trying to push 24,000-lb boats apart at the railings while Derek was frantically dropping the anchor line with the windlass. Luckily, our anchor line didn’t get wrapped around his propellors which would have caused both our boats to be hooked together, incapacitated, and moving down the Mississippi at 5-6 knots into the barge traffic. The damage is only a small gash on our bow at the water line made by Tim’s swim platform as the boats made contact. We’ll fix it when we can, but for now it serves as another war wound with a story to tell and a lesson to remember about NEVER underestimating how the current can take total control over a boat.
Two other blog-worthy incidences have happened during our week-stay at Green Turtle Bay. First, a few nights ago we had Edouard and Sabine over for dinner, and as always, imbibed in a couple bottles of wine. After dinner, Derek poured everyone coffee and went to sit down on the foot stool. He plopped on the edge of the stool, it shot out from underneath him, and the full cup of coffee came straight up out of the cup as he went straight down on his butt onto the floor. The scene ended with the coffee coming back down on top of him like an avalanche. We all couldn’t help but laugh, admittedly at him instead of with him, but he took it in stride. Soon after, the Frenchies left and I took Gypsea out on her leash to talk to other Loopers that were congregated on the dock near our slip. A lady with a black cat (also on a leash) had unknowingly walked up behind us. Gypsea turned, saw only the golden eyes of the black cat in the dark, and jumped right in the lake!!! Luckily, I could pull her out by her harness and leash. She looked pitiful, all wet hair and huge eyes, clinging desperately to my shirt. When I brought her back to the boat, Derek was lying down saying his head felt funny and there was blood on the pillow case. Little did we realize that he had hit the back of his head on the drawer knob when he fell. Now I had a traumatized cat, a wounded husband, and a wine buzz. I cleaned the cut, dried the cat with the blow dryer that made her schizoid, then went to bed praying that my husband wouldn’t have a stroke from an internal brain hemorrhage before the morning. Thank God, all survived the night!
The second incidence is even more weird. Derek and I went to a restaurant called ‘Patti’s” with 14 other Loopers. The restaurant looks like it once was a large house with many small rooms connected by hallways. It is famous for it’s 2-inch thick pork chops…and one of it’s bathrooms! Not knowing about the latter beforehand, I opened the bathroom door which triggered a life-sized Indian chief mannequin in full costume, lying in a claw-foot bathtub, to start talking and moving his head and eyes. It was like a Teddy Ruxpin meets Tonto with a little Chuckie thrown in!!!! After the shock wore off, Patti and I couldn’t help but go back in and take some pictures of us having a tete-à-tete with Chief Sitting-in-a-bathtub Bull… in the tub with him. All we lacked were some candles and bubbles!
I’ll end this latest blog with with our excitement yesterday. Derek needed to change out the macerator hose which had the small leak that I had mentioned in an earlier blog. Just to refresh your memory, the macerator grinds up and pumps our waste from the black-water tank to the sea when it’s turned on. Although the valve was closed on the tank (no dumping is allowed on the rivers), as soon as he took one end of the hose off, all of our pee/poop soup came flowing out into our forward bilge!!!! Now mind you, Derek starts gagging if he even has to pick up a small dog turd, so you can imagine how this latest snafu is affecting him. And perhaps you can imagine the smell. We still don’t know why the waste came out with the valve closed, but Derek finished the repair and we flushed out the bilge, but he is NOT gonna mess with it anymore to find out! All is now good down there and we hope to never have to talk about poop again in our future blogs.
Enjoy the pics and please keep us in your prayers. Love y’alls!