35 miles
1 lock
The day started off rainy at Ripley Boat Club. We just laid around for a while waiting for the rain to stop because we had a short 40 miles to Cincinatti....or at least we thought it would be short. Erik dozed off for a while and I loomed at maps, plotting and planning. It was close to noon when Erik awoke, we gassed up, and headed out.
Stopped at the town of Augusta, Kentucky . Found 3 sternwheelers and a trawler at the wall as they were setting up for a festival at the riverfront park. Hung out chatting with(even got a tour of one) with the sternwheel owners. And walked several blocks around town. One person mentioned delays at the next lock so after trying to call the lock and it ringing busyfor a while, we decided we better head that way. In hindsight we should have stayed there,free electric, festival, and entertainment. When we got close to Meldahl lock I was able to hail the lockmaster. He said both chambers were closed, maybe 6pm at the soonest(this was around 3pm). We decided to check out Chilo Old lock house and river museum. Really interesting place with lots of history about the first lock systems built. Unfortunately they closed at 4 so we only got to see a little bit of what they had, and had left phones on boat so no pics of stuff inside. We headed out and floated within sight of the lock waiting to see movement.
We swam, cooked brats on the grill, and floated till almost 8pm. It looked like storms were moving in and I didn't want to get stuck in a nasty storm, so we tried the lock again and he said it was going to be about 4 hours! UGH!!!!
We headed back up river about a mile to "Fat Boys" floating restaurant to wait out the storm. We had yummy pineapple upside down cake and hot fudge cake while it stormed for about 2 hours. Met some fun(and drunk) new friends we hung out with till it stopped raining and lightning. Motored closer and hung at Chilo lock house till we got the ok to come in close and wait for the barges to clear and let us lock through.
Finally around 1am we pulled into the lock. After we got lowered and they opened the gates to let us out, the starboard engine wouldn't start....OMG!!! We can move with one engine, it just doesn't steer as well. There was a ton of debris(likely from the storm earlier) and in exiting we got a log hung up on the rudder or prop, did I mention it was 2am and dark????? We spent the next hour searching in the dark, dodging tree trunks, for a dock to tie off to till morning. About 3am we found Steamboat Marina at New Richmond, tied off and laid down to get some sleep.
It's a miracle we are still married after that experience. I refuse to lock through at night again!😥
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