The trip up the Tennessee River started out fairly innocuous. The day was a little overcast, which was kind of nice. About 5 hrs into the trip, I noticed the clouds starting to build. Then I saw a couple of long bolts of lightning flash from cloud to ground. I pulled up the RadarScope App on the iPad and began watching the movement of the cells. It looked like it was moving straight up the river, so I started looking for a cove to duck in. I saw a god candidate and started heading to it. The water got down to 5.5 ft and I was still 500 yds from the cove (I need 4.5 ft for the boat). The cell was rapidly approaching, so I pulled back into the water that was about 10 ft, and threw out the anchor (well I really stepped on the button to lower the anchor, but I did have to put on the life jacket and go up to the bow to do that). Fortunately the lightning stayed off the river. So after chilling for 30 minutes I continued on to a beautiful anchorage for the night, mile 107 (a 65 mile day, not bad).
The next morning, I hoisted the anchor and headed up river (well again I had to step on the button to raise it, but I have to manage the chain as it comes off the windless). Todays trip was again fairly uneventful, other than the Governor of South Carolina declared a state of emergency for the state of South Carolina due to Hurricane Florence. I decided I needed to find a Marina for tonight and see if I could possibly get a rental car in case I need to go back to SC. I called Clifton Marina, which was at mile 158.5, to make a reservation (not as far as I hoped to get, but the only option as far as marinas go). They told me they weren’t sure where they would put me, but they would figure something out, call back in an hour or so. They first told me they would put me in a covered slip. I said: my mast is 46.5 ft, are sure that will work. Oh, I forgot you told me sailboat, let me get back to you. They called me back about 30 minutes later and said, we are going to put you at the end of C dock. Ok I say. When I get there, I see that the marina is stacked full of boats. It turns out they was a big music festival in Clifton on that weekend, and a lot of boats were in for the festival.
My palms got a little sweaty as soon as turn into the marina and saw the little sliver of water between the end of the covered Dock C and the steep bank of the marina cove. Thankfully didn’t spot a lot of people sitting on their boats watching as I started my docking maneuver. After I slid Lesson Plan into the “slip” and got her tied up, I went to the marina office. I told Mary, the marina employee, that I was glad there wasn’t a big audience when I started my docking maneuver, but then I was sad there wasn’t a big audience when backed her in there almost flawlessly.
To make a long story short, I find out there are no rental cars in Clifton and the nearest place is about 65 miles, with no way to get there. Well I don’t need to get back to SC just yet, so tomorrow I will head on up river to Pickwick Lake and Grand Harbor Marina (mile 215). There is one lock between us. Sixty miles against the current with one lock will be a tough day. I didn’t even factor in that it would rain on us off and on most of the day.
I left the marina with 5 other boats following closely behind (most of them passed me within the first four hours of the trip. But we all stay within 2 miles of each other. Having enough experience with the locks, I knew the lockmaster would not lock them through without me. It would become a moot point. One of the other boat captains, Liquid Assets, called the lockmaster and found out he was getting ready to load a barge into the chamber and there were two more in the que ahead of us. It would be at least a couple of hours. By the time we reached the lock at 4:15, they were starting to load one barge in the chamber and the second one was getting onto the wall. The lock chamber is 110’ X 1,000’ so it can fit a tow with 15 barges and the tow boat in the chamber at one time (the locks on the Illinois River would require two lifts for a barge this size). The process to lift a boat through the lock is to swing the lower doors open, get the barge loaded, close the doors, fill the chamber, open the doors upper doors (on the other end), get the barge out, close the upper doors, and drain the chamber. The process for a barge takes a little over 1.5 hours. The total lift is for the lock today is 72 feet. I will let you do the math on how many gallons of water that is for each lift.
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| Cross-section of a Lock |
We (the 6 recreational boats) started into the lock about 7:15. One of the boats has an issue getting tied up before we could start the lift. A slight delay. Then about halfway through the lift, the same boat broke loose, and the lockmaster had to shut down the valves to let hm get retied to the wall. By the time we got out of the lock it was 8:30. Sunset was at 7:08. With the heavy cloud cover it was about as dark as it could be. There were a few lights on the shore, but I had another 1.5 hours to Grand Harbor Marina, where I had a reservation for the night (and where I knew I could get to a rental car if needed). An hour and a half in pitch black navigating primarily by instruments. I had a spot light to make sure a marker that was showing on the chart was where it was indicated.
I started off a little slow in the dark, but as time passed I grew a little more confident and kept bumping the throttle up a bit. The boat Liquid Assets was also going to Grand Harbor. He ghosted me they whole way. I offered to let him pass, but he said no thank you, I’ll just hang back here. We made it to Grand Harbor a little after 10:00. I tied up, had d rum, and fell into bed for the night.
The next morning, I decided to just stay at the Mariana for the day and do some boat cleaning and maintenance. I am happily cleaning and rubbing on Lesson Plan, merrily going about my day telling her what a get boat she is and thanking her for taking good care of me, when I get the call. The governor has imposed a mandatory evacuation for all of the South Carolina Coastal Counties, which include Beaufort County, starting at Noon on Tuesday. Time to find a rental car and get to SC, to batten down the hatches so Theresa can get out of there, if needed. …………….
Grand Harbor Marina Staff, Neely, was great in helping me get to the rental car place (which is actually 30 miles from the Marian). So here I am in SC. The governor has lifted the mandatory evacuation for Beaufort County, so we will get all the storm shutters and panels in place and keep and eye on her.
Lessons Learned:
I am getting better at backing Lesson Plan into a slip, but let’s not get over confidant.
You never know what I Hurricane is going to do.
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