We were up at 6 AM to get ready for another great day on the river. Beautiful morning as we headed up stream at 7 AM.
We passed a tow going down stream right away and then caught up to Green Wave at the Fulton lock.
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| The First Mate enjoys her morning coffee. |
Green Wave had left 6 barges in the lock and then come down stream a half mile to move some other barges around at a loading sight.
The lock master was kind enough to allow us to lock up with Green Wave although normally pleasure craft are not allowed to lock with commercial vessels. The Green Wave Captain was agreeable, in fact very accommodating, with a great attitude!
So we squeezed in to the starboard side of Green Wave and the end of the lock and rode up with them. Green Wave was very gentle pulling out so as to not rock us against the wall.
The next lock was eight miles up stream. The lock master at Fulton lock advised us to get going up to Rankin lock so they would lock us through before Green Wave got there as commercial traffic has priority. We ran 8.5 knots to make sure we got there in plenty of time.
We learned over the radio that another pleasure boat had locked through Fulton lock after us and was trying to catch up to lock through with us at Rankin lock. We looked back and observed Summer Song hauling ass up river kicking up a heck of a wake.
We only waited a couple of minutes for Summer Song to pull in and lock through together. As we pulled out at 10:45 Summer Song advised he had talked to Whitten lock up stream and there was a tow coming downstream so the lock would be tied up until about noon. We still had one more lock to clear before Whitten anyway so the timing looked like it would work out well.
Summer Song took off at 10 knots but I stayed back at 8 knots since I did not want to waste fuel. We entered Montgomery lock at 11:35 and cleared the lock at 11:50.
We arrived at Whitten lock at 12:20 as the tow boat Leader was just leaving to go downstream.
The trawler Bar B was already at the lock waiting.
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| Tow boat Leader has fresh veggies aboard! |
After Leader cleared the three of us entered Whitten at 12:40.
Since this lock has an 84 foot lift it took us 20 minutes to lift and we left at 1:05.
The Whitten is close to the highest lift in the U.S. (the John Day lock is 110 feet).
Summer Song pulled out and put the hammer down.
He was in one heck of a hurry. My AIS told me he was running 20 knots per hour. I'll bet he was spending $20.00 per mile in fuel. The hailing port for Summer Song is St. Mary's Point, Minnesota so it was kinda embarrassing. Missy said she bet it was one of the Hubbards.
We ran our normal 8 knots and slowly pulled away from Bar B as we headed to Aqua Yacht Harbor Marina.
We pulled in around 5:15 and the place was closed so we just pulled up to the dock and settled in for the evening. Missy made a rice, beans, potato dish for dinner. Once we got on the internet we looked up Summer Song on the Coast Guard website and Missy was right on....it was a Hubbard boat speeding off into the distance. Funny thing is they are moored just a half mile upstream from us for the night.
We are heading off in the morning to the Tennessee River and then upstream to Florence Alabama to meet up with Rachael. She is going to spend the next week with us as we motor up into Kentucky Lake.
