" When Pigs Fly"

Chattanooga Bound

Well let's see, when we last wrote we were sitting out a rainstorm in Clifton, TN. The next morning the rain stopped and we slipped out of Clifton Marina around 8:30 AM. Temperatures were in the low 70’s, doesn’t sound too bad, huh? Now put a 10 MPH breeze into the mix and our driving at 9 MPH straight into it and it becomes cold quickly. So long pants and sweat shirts were the uniform until around 11:30 as it slowly warmed. We had decided not to anchor out this leg but to press on to Grand Harbor Marina, just a little over 50 miles. It was a little farther than we would normally have liked, but with our early start we felt good about it. Besides this way the day would include our first lock. The anticipation of locking had been eating a hole in Anna and we needed to get it behind us.

Most of our day went really well. We met two rather large tows and one tanker on the way to Pickwick Lock. I did the “captain talk” with passing on the one’s and two’s with the tows. Anna is still baffled why they just can’t say port or starboard or, even better, left and right and to tell the truth I can’t tell her anything other than it’s just river tradition.

Once at the lock, the lock master was hailed. A nice lady came over the radio and said it would be 15 minutes while they prepared the lock for us. I, in my most masculine voice, told her to take it easy with us because we were virgins. She then makes up some story that everyone that passes through this lock has done it thousands of time and for us not to worry, it won’t hurt a bit. That was easy for her to say.

The huge gates opened and we were told to advance towards the lock so we moved slowly into the jaws of the beast. Once inside the lock we were instructed to move forward to the far end on either side. The lock is kind of like a huge cave with an open top, the sheer massiveness of this large tube is indescribable. The water level was going to increase by 55’ so it was a long way to look up.

In preparation we had made what is referred to as a looper loop. It’s a ¾” water hose about 6’/7’ long; through it we have passed a 50’ ½” rope. The two ends of the hose are then brought together and a knot is tied to form a loop. Once in the lock the trick is to lay the loop over the bit that is receded into the lock wall. The remaining rope is to be tied to boat. That is if the captain can maneuver the boat so this can happen.

Had we gone to “Lock School” we would have known that the wind will bounce off the inside lock wall in very unpredictable ways. The lock master said to take either side. I saw the wind blowing left to right before entering the lock and choose the right lock wall, thinking the wind will blow us onto the wall and we’d stay put on the wall. This was not the case at all. Since this is our first locking experience I’ll share some of our novice mistakes.

·         We didn’t have enough fenders out, the ones we did have out were adjusted way too low.

·         The wind was allowed to take control of the situation right from the start, by blowing us away from the wall, before we could slip our loop over the bit. I should have backed up and made another attempt taking a different angle. I didn’t. I tried to finesses the boat into position.

·         We had too much stuff attached on our handrails making it hard for Anna to move around the deck.

·         Our boat hooks weren’t staged in the proper locations.

·         The hardtop was not protected and was allowed to rub against the wall, this happened because we set the big ball fender on the stern too low.

·         We both under estimated the strength needed to play tug-a-war with a 28,000 pound boat in a wind tunnel.

·         The captain could not position and hold the boat where it needed to be and made a difficult job even more so.

In all it took about 8-10 minutes to land the boat on the wall. It seemed like hours. But we both kept our cool, no one yelled in malice. We were glad that we happened to be in the lock with no other boats so we provided entertainment only for the lockmaster and his staff. At the end we got our grade card from the lockmaster who said we passed and we came away with some helpful suggestions for our next locking experience. We were both dripping with sweat as we pulled out of the lock and Anna asked, “how many more of these do we have”?

The rest of the journey to Grand Harbor went smoothly. We pulled in there just like we had been doing this together for a long time. We stayed at Grand Harbor for two nights so we could tour Shiloh. The next day we used their courtesy car to go visit the battle grounds. There was a 55 minute film explaining details of the battle, and an interesting museum with civil war artifacts. Then we drove the tour route checking out the highlighted markers where important elements of the battle occurred. We walked the cemetery grounds and noted so many head stones with just a number to mark the unidentified soldiers buried there.

Afterward, we found a really nice place on the river for a late lunch. It was called the “Catfish Hotel”, a family owned restaurant. The catfish, onion rings, slaw, and baked potatoes were all prepared excellently. We even took some home.

Grand Harbor was a good place to stay with friendly, helpful staff. We really appreciated the use of the courtesy van and hope to stop there again on our way back from Chattanooga. 

We headed out this morning for Florence Harbor Marina with beautiful weather. Hurray! No locks today and the auto guidance on the Garmin genius worked for this section. Both helped us relax and the second saved us some river miles and gas. We had the river virtually to ourselves except for a few fishing boats, one pleasure craft similar to the Pig and one huge barge. The Captain once again used the super secret river language and stayed on the barge’s “one”. 

We made it in to Florence Harbor Marina and were greeted by their enthusiastic dock master, Eva. She gave us lots of good information about the area and keys to the courtesy car. Really made us feel at home. May stay an extra night to see a little of Florence, especially since the weather forecast for tomorrow looks like rain. 

See you on the water