Cruising with "Best Mate": Grand Rivers, KY to Evansville, IN

Total Miles Traveled 155

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After spending a few weeks at our home port, and visiting family back home, we decided to start our summer adventure to Pittsburgh, PA. Before starting though, Moni’s mother visited with us for a few days on the boat. We were able to go out for a couple of cruises on Kentucky and Barkley Lakes.

The two sources of the Ohio River starting at Pittsburgh, PA are the Allegheny River and the Monongahela River. At the point where the two rivers meet is mile 0 of the Ohio River which runs 981 miles to the Mississippi River at Cairo, IL. This map illustrates the path the river takes flowing to the Mississippi and the lock system used to raise or lower commercial and recreational marine traffic from one elevation pool to the next.

We departed our home port at Green Turtle Bay Marina, Grand Rivers, KY June 23^rd and entered the Barkley Lock which lowered us approximately 57 feet to the Cumberland River. The Cumberland River empties into the Ohio River 31 miles from the lock. Entering the first lock of our adventure was not a pleasant experience. Asian Carp have been a problem of the inland rivers and lakes for several years. As we entered the lock we were greeted with the aroma of dead fish. Evidentially the carp have been pooling up around the lock and were trapped inside the lock door supports causing them to die.

We stayed at a friends dock for six weeks near Ft Myers this spring. The owners David and Barbara were thinking of selling their boat "m/v Miss My Money" it was located in New York where they left it in dry storage for the winter. They sent me a text a few weeks later and indicated they had sold their boat. As we traveled down the Cumberland River, an AIS target popped up on my display Miss My Money, as the boat approached us we realized this was our friends boat being piloted by the new owners......very small world.

We enjoyed a push from the river current all the way down, but when we made the turn east on the Ohio river, we lost about 2 mph from our normal 8 mph cruising speed. Smithland Lock and Dam was our first lock on the Ohio River. We had a new experience at this lock, it was full of Mayflies. Of course, we had all the doors on the boat open, so the boat was covered and a few managed to get inside.

Our first stop was the E-Town River Restaurant at Elizabethtown, IL. This little restaurant has melt in your mouth catfish.

During our stay, a boat pulled in behind us with a large tub filled with fish, delivering 504 pounds of catfish to the restaurant.

Up until the 1960’s when it closed as a hotel the Rose Hotel was the oldest continuously run hotel in the state of Illinois and is now a state historic site.

Cave-in-Rock, IL. From the 1790’s to the 1870’s, the area around Cave-in-Rock was plagued by what historians referred to as the “Ancient Colony of Horse-Thieves, Counterfeiters and Robbers”. It became a refuge stronghold for frontier outlaws, on the run from the law which included river pirates, and highwaymen Samuel Mason and James Ford, tavern owner/highwayman Isaiah L Potts, serial killers/ bandits the Harpe Brothers, counterfeiters Philip Alston, Peter Alston, John Duff, Eson Bixby and the Sturdivant Gang, and the post-American Civil War bandit, Logan Belt.

We departed E-Town on June 24^th and traveled 58 miles to Mt Vernon, Indiana passing through the John Myers Lock, and tying up to a free dock provided by the city. Mt Vernon is a very industrial river town. It is the headquarters of a small refinery, a GE Plastics plant, two biofuels’ plants, and is the largest port for coal shipments in the U.S. and the 7^th-largest inland port. Needless to say, this is a very busy place when navigating on the river.

We saw our first paddlewheel boat on the Ohio while docked at Mt Vernon. American Duchess, she is 341 feet long and 98 feet wide with 4 decks. She holds 166 passengers and a crew of 80.

On June 25^th we continued up the Ohio River to Evansville, IN. Our first experience here was observing a guy walking toward our boat with a snake almost as tall as he was. When a man is sporting a snake this size, I’m not about to ask him about his nuts. Yes, I stood behind Moni when I took the pictures.