Day 4 – 10/7/23

Starting location: Little Diversion Canal, MO

Weather: Cold overnight (50s). Sunny, high 70s during the day, windy with gusts in the 20s (mph)

Ending location: Paducah, KY

Statute miles: 98

General summary: After breakfast and a dinghy ride to shore for Cocoa, we pulled up anchor, headed out of the channel, and started down the Mississippi again. There was a beautiful monarch butterfly that hung around our back door most of the morning, which we took as a good omen. Turned into the Ohio river, motoring upstream now, to get to Olmstead Lock and Dam. Waited about 30 minutes to lock through, as there was a barge coming downstream first. After many past challenging lock experiences on the Columbia River, Tom had purchased a “boat loop”, basically an extendable pole with a loop/boat pole attachment that screws on. Really made tying up a breeze as you can grab the mooring bit (the large metal piece that slides up and down as the water level changes) from farther away, pull the boat closer, and have stability while securing your lines. One curious thing we noticed once back on the river is the wave heights seemed pretty minimal even with some stronger winds. Wave heights are a product of wind speed, direction, and fetch (distance traveled). Appears the river bends so frequently there is little fetch. So pretty smooth ride most of the time. We made reservations at the Paducah transient dock through the Dockwa app, which was highly recommended by Debbie, and very easy to do. Got to the dock and appreciated the help offered from other boaters when mooring. The one main negative of the C Dory design is they are very responsive (not in a good way) to wind because there is no keel and the shallow draft gives very little water resistance to the wind pushing on the boat sides, causing turning. Also, there are no side thrusters, which would help push the boat laterally. This makes docking in windy conditions challenging. Met other Loopers on the dock and had a relaxing evening.

Boater information:

1. Plan to use more fuel going up the Ohio as you will be motoring against the current.

2. Recommend boat loop.

3. Recommend using the Dockwa app for slip reservations. It is not universally used, so you still sometimes need to call or radio the marina directly.