Scott here…

Travel day #10, Oct. 13, 2023 stats

Plan v ACTUAL
Start at: 7:45 am for fuel, leave at 8:45 am ACTUAL 7:42 AM
End at: 3:45 pm ACTUAL 1:37 pm
Total Time: 7:00 hour (4:42 travel time + 2 locks) ACTUAL 5:56)
Distance: 42.4 miles ACTUAL 43.3

So we decided not to fuel up at Alton. Our buddy boat, Dove, called the lock and they were told to get through now or it will be 3 hours. So we took off like a bat out of heck and pulled right into the lock. The lock is only 1 mile from the marina. Although, I totally forgot we were going to pump out, but we should be good. We have gone more than two weeks in the past. If needed I’ll just hold it! 😂😂

Both locks were super easy today. Pulled into both. Well, easy as in timing. The first lock, the Mel Price lock I just floated in the middle. I had two PC (pleasure craft) tied to the starboard wall behind me and a tug in front of me. With the wind and the water movement it was a lot of work holding as still as possible. Then leaving was pretty tight because we left before the tug and there wasn’t a ton of room between the port wall and the barge. Rita needed to help push me off the barge a little. Not afraid to say after it was all over I lost it a little. I became somewhat emotional. Rita has been my rock 🪨 when I have needed her to be so for these last few weeks. She helped!

The next lock was the Chain of Rocks Lock (or just lock 27). We tied to a floating bollard and Rita needed to keep us close to the wall and I needed to use the engines to make sure we didn’t hit the wall. Not as bad for me, but this lock was HARD for Rita!

She made it through though like a champ!

Going through St. Louis had barges moving and barges literally anchored in the middle of the channel. Crazy! We were going to get photos of the boat in front of the arch with our buddy boat, but it was just too windy and choppy. Wasn’t worth it.

I will let Rita tell you about our marina down the road.

If you have been following along you know I have been somewhat paranoid about fuel and the 250 miles we need to go to get us to Green Turtle Bay in Grand Rivers, KY – that is the next place to get fuel. Today we put in 130.22 gallons of diesel. The last time we fueled up was in Henry. Since then we put on 53.6 hours on the engines and went 256.9 miles. That equates to 2.4 gallons per hour and 1.9 miles per gallon. We will have plenty of fuel to get us there. Now, I can worry about the black tank filling up and running out of fresh water. 🤷‍♂️

We will hopefully be there for 3-4 nights for another set of “days off” and relax again.