Author Archives: jonsoper

We planned on leaving at 6:30 AM but forgot about the time change so the sun was not up until 7:30AM. We have 65 miles to travel to Pier 99. It is a bit bitter sweet. We are happy to be back in our home town but sad that we are not spending our winter in Florida on the boat.

First thing we see on the river are more rowers. This must be a popular sport in the area. The river was beautiful and as we said before, we think this is the best river we have been on the whole trip.

As we traveled north, we could recognize more landmarks that we were familiar with. We were getting anxious to be back in our home slip. We reached Markland Lock ( our last lock) and had to wait 2 hours on barge traffic since they only had one lock chamber open for use.

Once through the lock we only had one mile and make a right hand turn into Craigs Creek. We could not believe our trip was over. But we were delighted to see that a few of our friends were there to welcome us back! It was a nice surprise.

Now, we will prepare Paraiso for the winter. She has not seen cold temperatures for 4 years. We plan to get our house in order this winter and plan a few smaller trips for next summer. We feel like we are now part of a special group who have made the time to complete the Great Loop. We are glad we did this now instead of “when we get around to it” It was a great experience. We love our land life as much as our boating life and hope to now be able to use our time on land and water to the fullest.

We are getting closer to our home port. Louisville is our destination today about 110 miles. We got a late start because of fog. This is the first foggy morning we have had in a long time. There were two barges heading north and they were stopped also because of the lack of visibility.

The fog cleared out after about two hours and the river looked amazing.

We approached Louisville in the later afternoon. We are now back in the Eastern time zone so we lost an hour and got a late start. But we still made it to our dock with a couple hours of daylight left. We stayed at the docks at the city park. They are free for overnights. There was lots of activity and people using the river. Rowing teams, a swimmer, and paddle boats giving tours.

We got an early start because we would be traveling 95 miles to Evansville. The river was beautiful and the sunrise was great to watch.

There was a lot of things to see along the river. A small hotel with a small statue of liberty. There were neat rock formations. We also went pass Cave In Rock. From around 1790, Cave-in-Rock was base camp for a group of river pirates who would ambush flatboats carrying cargo down the Ohio River. Pirates, bandits, fugitives, and murderers used the cave as a sort of hideout and hangout where they could scheme, gamble, drink, whore, and even kill.

As we reached Evansville, we saw a large sand bar with many boats on it. We learned that the sand bar was created with dredging material from the river. The sand bar is made and then in a few years it will go away with the river water and they will dredge again and made another sand bar.

Inland Marina is a small marina and we stayed on the fuel dock right beside the Tiki Bar!

The next morning we headed out early again. We only had to travel 63 miles but wanted to take our time. We passed the USS LST-325, which is a decommissioned tank landing ship of the United States Navy, now docked in Evansville, Indiana, USA. Like many of her class, she was not named and is properly referred to by her hull designation. The ship was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 2009

We passed many small towns and passed Owensboro, KY. They have a very nice river front.

Early afternoon, we came across some black things in the water as we got closer we found that they were birds. It was hard to tell from a distance. There were so many of them.

We pulled into Rocky Point Marina in the mid afternoon. They let us stay at the fuel dock over night.

The shrimp festival was in full swing when we arrived. There were a number of vendors and music. The small shops were open as well as the restaurants. It was a nice little festival. The shrimp was all from shrimp farms in the area. They could have had more Shrimp dishes but it was still some good eats!

We visited the town’s historical museum. It was quite large for the size of the town. They said that many residents have been contributing to the museum for many years.

We dragged our feet a bit in the morning and had coffee with Bubba and Anne before we headed out north on the Ohio River.  We had to admit that this river is the most beautiful of the ones we had been on.  We traveled 12 miles and reached mile marker 923 which is where the Cumberland River begins.  This was our starting point for The Great Loop!   We crossed our wake!  

Our loop was 7425 miles,  888 hours cruising, using 6544 gallons of fuel and lasting from Nov 2015 to Sept 2019.  Along the way, we met some of the best people in America.  Words cannot express the place they occupy in our hearts. Janis and Chris feel blessed to have the health and resources to travel this truly great Nation. God bless America and the Loopers who travel her. 

We went through Smithland Lock by ourselves with no other pleasure boats. We did not see any other pleasure boats all day. It was kind of lonely.

But we did see a few other interesting places. We passed the store that was where the movie “US Marshals” starring Tommy Lee Jones and Wesley Snipes was filmed. The airplane that was wrecked has been removed. We also saw the rements of an old lock. They still use the building for offices.

We reached Golconda Marina in the early afternoon.  We needed to replace the connection on our electrical cord. We filled up on fuel and pumped out. The marina staff told us of an annual Shrimp Festival that they held in downtown Golconda.  We decided to stay an extra day so we could attend. 

We pulled anchors at about 8AM.  Chris had to get on Bubba’s boat to help get the anchor up.  The chain kept getting stuck. Then Bubba had to get his boat close to ours so Chris could hop back on.  

We had only 8 miles and then we would meet up with the Ohio River.  The Mississippi was churning the whole way.  When we reached the Ohio, we made sure we went to the 981-mile marker so we could say we have been on “all” the Ohio River (once we travel to Pittsburgh in the next couple years).  Bubba radioed us and asked if we felt like we were home.  And yes, it does!

We had one lock to go through – Olmstead Lock- this lock is a new lock that has taken 20 years to build and should be completed in 2020.  They only had one chamber working, but we were able to lock through with a smaller barge and tug.  

We arrived at Paducah and found that they had very new docks, fuel and pump out.  The docks were within walking distance of downtown restaurants and shopping.  We met a few more loopers who were just starting or were half-way through the trip.  We only have 12 miles before we cross our wake!   To celebrate, Bubba and Anne took us out to dinner.  It is a happy time and at the same time sad to be ending our trip and leaving a community of great people.  We hope to cross their sail lines again in the future.

It is 164 miles to Paducah from where we were, Chris and I were not going to cruise at night, so we planned to anchor out about 50 miles away from Paducah.  Bubba and Anne wanted to try to make it to Paducah and had arranged to have a fuel drop on the way to Paducah.  The fuel drop location was one small dock and both of our boats could not tie up at the same time.  We chose to keep moving south and they could catch up to us. 

As we traveled south, Bubba and Anne tried to find a place to tie up to so that Dexter could reach land to do his business. They were not able to and Paducah said they had no room for them.  They decided to anchor out with us.  We had teased them that they would have to go camping sometime and so far during the loop they were always able to find a marina or wall to tie up to.  This time however, they were not able to find anything. 

We found a small creek that had less of a current than the Mississippi but still strong.  We went in until we saw 8 feet of water and then dropped our anchor.  It caught first time and we were held steady.  Bubba tried to lower his anchor and it did not deploy.   We tied up together for a minute and found that his boat being heavier was pushing us to the bank so we got Chris on Getaweigh to look at the anchor.   Chris and Bubba were able to get the anchor deployed and we then tied up together so we could hang out on the back of the boats.  We cooked wings and Italian sausage for dinner and felt comfortable that we were at a good anchor so we could sleep during the night.

We began our trip down the Mississippi by traveling through two locks in the first 20 miles.   We passed a small paddle wheel boat that we think was home-made.

It was at the Alton Marina.  They were making a documentary of their trip.  The locks were easier since they had two chambers, one for small boats and one for larger commercial boats.   We passed a barge in the canal before the first lock because they were too big for the small chamber and it was ready for us. The locks were a bit different because they had a small wall that lifted instead of gates that closed. 

We then got into the Mississippi River and found that we had 4 mph current which helped a lot on fuel economy.  There are also a lot of weir dams that help control the water flow, but from what we saw it churned up the water and made whirlpools.  You had to keep away from them because they were just under the water line and you did not want to get stuck on one.  St. Louis was not far from the second lock.  There were a lot of industry and bridges as we approached downtown St. Louis.

The current was strong as we went by the Arch, but we were able to get photos of our boats with the arch as we went by.  We always thought that this would be a good riverfront area for tourists but now that we see how the water flows through this area, we can see why St. Louis has not built any city marinas or day docks.

Once past the downtown area, we entered into an area where barges were everywhere!  Stacks of them were anchored out in the river, and also tugs were moving many around.  It was not too difficult to maneuver around them, but it kept you on your toes.

We thought we might stop in at Hoppie’s which used to be a fuel stop, 40 miles south of Alton.  They had been damaged by the flooding and their fuel tanks went under water so no fuel in 2019.  The docks did not look that great and after taking a closer look we decided to keep moving south. 

We heard of a lock wall that was off of the Mississippi River that you could tie to.  As we went south we passed a man canoeing (would rather have a motor) and a familiar house boat that we met in Chicago at Hammond Marina.

We pulled into the river where the lock wall was, and the water was nice and calm. Only one other boat was there. It happened to be the same Loopers (Happy Trails) that helped us tie up in Hammond Marina in the wind (near Chicago). The houseboat also arrived a bit later

The lock wall was free with one catch, you could not walk off the wall.  To get to land you had to use your dingy, which we do not have.  Bubba and Anne have one but it launches from the swim platform and the platform would not go down.  Therefore, their dog, Dexter, had to rough it. 

As we were enjoying, the area of Grafton, we began to take notice that more and more looper boats were pulling in.  This made us think that we needed to get moving again to try to keep ahead of the larger group coming down the Illinois River.  They were grouped up because of the two locks that were closed from 6AM to 6PM.  There was a time frame from Sept 12 to the 21 where they would operate the locks 24/7 and this is when 60 -90 other boats were making their way down the Illinois.  After Sept 21^st the locks would be closed with no openings until October 5, 2019.

We headed out later in the morning because we only needed to travel 20 miles.  The cliffs along the IL side were very beautiful.  On the MO side, it was flat, but they had “Our Lady of the River” who blesses boats as they pass by.  Each spring, we hear that there is a huge ceremony where many boats raft out and have their boats blessed for the year.  

We arrived at Alton around noon and fueled up and then checked in.   This would be the last fuel stop we could get until Paducah, KY.   We had filled three, 15-gallon containers of diesel and had those on the back of the boat, just in case. The marina was nice and had plenty of slips opened which is good because we know there are at least 100 boats behind us doing the Great Loop!

Back in Grafton – Chris had woken up and noticed a reddish bruising or rash on his leg.  We did not know what that was.  It did not seem to be getting better so we decided to visit the local ER to have it checked out before we began our way down the Mississippi and no man’s land.  Four hours later, no infections, no clotting, no other information about what it might be.  Could be from a bug bite or other.  Poor Chris did not even get to visit the Argosy Casino while we were there.

We were up and at it early heading to Grafton. IL. No locks today just easy cruising. The river is nice and lined with trees.  It reminds us of the Ohio except that it is browner in color.

We saw a place called Mel’s. They have a restaurant and you can ask to spend the night. When we went by we were surprised to see all of the sand bags! They must have had some time earlier this year with the floods.

We also saw a few duck blinds used in the winter and there was a car ferry we had to wait on before we headed into the Grafton Marina.

We reached Grafton. The river is lined with a few restaurants and bars. It appears to cater to tourist. We checked in, the marina has a buy 3 nights get the 4th one free, so we decided to spend a few days here. We had lunch on at the onsite Tiki Bar and then met up with Getaweigh (Bubba and Anne) They had been traveling slow hoping we would catch up with them so we can travel the Mississippi together.

They had met up with Mike and Peggy earlier.  They live on a houseboat in the marina. Mike is a musician and he brought his guitar over and played us some songs.  

The next day, we checked out the one-street town by bar hopping.  They have a number of small bar/restaurants and a winery in Grafton.  We saw a few wedding parties celebrating in the town. The last bar we were at had a larger band there that played a little of everything.  They were good!

Saturday of our stay friends of Bubba’s from St. Louis stopped by to visit.  We had lunch with them and watched the number of bikes and cool card that cruised the main street. Then we took a boat ride to Alton to check out the marina that we will be going there for one night on Monday.

Sunday, we had breakfast at one of the restaurants and then we did some chores including laundry.  Since the laundry was by the Tiki Bar, it did not make sense to walk back and forth to the boat.  So, we sat and had a few drinks while we waited for the laundry to be done.  We met some other loopers, and one was celebrating a birthday.  It was a great time, sharing stories and celebrating!