Gemini Loop: Beyond Hoppie's

Hi everyone,

This is a quick posting while I have the illusive WiFi. After leaving Hoppie's, we continued down the Mississippi. There are no marinas along here, and very few anchorages. We and eight other boats spent the night in a creek off the river. To get into the creek, we had to dodge large pieces of debris that were screaming down the river on a fast current. We got across the gauntlet unscathed and put down anchor. The little creek had a current of its own, running into the river. Our anchor dragged a few times, but our GPS alarm let us know so Steve could tend to it quickly. One of the other boats started dragging its anchor and was moving backwards pretty fast. Thankfully, it missed the other boats somehow and reset the anchor. It made for a very exciting afternoon!

The next morning, we all left our anchorage and proceeded down river. There was lots of commercial traffic and there were places where underwater weirs (sort of like a jetty) made the water boil and swirl. These are far enough under water that we don't have to worry about hitting them, but the water sure gets squirrelly. We turned at Cairo to travel the Ohio River for some distance. Instead of having a current pushing us along, we had the equivalent of a "headwind". Our anchorage for the night was a huge mooring cell - a big concrete structure designed to hold barges overnight. In the middle of the night the wind shifted and we had to move fenders and retie lines. Lots of fun (not!)

Tuesday we continued down the Ohio River and turned off into the Tennessee River. We went through a huge lock, the Kentucky Lock, and are now at a marina - a real marina! On our way here we passed by Paducah, KY, the home of the quilting museum. Today we will borrow a car from the marina and visit the town and the museum. This will be the best thing I've done since Chicago!