What happened yesterday?
22 September 2016 | Kentucky Lock
Joanne
Well after a three hour wait at Lock 52 we got through! The Lock Master told us the wait at Kentucky Lock would be less so we decided to go up the Tennessee River. Reports from Skipper Bob says it is very busy with lots of tow traffic but we found it very calm with only one tow all the way to the Kentucky Lock. We arrived at the Lock close to dusk and were told to standby. Within an hour we were called to the lock. It is enormous 600' long 110' wide and a 57'- 70 foot rise to the top.We were the only boat in the lock so the rise was fairly quick. It was calm but we were pinned to the wall with the turbulence that made for a difficult exit. When we exited the sun was clearly going down so we booted it to the canal taking us from Kentucky Lake to Barkley Lake. We lost the light before we reached Green Turtle Bay so I stood on the bow with a high beam flashlight to see the buoys. Our chart from the USACOE showed the buoys as red on the left and green to the right. I could only pick up the reds with the flashlight so we headed in reds on our left. Our usual practice is dead slow with reduced visibility or an unknown location so that is what we did as it was pitch black. Just passed the first red buoy David immediately turned the boat around 180 degrees and called out 4'!!! We draw 5'5' but didn't hit as our sounder is forward of the keel. We went back out to deeper water and checked the chart plotter, Sea iQ and saw that the chart was wrong and red was to be on the RIGHT! With the reds now on the correct side we were fine. We proceeded to Slip three on the transient dock and tied up thankful that all was ok. Being late I went up to the bar, (this is a dry state so you take your own). I ordered burgers and fries that were exceptional!